The Company of Cats, page 8
They collected gin and tonics and sandwiches and carried them to a window table before realizing their mistake.
“Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea,” Annabel admitted.
“It isn’t the greatest view in the world,” Kelda agreed.
Across the narrow street, the rear of Arthur Arbuthnot’s building was not so imposing as the front. The ground-floor level was almost obscured by the high wooden fence enclosing the areaway. It was obviously refuse collection day, for an array of black bin liners and garbage bins were piled along the foot of the fence.
“Not at all salubrious,” Annabel mused. “At least we’ll escape any smell from them.” Now that she noticed, none of the outside tables were occupied, although the pub was doing a brisk business inside.
“Houses with Queen Anne fronts and Mary Ann backs, that’s what they call them,” Kelda said. “Not that there’s much Queen Anne anywhere, it’s plain ugly Victorian—How odd!”
Caught by her sudden change of tone, Annabel followed her gaze. Luther was closing the areaway door behind him and looking uncertainly at the heaps of rubbish awaiting collection. After a moment, he advanced cautiously and bent over. He appeared to be talking to himself—or, perhaps, to one of the bulging black bin liners.
“What on earth does he think he’s doing?” Kelda wondered.
Apparently receiving no reply, or dissatisfied with the reply he got, Luther moved on to one of the garbage cans. He lifted the lid and peered inside, his nose crinkling but his lips still moving. Again, there seemed not to be the response he hoped for. He replaced the lid and nudged another bin liner with his foot.
“I’d say he was looking for something.” Annabel was riveted. She watched raptly as Luther picked up one of the bin liners by its knot and shook it, testing its weight and possible contents.
“You told him—” Light dawned. “Kelda, you said the last time you saw Sally, she was nosing around the bin liners. He must think she got inside and was carried out with the trash. He’s looking for her.”
“But why?” Kelda shook her head as Luther lifted the lid of another garbage can, picked up a stick and prodded its murky depths. “He doesn’t even like that cat. I’ve seen him stamp his foot to frighten her out of the room. In fact, I’d have said he hated her.”
“That was my impression, too.” Annabel frowned. There was the throb of a heavy motor advancing inexorably from the far end of the street. The sound seemed to drive Luther into a paroxysm close to hysteria. He hurled himself into the midst of the bin liners, nudging with his feet, picking up and shaking, his mouth working frantically.
“Sally … Sally …” They could hear his desperate cries inside the pub now.
The garbage truck rumbled closer. A couple of workmen ambled along in front of it. They were looking at him curiously.
Luther looked up and saw the men watching him. He dropped the sack he was holding and bolted through the door in the fence, slamming it behind him.
The men looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, then began heaving sacks into the revolving maw at the rear of the truck.
“Well!” Kelda said. “What do you think of that?”
“I think I’ll have another gin and tonic,” Annabel said. “And not so much tonic with it, this time.”
“Cold chicken all right with you?” Annabel asked needlessly. Sally had begun purring the instant the scent from the parcel Annabel was unwrapping reached her.
“Yes, I thought it might be.” The warm furry pressure on her ankles was curiously heartening after the long day. It was very pleasant to come home to such an enthusiastic welcome.
Poor Arthur Arbuthnot. No wonder Sally had meant so much to him. His poisonous relatives almost certainly had never evinced such warmth towards him. Even now, their main concern was not his untimely demise, but the amount they stood to gain from it.
Had Mark any basis, except spite, for his suggestion that one of them had killed Arthur?
Not that it would surprise her. She had more than half suspected it herself when she saw those traces of blood on the carpet beneath Arthur’s body. But then so much had happened so quickly and been so confused. And ever since, the door to the computer office had been locked, even though Luther spent most of his time working in there, so she had never been able to get back in and take a closer look at the condition of the carpet.
At her feet, Sally chirruped anxiously, reminding her that she was very hungry and that chicken smelled awfully good.
