Canapés for the Kitties Read online

  “Here I am! Daddy’s here!” Macho Magee dropped to his knees beside his anxious pet and glared up at Lorinda. “I don’t know why you have to have one of those porthole-type catflaps. It’s antisocial!”

  “It was here when I bought the house.” Lorinda sighed, they had been through this before. “And my own cats,” she pointed out, “have no trouble with it at all.”

  “Nevertheless, the thing is a menace. You should take it out and replace it with a square flap with one end flush with the floor. That’s the best kind. It’s what I have.”

  “It’s draftier,” she said, without adding that she did not particularly wish to allow Roscoe, however sweet he might be, unlimited access to her house. Nor did she think Had-I and But-Known would appreciate an interloper roaming through their territory at will, however well they got on with him.

  Roscoe had begun purring trustfully and Macho Magee got to his feet to assess the problem.

  “It looks pretty bad this time,” he said fretfully, glaring at Lorinda as though it were her fault. “We may have to dismantle the flap.”

  “No,” Lorinda said.

  “Mmmm ...” He walked around the door, checking both ends of his cat. “Perhaps, if we grease him ...”

  “We did that last time and he didn’t like it.”

  “True, and it took him days to get all the butter out of his fur.” Macho took another turn around the door. Roscoe was beginning to look anxious again.

  “If you can work that paw loose from under his chin,” Lorinda suggested, “you ought to be able to back him out then.”

  Had-I and But-Known just sat there and looked superior, quite as though they’d had nothing to do with luring Roscoe to his entrapment.

  “I don’t know ...” Macho knelt before his cat again and gently took hold of the paw. “Easy now ...” he soothed. “Easy ... does it ...”

  If his fans could see him now ... Lorinda thought, not for the first time. She looked down on the polished pink dome of the creator of the eponymous Macho Magee, arguably the hardest-boiled private eye in print; certainly the most politically incorrect. What Macho Magee hadn’t blackmailed, stabbed, strangled, set alight or blown away wasn’t worth thinking about. He considered any book that didn’t attract a minimum of fifty letters of complaint one that hadn’t come up to scratch. The man’s very name was a challenge. Deliberately so.

  It had to be. His real name was Lancelot Dalrymple, a good enough name in ordinary life, but not one to stir the blood or set the cash registers jingling in the private-eye world, although it might do well in the realm of gardening books. A Dalrymple sounded as though he would be more at home mulching roses and bedding begonias rather than every tough blonde who strayed across his path.

  “There, we’ve got it now.” He freed the paw, easing it through to the other side of the porthole. Roscoe immediately lunged forward, trying to get into the room with them.

  “No, no, Roscoe.” Macho restrained him. “Just cup his head in your hands, will you?” he instructed Lorinda. “I’ll go around and pull and you guide his head through. Mind that he doesn’t catch his ears.”

  Lorinda crouched and encircled Roscoe’s head, murmuring softly to soothe him as he began moving backwards, his eyes rolling wildly.

  “Nearly there ...” She protected his ears as his head vanished through the opening and the flap fell back into place.

  “That’s better. You’re all right now.” Roscoe reappeared, cradled in Macho’s arms and Lorinda swung the door shut behind them.

  “Come and have a drink,” she invited. “You’re through for the day now, aren’t you?”

  “I might do a bit more later but, basically, yes.” He carried Roscoe into the living room and settled in an armchair. Had-I and But-Known trailed along in his wake, eyeing Roscoe thoughtfully.

  The fictional Macho Magee drank nothing but the genuine Mexican tequila with the worm curled at the bottom of the bottle (often the closest he got to ingesting any protein in the course of an entire book). Fortunately, Lancelot Dalrymple was quite content with a dry sherry. Lorinda poured sherries for both of them and set a bowl of mixed nuts within easy reaching distance.

  Had-I and But-Known moved forward to investigate the bowl and retreated, flinging Lorinda looks of utter disgust. No cheese! No pâté! What was hospitality in this house coming to? They sat down together and concentrated their attention on Roscoe again.

  Roscoe stirred restively in his owner’s arms.

  “No, no, stay here.” Macho tightened his grip. “Ignore them. You know they only lead you into trouble. Treacherous jades!”

  His language might also surprise his fans, as would the Byronesque ponytail tied with a black velvet ribbon trailing down to his shoulders. Both were probably a legacy of his years as a history teacher and his abiding interest in the subject.

