The Cat Who Wasn't a Dog Page 11

  ‘That’s the way it goes.’ He shrugged. ‘Some of us go up, some of us go down. You’ve done very well for yourself, Evangeline. You and Cecile.’

  ‘But you. You were one of the most promising juveniles in the West End. You should have gone on to romantic leads and matinee idoldom. What happened, Jem?’

  ‘The war, what else?’ He shrugged again. ‘I was too young to be called up for service, so I went into fire watching. Got caught inside when a building collapsed, but I was lucky, really. Buried in the rubble for more hours than I want to remember, but they dug me out. Thing was, when they carried me to the surface, there were a lot of people watching. An audience. They even burst into applause.

  ‘Strange thing … when I recovered, tried to get back to work again, I found I couldn’t face an audience. Hated applause. It terrified me.’ Another shrug. ‘Not the best sort of condition for an actor to be in. Oh, yes, and there was a touch of the old claustrophobia, too. It might have been all right out on the actual stage – if it hadn’t been for the audience in the auditorium – but you know how cramped most of the dressing rooms are.’

  ‘Oh, Jem,’ Evangeline said softly.

  ‘Yes, well … I tried my hand at writing a few plays, but times had changed. Television was taking over the sort of light polite plays the theatre used to thrive on: the drawing-room comedies, the whodunnits, the eternal triangles. The stage opted for the kitchen sink, the absurd, the surreal, the – if you ask me – bloody incompetent! Oh, I got a few things put on, but they didn’t run long, not the way they would have before. They were rather popular with amateur theatre groups, though. In fact, I still get a small but steady income from – ’

  ‘How am I supposed to remember my lines if people keep talking all the time?’

  ‘Jem, do you mind?’ The icy disembodied voice agreed. Teddy might be petulant, but he had right on his side this time.

  ‘Sorry, got carried away meeting old friends.’ Jem stood and moved away. ‘Time for me to be getting on with a few duties,’ he told us in parting.

  ‘Jem, please – ’

  I looked around for the source of the voice that kept issuing instructions. The rows of seats behind us were empty now that Jem had left. Even Garrick wasn’t to be seen.

  ‘Dress Circle.’ Evangeline had spotted her. ‘Checking for sound – and she needs to.’

  ‘Shhhhh!’ This time it was Dame Cecile shushing us from the wings. It really was time to keep quiet.

  We sat in silence as the first act proceeded towards one of the big laughs.

  ‘Charge!’ Teddy said languidly and strolled up the staircase.

  ‘Cecile is right,’ Evangeline whispered. ‘The next words are going to be “to my account”.’

  ‘Teddy, dear,’ the disembodied voice seemed to agree, ‘could we have a little more fire? From the foot of the stairs again, please.’

  ‘Faugh!’ Teddy got more fire into his exclamation of disgust as he stamped back to the foot of the stairs. The other actors waited more or less patiently. They were obviously accustomed to this.

  ‘Charge!’ Unfortunately, the fire didn’t last through to his actual line. He did move a little faster up the staircase, though.

  ‘Better,’ the voice said wearily. ‘But try it again.’

  ‘How long have they been in rehearsal?’ I asked sotto voice, but it wasn’t sotto enough.

  ‘Could we please have quiet in the stalls?’ ‘How can I concentrate with all that babble going on?’ It was clear that Teddy was going to blame all his problems on us. Now everyone was glaring at us.

  ‘Do you get the feeling we’re not wanted around here?’ Evangeline rose majestically.

  ‘Definitely.’ I scrambled to my feet before she pushed past me and stepped all over them.

  ‘Meeoyaaah!’ How was I to know that Garrick had settled down in the aisle with his tail stretched out across the end of the row? I began to appreciate even more the beauty of a bobtail cat as Garrick streaked for the shelter of the wings, yowling imprecations all the way.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Teddy exploded. He had plenty of fire now, but it was all directed at us.

  ‘We are leaving,’ Evangeline announced.

  ‘Thank God!’ somebody muttered. I couldn’t tell who.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I think we need a breath of fresh air,’ Evangeline decided as we left the theatre.