Sally! Sally had been in the office, a silent witness to whatever had happened. A witness who could never testify. But, possibly, one who could yet instil feelings of guilt and uneasiness on the murderer by the accusation in her eyes.
Was that why the Broomstick had tried to kill her? Why Luther was searching for her so frantically?
“Mmrrryaah?” The eyes were hopeful and trusting as they looked up at Annabel. “Prryaah?”
“All right, all right, I’m hurrying!” Annabel poured out a martini from the pitcher in the fridge and divided the cold chicken with Sally, but kept the potato salad for herself as Sally reacted to it with a disdainful sniff. She carried them into the living room and sank into an armchair but, before she had time to put her feet up on the matching footstool, the telephone rang ‥
“Annabel! I expected to hear from you long before this!” Xanthippe complained. “What have you been doing?”
“Eating.” Annabel took another bite.
“For days? You haven’t been dealing with other columnists, have you? Not trying to get an auction going, or anything? I would react very badly to that, Annabel. Very badly indeed.”
“I never thought of such a thing.” The obvious regret in Annabel’s voice seemed to convince Xanthippe.
“Just as well. We have other sources, you know.”
“Have you really?” Annabel’s voice was frigid. She set her plate down on the floor by her feet and sat up straighter to deal with this barely concealed threat. “Then perhaps—”
“Oh, but you’re the best,” Xanthippe placated hastily, aware that she had gone too far. “You’re the one on the inside. We’re looking to you for all the gory details. Now that it’s official.”
“Official?”
“The flash just came over the Press Association line. It should be on the late-night newscast and all the papers will have it in the morning. Arthur Arbuthnot died this afternoon.”
Died this afternoon. Did he, indeed?
“Annabel, are you still there?”
“What? Oh, yes. I was just thinking …” Annabel reached down for her plate to continue eating. Her hand encountered a small furry head. “Oh, you little rat!”
“Really, Annabel! There’s no need to be rude!”
“No, no, not you. I was Just talking—” Annabel suddenly realized that it might not be wise to admit to custody of a purloined puss. Not to a national columnist.
“I mean, I just …” She faltered. Sally had raised her head and was giving her an injured look. That plate had been placed on the floor, clearly an invitation to partake of its contents. How was she to know that Annabel had not finished with it?
“I’m sorry,” Annabel said. “I just wasn’t thinking.” She was unused to sharing her home with a cat; she would have to be more careful in future.
“All right.” Xanthippe forgave her graciously. “I’ve been called worse. But you can’t fool me, you were thinking, you still are. Thinking what?”
“Isn’t there a law that says a person isn’t allowed to profit from a crime they’ve committed?”
“Crime? What crime? Murder?” Xanthippe pounced gleefully. “Annabel, you’re on to something! You think Arthur Arbuthnot was murdered!”
“No, no,” Annabel said quickly. “Nothing of the sort. It was just a passing thought.” She didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
“A likely story!” Xanthippe jeered. “Come on, Annabel—give!”
“There’s nothing to give. Nothing solid, nothing anyone could prove. Nothing …”
“Annabel, Annabel,” Xanthippe wheedled. “If you’ve got suspicions, that’s good enough for me. You know you’ve got a nose for scandal. Just keep nosing around, let me know what you find. Off the record, if you like, just as background material. We won’t use any of it.” Now Xanthippe was the one who sounded unconvincing.
“You’re right there on the spot, Annabel. You’ll see things. You’ll hear things. There’ll be a bonus, Annabel, a good one, if we get a story out of this. Even if it’s only suicide—”
“No.” Annabel was sure of that. “It wasn’t suicide.”
“Then stay with it. Find out—”
At Annabel’s feet, Sally finished the last shred of chicken and looked up at her speculatively.
“That’s all there is right now,” Annabel told her firmly.
“All right, then keep in touch,” Xanthippe said. “And I mean close touch. Ring me tomorrow—whether you have anything to report or not.” She rang off abruptly.
“So …” Annabel replaced the receiver slowly. “What do you think of that?”