  “Book going well?” Ignoring his opinion of her cats (her own opinion of his wasn’t all that high), Lorinda sank into the facing armchair and leaned back.

  “Oh, well enough.” Now it was Macho who appeared restive. “I need to get the body count higher, but I should be able to take care of that in the next chapter.”

  “I’m sure you’ll manage it,” Lorinda agreed absently. She was mentally composing and discarding opening sentences, trying to find a subtle lead-in to the subject she wished to introduce.

  “I suppose you’ve heard the latest?” Macho had no such inhibitions. He leaned forward intently, loosening his hold on Roscoe, who promptly slid to the floor and ambled over to join Had-I and But-Known.

  “Which latest?” The way gossip was proliferating in this village, there was a multiple choice.

  “They’ve rented the last of the flats in Coffers Court. And guess who’s got it?”

  “Mmmm ...” Macho was looking entirely too gleeful. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like the answer?”

  “Because you’re not. Go ahead.” He tugged at his goatee, pulling down his lower lip and disclosing a set of thin gnarled lower teeth. “Who’s the last creature in the world you would care to tiptoe hand-in-hand into the sunset with?”

  At the moment, Macho himself was becoming the leading contender in that category. Lorinda regarded him without fondness.

  “There are so many,” she murmured. And most of them seemed to be congregating in Brimful Coffers.

  “The absolute worst,” he insisted. “Beside whom the Marquis de Sade looks like St. Francis of Assisi.”

  “No!” Lorinda leaped to her feet. Had-I and But-Known had closed in on either side of Roscoe and were hustling him toward the kitchen. “Come back here! You’re not going to jump him through the catflap again!”

  They stopped short and gave her injured looks. How could she think such a thing of them?

  “Just a minute, Macho.” She hurried into the kitchen and turned the knob immobilizing the catflap. They could butt their heads against it in vain now.

  “Roscoe! Come here, Roscoe!” Macho appeared in the doorway and advanced on his pet.

  Roscoe evaded the outstretched arms and strolled over to the bowl of dry cat food and began to help himself. Had-I gave Lorinda a reproving look for spoiling all their fun and sat down and began to wash her face. But-Known went over to stand hopefully in front of the fridge.

  “They’re all right now,” Lorinda said. “Come and finish your drink.”

  “I don’t know.” Macho settled back in his chair and allowed Lorinda to replenish his drink. “Sometimes I think I should just get myself a tank of goldfish.”

  “Not while Roscoe is still around,” Lorinda said.

  “No, no. They wouldn’t last ten minutes.” Macho was instantly cheered by the thought of his pet’s hunting prowess. “I only hope he never gets a chance at Dorian’s tank of tropical fish.”

  “Amen, amen,” Lorinda said fervently. The mere thought of Had-I and But-Known getting within paw-dipping distance of Dorian’s aquarium was enough to make her feel faint.

  “Cold fish,
” Macho mused. “Dorian, I mean. It quite amazed me when he began lobbying for all of us to come and occupy the same village. He’s the last person in the world I would have suspected of having any desire for the company of his colleagues – on a long-term basis, that is.”

  “Plantagenet!” Lorinda suddenly made the connection with Macho’s earlier teasing. “Plantagenet Sutton! Tell me it isn’t true!”

  “True enough,” he sighed. “Pity. Coffers Court must have been quite a respectable place when it was occupied by flint-hearted bank managers foreclosing on widows and orphans.”

  “How true,” Lorinda agreed.

  The decommissioned bank building had been designed with typical late-Victorian lavishness to resemble a wealthy landowner’s town house rather than a commercial establishment. Built of sandstone, now weathered to a rich gold, festooned with window boxes filled with seasonal blooms, it dominated one corner of the village green. Since the architect had been in the forefront of the technology of his time, along with the obligatory marble hall, it boasted a luxurious red-plush-and-mirrored lift with a padded bench curved invitingly around the walls. Thus patrons could be conveyed in solid comfort from the bank manager’s office on the top floor to deposit their valuables in the basement vault. The vault had now been divided into a caretaker’s flat and a series of boxrooms providing storage for the tenants of the other flats.

  It was a beautiful building and had been transformed into a dream block of flats. Too bad about the people in it.

