The Diamond Cat

by Marian Babson

  “Only coping?” William sounded cheered. “And you? Perhaps I’d best come round and see what I can do to help.”

  “If you like.” Bettina surrendered. It would be rather pleasant to have William to bear some of the strain. “Zoe and her mother are coming over and we’re ordering a curry feast, delivered. Come and join us.”

  “… Good.” The pause had been only momentary, undoubtedly engendered by the thought of an evening with both Mrs. Rome and Mrs. Bilby. It was a standing, rather black, joke between Bettina and Zoe that the first one to lose her mother would be proposed to by William. At the same time, Zoe predicted, the odds were that some orphaned waif would rush in and nab William at the last minute. Such was life.

  Not that William was the answer to a maiden’s prayer, but he was eligible, solvent and moderately attractive … well, presentable. And women of a Certain Age didn’t have that much choice available to them.

  As it was, both mothers were hale and hearty and looked good for another decade or two, by which time the whole problem would be academic—always provided the threatened waif hadn’t captured our William in the meantime.

  “Bettina—you’re a million miles away,” William accused.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “I said: Can I bring anything along? Besides the bottle, that is. Anything at all you need?”

  “Perhaps a few sandbags,” Bettina said. “No, sorry, William, only joking. I don’t think we need anything. I did lots of shopping before the long weekend closed in. I didn’t reckon on the storm but, as it’s worked out, we have plenty of supplies to see us through.”

  “Good. Well done. And Zoe? If she thought she was going to be away for the weekend …”

  “Her freezer seems to be full,” Bettina said. “I don’t think she’s going to need anything, either.”

  “Good.” He did not sound entirely pleased. It must be awkward to be encased in armour, mounted, lance at the ready—and then discover that no maiden needs rescuing.

  “Good. I’ll be round in about an hour or so then.”

  “Wear your wellies,” Bettina warned. “And we’ll look forward to seeing you.”

  “Did I hear you inviting someone to dinner?” her mother asked pettishly as she returned to the kitchen.

  “Only William. He changed his mind about going to France.”

  “Not many people are getting anywhere this weekend,” Mrs. Bilby said with relish. “They should all have known better and stayed home.”

  Bettina clenched her hands in her pockets and took a deep breath. “You may be right,” she said in a neutral tone.

  Adolf hurled himself against her ankles, purring loudly. Enza and Bluebell moved closer, as though to demonstrate solidarity—with her, not Adolf. Only Pasha continued to droop miserably, slumping against his carrying case in a defeated pose.

  Bettina looked at him uneasily. She knew that cats condemned to six months’ quarantine away from their owners did not survive as well as hardier—or more egotistic—species, like dogs. But surely Pasha couldn’t sicken and die in a mere four or five days away from Sylvia.

  Only … there was already something faintly wrong with Pasha. His failure to impregnate the Persian queens whose owners had paid such high stud fees was symptomatic of that. Was it the beginning of something more seriously wrong? He looked all right, he seemed all right—apart from an increasing grumpiness. But he was accustomed to being an only cat and was unhappy with the competition he faced here. Was that all it was? Or was there something deadly eating away beneath the surface?

  Really, Sylvia should have boarded him with the vet this weekend! Then he would have been under professional observation and a proper diagnosis of his condition might have resulted. Although the vet had checked Pasha over at the onset of his problem and pronounced him “Basically fit, just a bit off-colour at the moment”, Sylvia still suspected that Pasha was incubating some obscure disease. It was irresponsible of her to foist the responsibility for such a valuable cat on to someone else right now—even if she was fighting to save her marriage.

  “Here, Pasha.” Bettina stooped and touched her finger to his nose anxiously.

  “He’s not sick, is he?” Mrs. Bilby asked immediately. “If he is, out he goes! I’m not having him throwing up all over the house. Shedding his fur everywhere is bad enough.”

  “He’s all right,” Bettina said. Pasha’s nose was cold and wet. He twisted his head to slide her finger behind an ear that wanted scratching. Bettina obliged and he purred, looking at her hopefully; he also wanted a lap to sit in and a thorough cuddling.