Sally obviously thought that she could be more comfortable. She gathered herself and sprang into Annabel’s lap where she curled up and began purring again.
When Annabel entered the lift in the morning, it was already occupied by a short man with a worried look, who was carrying an imposing briefcase. As she entered, he appeared to make a conscious effort to smooth out his expression; summoning even more effort, he managed a wintry smile. Above it, his eyes were cold and assessing.
Annabel curved her own lips briefly, no more anxious for polite conversation than he seemed to be. She had seen briefcases like that before; they portended no good.
He allowed his forefinger to hover over the top button and gave her an inquiring glance. She nodded. He pressed the button and the lift glided upwards.
The Broomstick was waiting when the lift doors parted. The man stepped back to allow Annabel to precede him.
“Oh, you needn’t bother about her!” the Broomstick snapped. “She’s just the decorator.”
“Interior designer,” Annabel corrected icily.
“Now, Dora,” the man said. “Now, now.”
“You’re late!” Dora turned her firepower on him. “They’re all here waiting for you.” She eyed the briefcase greedily.
“I”—he checked his watch—“am precisely on time.” He wasn’t going to let Dora get away with anything, either. “Possibly the others are early.”
“I’ll show you to the study,” Dora urged him on impatiently.
“I know the way.” He was not to be hurried. He nodded to Annabel with more warmth than he had yet shown and set off down the hallway at a leisurely pace. Dora fussed along ahead of him, darting forward then coming back, like a sheepdog with a recalcitrant charge.
At the end of the hallway, he stopped and looked back. Seeing that Annabel was still in sight, he nodded to her again, but she had the impression that he wasn’t really noticing her. He appeared to be looking for something else, or perhaps measuring the distance back to the lift.
He and Dora rounded the corner and disappeared. Annabel was still staring after them when she became aware that Kelda had been lurking in the shadowed door during the exchange.
Realizing she had been spotted, Kelda stepped forward and stared bitterly down the hallway. “What does that rotten little twister want now?”
“You know him?”
“He’s the Arbuthnot hatchetman. Solicitor,” she clarified, in answer to Annabel’s puzzled look. “Lawyer, whatever you want to call him. Whenever there’s dirty work to be done, Pennyman’s the one who does it, waving his papers around to prove it’s all legal, upright and above board. What he does may be legal—but it isn’t right!”
“You do seem to know him.” Annabel felt a mounting disquiet. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Kelda was no stranger to this establishment. They might not know her, but she certainly knew them.
“I should,” Kelda said. “He was the bastard who came to Mark in hospital and told him he had no right to sue Arthur Arbuthnot because it wasn’t Arbuthnot’s fault that he, Mark, had taken reckless chances in doing his job. He told Mark that, if he tried to sue, Arbuthnot would defend—and he had more money to pay legal fees than Mark did. And then he said that Mark wouldn’t be able to get legal aid to sue because—” Kelda’s voice quivered between rage and tears.
“With Mark lying right there in the bed, he told him he wouldn’t get legal aid because … because he hadn’t a leg to stand on!”
“Oh, dear,” Annabel murmured. “That was tactless. I suppose it was such a cliché that it just slipped out before he thought.”
“He knew what he was saying!” Kelda was unforgiving. “Mark was helpless—and he was rubbing it in. Then he made Arbuthnot’s counteroffer: Mark would always have a job with him and be looked after. It was the least he could do—but it made Mark feel like a charity case. He accepted the deal—he had to, but he’s hated himself and Arbuthnot and everybody else in sight ever since.”
Her eyes bright with unshed tears, Kelda whirled abruptly and marched back through the doorway to the drawing room.
Well! Discretion, Annabel decided, was called for. It was not a quality that had ever loomed large in her life, but Kelda obviously needed a bit of time to pull herself together. She had probably said far more than she had intended to, but the words had come spilling out once she had started. There was doubtless more to come and more questions to be answered but, for the moment, Kelda needed to be alone.