  ‘And a long walk to calm down,’ I agreed.

  ‘I am perfectly calm.’ Evangeline gave me a haughty look. ‘Which is more than can be said for some. That director is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, as well she might be.’

  ‘It’s too bad,’ I said. ‘Teddy is unbalancing the whole play. No timing, no voice projection, no … fire. He should be replaced.’

  ‘Not so easy to do when it’s her husband.’ Evangeline paused reflectively. ‘I hope, for her sake, he has some of that fire she wants in private life. He certainly isn’t wasting it on his stage performance.’

  ‘We haven’t actually seen her yet,’ I said, ‘but she sounds a lot more dynamic than he does. Of course, that wouldn’t be hard. They seem an oddly matched couple.’

  ‘So many of them are, but she has only herself to blame. He was engaged to another woman when Frella snatched him away. Another strong dominating woman – he seems to go for that type.’

  ‘Or they go for him.’ I could see Teddy as the natural prey of dominating women. The guy who couldn’t say no. ‘I suppose Cecile filled you in on all the gossip.’

  ‘And then some!’ Evangeline stopped and quirked an eyebrow at me. ‘Would you care to guess who that other woman was?’

  ‘No!’ I gasped. There was only one other woman in this scenario who could truly be called domineering. ‘Not – ?’

  ‘Soroya!’ Evangeline confirmed. ‘Not only that – guess what she gave him for an engagement present when they became engaged?’

  I could only stare at her. My mind was boggling.

  ‘A rare foreign breed of cat – the only known one in this country – she brought back from a location trip to Japan.’

  ‘Cho-Cho-San! So that’s why she says the cat belongs to her!’

  ‘She has a point. It used to be customary to return the gifts when the engagement was broken.’

  ‘Hah! I’ll bet she didn’t return the ring!’

  ‘That’s different.’ Evangeline was always on the acquisitive side. ‘He was the one who broke it off. She’s perfectly entitled to keep the ring – and I’d say she has a strong claim to the cat, too.’

  ‘She doesn’t care a thing about Cho-Cho and Teddy really loves that cat. She just wants to spite him.’

  ‘“Hell hath no fury …”’

  Had she been furious enough to consign Cho-Cho to Stuff Yours? Furious enough to bash the taxidermist’s head in when he demurred? To set the place on fire? That went beyond fury … into madness.

  ‘And you can’t get much more scorned than finding your lover has eloped with someone else,’ Evangeline continued. ‘Cecile says there’s been a custody war over the cat ever since. They’re forever kidnapping it from each other. The cat doesn’t seem particularly bothered, although she favours Teddy.’

  ‘She’s such a dear little thing,’ I sighed, ‘with such a sweet placid temperament.’

  ‘Touch of the geisha there, I’d say. If she were human, that’s undoubtedly what she’d be.’

  I couldn‘t deny it. It seemed only too likely. Cho-Cho was a friend to everyone, settling into Eddie’s arms as readily as into Soroya’s … or mine.

  ‘Cheer up!’ Evangeline said. ‘Look around you and enjoy the scenery.’

  We were strolling through the warren of little side streets clustered around the theatre and I have to admit it was my favourite sort of scenery. It was a delight to see so many idiosyncratic shops lining the streets after the boredom of London’s borough high streets which chain stores had so colonized that they all looked alike. By tacit consent, we slowed down t
o window shop.

  Antiques lurked enticingly at the back of dusty window displays, jewellery glittered under spotlights, shock and schlock clothing by hopeful young designers draped mannequins and partial body forms in a lot of the shops. A delicatessen/sandwich shop in the midst of it all probably did a thriving business with all the shopkeepers and their customers. And still the shops stretched on, featuring candles, incense, crystals, New Age accessories, more antiques, more designers, more –

  ‘Viola!’ I gasped, halting before a silversmith’s. There, on a black velvet neck form, rested a beautiful silver-and-enamel necklace of delicately pretty violas. The perfect gift for my lovely granddaughter.

  ‘The shop’s closed,’ Evangeline pointed out. ‘We’ll have to come back another day.’