  Adolf blasted off an accusation of favouritism, snobbism and general unfairness. If there was a friendly lap going, he was entitled to it. Enza and Bluebell joined in the cry, complaining of neglect and abandonment. Bluebell especially was outraged; she knew Zoe was next door and she wasn’t.

  “I can’t stand all this noise!.” Mrs. Bilby lurched to her feet, dashing the hopes of Enza, who had noticed there was a spare lap that might be available and had been edging closer. “All this racket is giving me a headache. Make them be quiet.”

  “All right.” There was only one sure way to do that. Bettina reached for the food and their dishes. The yowls instantly changed to something softer and more appealing as they swarmed around her feet.

  “Cupboard love!” Mrs. Bilby sniffed. “Greedy little monsters!”

  “It keeps them quiet,” Bettina pointed out. “That was what you wanted.”

  “I don’t want them at all! How you let yourself get talked into—”

  “You were the one who agreed to take Enza.” And thank heaven for that. “And we couldn’t refuse Bluebell, we always take care of her when the Romes are away.”

  “Bluebell and Enza are quiet little ladies, usually,” Mrs. Bilby defended herself. “It’s those other two. A noisy spoiled little tyrant and a sick cat. Suppose he gets worse over the weekend? Suppose he dies? What would you do then?”

  “We can always call the vet if Pasha seems worse.”

  “We can’t afford expensive vet’s bills.” Mrs. Bilby betrayed her real fears. “I wouldn’t like to rate our chances of getting any money back from Sylvia once we’d paid it out. If you ask me, she and that fancy husband of hers are mortgaged to the hilt—and beginning to know it.”

  “Pasha will be all right,” Bettina said with an assurance she did not really feel. “The weekend is half over. Sylvia and Graeme will be back Monday night. I’m sure Pasha can last out another forty-eight hours or so.”

  Hearing his name, Pasha ambled over and rubbed his head against Bettina’s ankles.

  “Poor Pasha.” She gathered him up into her arms. “You’re not very happy, are you? Never mind, she’ll be back soon.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Mrs. Bilby’s voice had that taunting note in it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not around during the day all week. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.” Mrs. Bilby compressed her lips and nodded several times, radiating secret knowledge.

  “What have you seen?”

  “Well, I just happened to notice.” Mrs. Bilby shrank back from the curtain-twitching implication of seen. “In fact, it’s been quite noticeable. Every time Sylvia Martin has left her house for the past two weeks, she’s had a suitcase with her. Oh, she brings it back again in the evening, but it seems much lighter then. In the mornings, she’s sometimes had trouble lifting it into the car.”

  “So you think she takes out a full suitcase in the morning and returns with an empty suitcase in the evening?”

  “I think they’re moving out!” Mrs. Bilby leaned back triumphantly and eyed her daughter to see how she was taking the news. “Getting ready for a moonlight flit! I’ve seen it before, I know the signs.”

  “There may be another explanation.”

  “Name one!”

  “Perhaps she was taking a lot of things to the dry-cleaners.”

  Mrs. Bilby’s snort sent the cats scurrying
for cover. “The pawnshop, more likely!”

  “Oh, really!” Her mother had taken a dislike to the Martins almost from the moment they had first moved in, but this was carrying it too far.

  “Yes, really! Them with their fancy ways and forever insinuating how they’ve come down in the world because they’ve had to move into this neighbourhood.” She snorted again. “If you ask me, they’ve got a lot farther down to go—and they’re on their way again. And they’re not taking any useless baggage with them—like a sick cat. You’re going to be stuck with it.”

  “Sylvia wouldn’t abandon Pasha.” Bettina tightened her arms protectively around Pasha and he gave a soft protesting cry.

  “Why not? She had great hopes for him—and he failed her. There he sits, the great lout, eating his head off and, when the time came, he couldn’t pay his own way. He’s just another expense—a loss. Why shouldn’t she cut her losses and run?”