Besides … Annabel found herself drifting innocently down the hallway. Somehow, she was on tiptoe again. She pulled the tape measure out of her basket; such a useful thing, a tape measure—it provided both a badge of office and a measure of invisibility. An explanation for being anywhere at any time.
She turned the corner and was surprised, but cheered, to see a streak of light marking the study door. Someone hadn’t closed it properly. The murmur of voices could be heard beyond it.
Annabel moved closer and studiously bent to measure the distance from the floor to the light fixture beside the door.
9
Just her luck, Annabel thought. All the way down the corridor and around the corner, she had been able to hear an unfamiliar male voice droning on in a monotone. Now that she was close enough to distinguish words, the voice had stopped and there was complete silence in the study. It seemed that she had missed whatever was going on. Or had she?
“I don’t understand—”
“You can’t be serious!”
“No! No! It’s impossible!”
Suddenly there was uproar. Shrieks, shouts and the occasional indignant phrase breaking through. Annabel began backing away slowly, poised to turn and run if the door opened any wider. She would hate to be caught eavesdropping.
“I suppose this is Arthur’s idea of a joke!” Zenia’s voice rang out loud and clear, absolving Annabel of any possible accusation of eavesdropping. She must have been audible three blocks away.
“How could you let him do this to us?” Tara was turning on the lawyer, plaintive, but with a strident note in her voice.
“Mr. Arbuthnot had a perfect right to do whatever he wished with his estate. Such a bequest is not unknown.” There was reproof in the lawyer’s voice. Also, it seemed to be moving closer. Annabel retreated a bit farther.
“I’ll want a copy of that will.” Neville’s voice was closer, too. It sounded as though he were following the lawyer to the door. “My own solicitor will want to take a close look at it.”
“A not unreasonable request.” There was a rustle of papers. “It’s a bit complicated to take in all at once. I would, however, draw your attention to clauses nine through to thirteen. You will wish to study them carefully.”
“Naturally, we intend to contest.” That was Wystan, trying to sound in command of the situation.
“As you wish. It would be most inadvisable, however. Mr. Arbuthnot took that contingency into consideration. You will find that anyone who contests the will stands to lose any bequest already made to him … or her.”
In the long and thoughtful silence that followed, the door opened and Mr. Pennyman paused in the doorway for his parting shot.
“Unfortunately—” His voice edged closer to elation than regret. “Most unfortunately, I have an important meeting in Edinburgh this afternoon, so I can’t stay to discuss this further with you. I’ll be back on Monday. You will have had time to digest all the implications by then. I haven’t time now but, since I am the trustee, I will wish to meet the, um, ‘heiress’ and attempt to ascertain her preference for a guardian.”
“But—” someone began to say, and broke off with a gasp, as though suddenly kicked.
“I’m sure we understand each other,” Mr. Pennyman said smoothly. He turned and set off down the hallway at a brisk pace that threatened to break into a sprint at any sign of pursuit.
Annabel flattened herself against the wall, realizing, with reluctant admiration, the cleverness he had shown in coming to the family to read the will rather than having them assemble at his office. He had obviously expected trouble and it was easier for him to make his escape here than it would have been for him to try to clear a cluster of hysterical, squabbling legatees out of his office.
Mr. Pennyman cast an anxious backwards glance over his shoulder at discovering that the lift was not waiting and opted for the stairs, taking them at a breakneck pace. He was wise not to linger; already voices were rising again in the study and the rustle of turning pages sounded like dry winter leaves flying down the street before a gathering storm.
“Where is he?” Zenia appeared in the doorway, obviously the first to recover. “He can’t leave us like this! I want to know—” Glancing over her shoulder, she stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind her. A crafty look spread over her face.
“Sally …” she cooed. “Here, Sally … nice Sally … come to Auntie Zenia, Sally … Sally …” She moved forward and headed for the nearest doorway with a determined tread. “Sally … ?”