  ‘But will we ever find it again?’ We seemed to have taken so many twisting and turning paths that I despaired momentarily. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘There’s a street name on the corner.’ Evangeline started towards it and I followed reluctantly, looking back over my shoulder at the exquisite little trinket. A namesake necklace for my beautiful little Viola. I couldn’t bear to lose it.

  ‘Regency Close,’ Evangeline announced, squinting up at the sign. Then she stiffened. ‘Trixie – do you smell smoke?’

  ‘Sort of.’ I lifted my head and inhaled deeply. Smoke, yes, but not a real-and-present-danger sort of smoke. More like a memory of smoke.

  Sniffing like bloodhounds, we turned down another narrow street and followed the scent. I was not particularly surprised when we reached the source of it.

  ‘I didn’t realize the taxidermist’s was so close to the theatre,’ I said. We looked at the blackened ruins, little pools of water still marking hollows in the debris.

  ‘We should have known. Cecile has been too busy at the theatre to get around much.’ Evangeline’s face was grim as she surveyed the scene.

  ‘It must be what gave her that gruesome idea.’ I shivered and not just at the thought of a stuffed Fleur. The sun had dropped below the horizon and darkness was swooping over us. Moreover, the wind was rising, chill and relentless. Suddenly I yearned for home – even our temporary home at Matilda’s.

  ‘Evangeline,’ I began, ‘let’s – ’

  ‘Halt!’ A slight quaver in the voice rather undermined the command. ‘Who goes there?’

  ‘Goes where?’ Evangeline swung around irritably. ‘Who the devil are you and what do you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Just what I was going to ask you.’ Strangely, Evangeline’s burst of temper seemed to reassure our challenger. He stepped forward smartly, with a soldier’s gait and still with that faint air of relief. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we be here?’ Evangeline wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s the night watchman,’ I ventured, as he seemed in no hurry to answer.

  ‘Don’t tell me this dump ever ran to a night watchman!’ Evangeline snorted. ‘Not even in its heyday!’

  ‘True, madam, true,’ the old boy agreed. ‘Only too true.’

  ‘Then who are you?’ Evangeline demanded.

  ‘An interested party. A neighbour. A householder, who doesn’t want his property devalued by the presence of ghosts.’

  ‘Ghosts?’ I stared at him incredulously. ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘A man died in this fire, you know. Gone before his time. That sort can leave a restless spirit behind them.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Evangeline’s tone was robust, but I noticed that she moved a little closer to me. My own shiver wasn’t entirely due to the icy wind.

  ‘You may think so, but there are those who claim to have seen them. Yes, and just where you’re standing.’

  ‘Have you?’ she demanded. ‘If anything haunted this place, I should think it would be the shades of all those poor benighted animals who were skinned and – ’

  ‘Don’t!’ I saw Cho-Cho’s bright trusting face before me and couldn’t bear the thought of the fate she had so narrowly escaped. If we hadn’t come along …

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’d have no reason to remain here. They were peacefully departed before they ever came here. There’s no harm from them.’

  Were they? Cho-Cho hadn’t been.

  ‘Harm?’ Evangeline was quick to pick him up on it. ‘So, it’s not just a simple ghost, it’s a malevolent one.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be, departing like that? If it happened to you, I dare say you’d be back in no time and howling for blood.’

  ‘He’s got your number,’ I couldn’t resist saying.

  ‘No,’ he continued, ‘it’s been quiet, so far. But when I saw the two of you – from a distance, dark shapeless forms, just like him – I thought he’d come back and brought a friend with him.’

  ‘Really?’ Evangeline was huffy because of that shapeless remark. ‘I’ve never heard of ghosts in pairs. They’re usually alone or, if not, centuries apart and unaware of each other.’

  Come to think of it, she was right. Your average ghost isn’t really the matey sort. At least, not with his peers, although he might occasionally try to cosy up to the living – when not content merely to scare the living daylights out of them.

  ‘Not always. There are well-documented sightings of entire Roman legions marching along the old roads they built. And then there was the case of – ’

  ‘We are not here to discuss ghosts,’ Evangeline said frostily.