  Chapter 8

  There was a lengthening silence, while Bettina de-bated with herself as to whether to admit the real reason for Sylvia’s impulsive flight to Edinburgh.

  On the other hand, she had rarely known her mother to be wrong where the movements of the neighbours were concerned, although Mrs. Bilby’s interpretations were often faulty. The byplay with the suitcases had undoubtedly occurred; there must be a more reasonable explanation for it.

  A sudden tap at the back door startled them both. Bluebell emerged from under the table and trotted to the door, looking up at it eagerly.

  “That will be Zoe.” Bettina crossed to the door, which was already moving. Bluebell hurled herself at the opening.

  “Mother will be along in a few minutes,” Zoe said, scooping Bluebell into her arms. “If we order before she gets here, she wants a chicken curry and plenty of rice.”

  “William’s coming,” Mrs. Bilby informed her.

  “I thought he went to France.” Zoe was surprised.

  “The weather disrupted the ferries, so he gave it up as a bad job and came back home,” Bettina said. “He rang up to see how we were getting along.”

  “Nice of him,” Zoe said absently. “But he is nice. I really think you ought to marry him.”

  “Funny, I keep thinking you ought to marry him.”

  “Girls, girls, don’t fight over him,” Mrs. Bilby smirked, knowing she was perfectly safe. Bettina wasn’t going to leave her for the likes of William.

  “But you could do worse,” she added. “Both of you.”

  “We might wait till we’re asked.” Zoe met Bettina’s eyes and they exchanged guilty grins at what ending that wait entailed. If Mrs. Bilby realized that William’s choice depended upon the absence of a mother-in-law, she might lose what tolerance she had for him.

  “A really clever woman could get herself asked.” Mrs. Bilby preened herself in the knowledge that she was the only woman in the room who had managed to catch a husband.

  “Hello, Pasha.” Zoe changed the subject, reached out to scratch one of Pasha’s ears. “How are you feeling today?”

  “There’s something wrong with that cat, if you ask me. Apart from the problem he’s had for a long time, I mean.”

  “Oh?” Zoe raised an eyebrow at Bettina.

  “He’s just missing Sylvia,” Bettina said. “And the other cats are being rather beastly to him. They keep stealing his cod-liver oil.”

  “Poor Pasha,” Zoe sympathized. “She’ll be back soon.”

  “Hah!” Mrs. Bilby said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Mother has her own ideas about that,” Bettina said resignedly.

  “You’re too trusting. You’re just like your father. You’ll believe anything anyone tells you.”

  “Oh, no,” Zoe said under her breath. “Don’t tell me it’s going to be one of those evenings.”

  “There’s William,” Bettina said with relief as the doorbell rang. “He should help take the strain.”

  “And there’s Mum.” Zoe moved towards the back door. “If we can get a good game of bridge or Scrabble going, there may be hope yet.”

  It was amazing how easy it was to forget that one carried a fortune in diamonds in one’s pocket. At first, the knowledge was ever present, then it came and went. The old adage familiarity breeds contempt was not strictly true—who could be contemptuous of those diamonds?—but familiarity eventually bred a certain amount of relaxation. Especially when coupled with the comforting realization that there was absolutely nothing one could do over a Bank Holiday weekend when most of Britain closed down. Add in the storm and the ensuing conditions and another day or two could be written off.

  The curry feast around the kitchen table had been a great success. Filled with delicious food and surrounded by friends, a mellow mood had descended over everyone.

  “Shall we have a game of cards?” Mrs. Rome suggested.

  “There are too many for bridge.” Mrs. Bilby looked around with the beginnings of discontentment. She loved a good cutthroat bridge game. “Someone would have to be left out.”

  “I don’t mind,” Bettina said quickly. “I’ll stay out here and do the dishes.” Domestic chores were preferable to partnering her mother at bridge.

  “Why don’t we settle for Scrabble?” Zoe pushed back her chair. “Then it doesn’t matter how many we have.”