  ‘The question is: what was the ghost doing here?’ I broke in quickly before he asked us what we were here for.

  ‘Swooping about, bobbing up and down, pinpoint lights flashing all around him. Sometimes he looked ten feet tall, then he’d sort of retract and become just a bump in the ground.’

  ‘Or a bump in the night,’ Evangeline said tartly. ‘Were there any sound effects to this appearance or was it all visual?’

  ‘I didn’t want to get too close,’ he said defensively. ‘I kept my distance but, when the wind blew in my direction, there seemed to be a sort of moaning and sobbing.’

  ‘An emotional ghost,’ Evangeline sniffed. She didn’t believe a word of it.

  ‘You might shed a tear or two if you’d been cut down in your prime.’

  ‘He was a young man, then?’ I realized we were in danger of letting irrelevancies spoil an opportunity for gathering first-hand information. ‘You knew him? What was he like?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I knew him. He kept himself to himself, but he always spoke pleasantly enough when you saw him. Sightings were fairly rare, though, he was the night owl type. Shop could get pretty lively after dark. Lots of comings and goings, mostly through the back door.’

  ‘Up to no good!’ Evangeline deduced instantly.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ He stepped back nervously

  ‘You implied it.’ Evangeline advanced on him. ‘What do you think he was – ’

  ‘You seem to keep a pretty close eye on this place.’ I came to a deduction of my own. ‘You don’t happen to be the one who saw a taxi leaving here on the day of the fire?’

  ‘Nothing … No …’ Unnerved by our concerted attack, he swung around and began to walk away as fast as he could without actually running.

  ‘Well, now we know the busybody who called the police and ratted on Eddie.’

  ‘And he knows us! Your question would have made him suspicious. Any minute he may remember that we were around on that day, too, and call the police again.’ She glared at me and I glared back.

  Nasty looks and recriminations notwithstanding, we were rapidly moving away from the scene.

  ‘Turn here!’ Evangeline whirled us around a corner and then another before we began to slow down a bit. ‘Up here!’ It was only a small hill but we were already panting. The smell of stale smoke had receded, however, and the whole episode was beginning to assume a dreamlike quality.

  ‘Down here!’ The territory was becoming more and more familiar. As we turned the final cor
ner, I recognized it.

  ‘The stage door! We’ve come in a circle. We’re back at the Royal Empire!’

  ‘Stuff Yours had to be nearby for Cecile to know about it.’ Evangeline nodded. ‘She isn’t the sort to go out of her way exploring. Unlike you.’

  ‘I like to know where I am, in relation to everything around me.’ I couldn’t understand people who didn’t.

  ‘It’s all those gangster films you were in,’ Evangeline said severely. ‘You’re always looking for a quick way out in case of trouble.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’ It had come in useful more than once in our immediate past. And she knew it, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ Evangeline looked at the stage door.

  ‘Better not. We know our way back from here and, I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. I can do without any more histrionics.’ Famous last words.

  ‘I’m going back to London first thing in the morning!’ Jocasta was hovering in the hallway, pale but determined. She faced us as though she expected opposition to her decision.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Evangeline agreed. ‘We could do with a quick trip to Town to attend to a few errands ourselves.’

  ‘I only intended to drive you down and go straight back,’ Jocasta continued with her obviously rehearsed argument, not noticing that it had become unnecessary.

  ‘And now you can drive us back again. We’ll be ready by ten thirty and you can have us there in time for lunch.’

  ‘I was planning to leave around 7 a.m.’ It was a rearguard action and Jocasta knew it.

  ‘Nonsense! You don’t want to get caught up in rushhour traffic. The motorway should be fairly clear by ten thirty.’

  ‘What about Eddie?’ I protested. ‘We can’t go off and leave him here alone.’ Especially as he wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for us.

  ‘We’ll only be away overnight. It isn’t as though we’re leaving the country.’

  She would, if it suited her. At the moment, it didn’t. She was up to something, though. I knew that sneaky look on her face of old.

  ‘Ten thirty …’ Jocasta was still struggling with her own problem. How had her simple plans become so disrupted?