  “You go ahead.” Bettina waved them into the living room, beginning to clear the table. “I’ll still do the dishes first. No, I don’t need any help.” She forestalled possible offers and turned back to the table to snatch the last remaining plate away from Adolf who was doing quite a creditable job of washing it himself.

  “If that curry gives you a tummy ache, you have only yourself to blame,” she told him.

  Adolf hiccoughed and leered at her pleasantly. It would take more than a rich, spicy curry sauce to upset his digestion—and there would always be someone else to blame. For anything. He followed her over to the sink, licking his chops, his eyes alert for more opportunities.

  Enza and Pasha were on the draining board, attending to the other plates she had put there. Adolf leaped up to join them, quickly saw that there was nothing left on the plates for him, and then had his attention caught by something outside. He moved forward to the window and stood looking through it intently, staring at something in the back garden.

  “What is it, Adolf?” Bettina leaned over the draining board and the cats. “Are those workmen out there again?” No, they couldn’t be. It was pitch dark outside and they would have finished their shift and gone home ages ago. The rain had stopped and a pale and watery moon was trying to break through the remaining clouds.

  “There’s no one out there.” Bettina was trying to convince herself as much as Adolf. She laid a hand on his head and he gave a soft warning growl, still staring intently at something only he could see.

  “That’s enough of that.” She pulled down the shade, as though it might give some protection from whatever prowled outside. The kitchen immediately seemed warmer, cosier. It might give a false sense of security but, if they could not see out any more, it also meant that anyone outside could not see in.

  The hum of conversation in the next room, acrimonious though it was becoming, brought a further sense of normality and security. It would be a foolhardy burglar who broke into a house teeming with people and cats.

  Burglar, indeed! Bettina caught herself up sharply. That was her mother’s fantasy, untarnished by the fact that there was nothing worth stealing in this house. Even Great-aunt Edwina’s late-Edwardian silver tea service was so mass-produced and ugly it could hardly be worth much more than its melt-down value. Surely no self-respecting burglar would bother with that.

  Diamonds, however, were another story. The realization swept over her again. She’d managed to forget them during the past few hours when they’d been occupied with ordering the food and listening to the complaints of Mrs. Rome about the deficiencies of Bournemouth. Then William had launched into his sad story of the holiday lost in nose-to-tail traffic jams,
cancelled ferries and motorway service areas where the food had run out, the tea was lukewarm and, though he was too genteel to do more than hint at it, the overworked toilets had given up the unequal struggle long before he reached them.

  Mrs. Bilby had blossomed like the flowers in May as she listened to these tales of woe. Other people’s misfortunes always revived her, giving her the opportunity to emphasize her own wisdom in never leaving the house over a Bank Holiday weekend. One couldn’t get into trouble that way.

  Except when trouble came battering at the door; trouble could find one anywhere. Just staying at home, minding your own business, trying to be helpful to the neighbours by taking care of their cats—and look where it got you. Without the cats, she would never have known about the pigeon that had expired on the back doorstep. There would have been no reason to go outside and the gale-force winds—would have eventually swept the pigeon somewhere else. Perhaps even down one of the open drains that hadn’t yet been clogged by leaves and branches.

  Diamonds down the drain. Her hand clutched convulsively at the cylinder in her pocket.

  Adolf turned away from the now-viewless window and watched her with hopeful interest Enza and Pasha abandoned the gleaming plates and dropped to the floor, strolling over to check their own dishes to see if they had been refilled yet.

  “That is not a word!” Mrs. Bilby’s voice rose indignantly in the other room.

  “It is in Urdu,” William defended weakly.

  “We are English!” Mrs. Bilby pointed out.

  “The curry’s gone to his head,” Mrs. Rome jeered.

  Poor William. It was a wonder he was willing to associate with them at all, when she and Zoe came with such drawbacks. Perhaps he liked to visit occasionally to remind himself of what life might be like if he were to weaken enough to declare himself to either of them.

  The doorbell rang suddenly, followed by a startled silence in the living room.

  “I’ll get it,” Bettina called, glancing at her watch as she started for the front door. Nine forty-five. Who could be calling at this hour?