  “The neighbourhood is really going down,” Macho said. “I hadn’t thought it could sink any lower after Gemma Duquette moved in – but now this!”

  “Plantagenet Sutton,” Lorinda mourned. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Ground-floor left-hand flat.” Macho was certain of his facts. “I saw the furniture being moved in this morning. No one could mistake that wing chair and lamp table. No one in the business, that is. It’s practically his logo.”

  “That’s pretty conclusive.” She hadn’t really doubted him; Macho was an expert gossip. Probably they all were. Keeping tabs on friends and neighbours could be looked on as an extension of their work. What was a book, after all, but the retailing of the alarms, excursions and minutiae of everyday life until it reached a conclusion tidier than any life usually provided? Did they become writers because they were so very interested in gossip? Or did being writers make them preternaturally interested in gossip?

  Had-I and But-Known sauntered in and leaped up to sprawl out, one on each arm of Lorinda’s chair. She stroked them absently. Roscoe followed and leaped up on Macho’s lap. A faint concerted purr began to thrum as background music to their conversation. Outside, dusk began to settle over the village. It was all so comfortable and companionable ... but for how much longer?

  Plantagenet Sutton had come to live in their midst. Life could never be the same again.

  “Perhaps he’ll hate it here and won’t stay long,” she said hopefully.

  “We can do our best,” Macho said, “but the monster has the hide of a rhinoceros. Otherwise, he could never have survived this long.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to be civil to him,” Lorinda said. “After all, he hasn’t retired yet, has he? Not like Gemma Duquette.”

  “No, her fangs have been drawn, but his are still in place and ever ready to go for the jugular.” Macho’s eyes narrowed. “I suspect we have her to thank for his being here. She must have told him about our burgeoning colony. After all, Brimful Coffers is not the first place that would spring to the mind of someone wishing to move to the country.”

  “How very true.” Lorinda was beginning to wish she’d never heard of the place herself. The more colleagues and cohorts moved into the village, the less des. the res. seemed.

  “If she did it,” Macho brooded, “that’s one more thing we have against her.”

  Lorinda nodded, although the main thing Macho had against Gemma Duquette was that she had, not surprisingly, never bought one of his books to serialize in her magazine, Woman's Place. Those who had been serialized carried far deeper grudges. Only an author who had seen her work butchered to fit into four to six weekly instalments could really comprehend the depths of hatred Gemma had inspired, especially as the pages sacrificed to expediency had inevitably contained the most inspired passages, the best writing and the most vital plot points – thus making hash of the solution to the mystery.

  On the other hand, every suggestion of witless romance, or feeble intimation of sexual attraction and banal dialogue had been retained. Paragraphs disappeared between sentences, consecutive pages went missing between paragraphs – and the screams of anguished authors could be heard in the land. However, despite bitter vows of revenge and dire threats never to allow Woman’s Place to desecrate another manuscript, those who could continued to sell it first serial rights. Money talked – take it and run and lick your wounds in privacy or in the company of other wounded victims.

  And Gemma Duquette was responsible for it all. Other magazines were able to publish more sensitive serializations, managing to retain most of the major characters, plot lines and all the other features that were the first things Gemma’s deadly hatchet automatically attacked.

  “We were so relieved when she retired,” Lorinda remembered. “We thought we’d never have to deal with her again. And now she’s moved into our midst.”

  “And brought Plantagenet Sutton along with her,” Macho snarled.

  Roscoe stirred restively in his lap and looked up at his master in concern; he was not accustomed to hearing that snarl when Macho was away from his machine and no longer acting out his stories as he wrote them.

  “Well, sometimes he gives a good review,” Lorinda said delicately. It was common knowledge that Macho had never received a good – or even a passable – review from Plantagenet Sutton. Quite the contrary, Sutton seemed to reserve his wittiest barbs and most poisonous venom for Macho Magee’s books. Macho had good reason for bitterness.

  “Sutton the sod!” Macho crossed and recrossed his legs violently. Roscoe bounced to the floor and stalked off to the kitchen, stiff-legged and affronted. Macho didn’t notice, too absorbed in his own furious thoughts.

  “Sutton the sot!” he hissed.

  Lorinda nodded. She wasn’t sure about the first accusation, but there was a certain amount of justice in the second. In fact, that might be the root cause of the problem. Plantagenet Sutton had always been a tough critic, but he had not turned into a hanging judge until he conceived the idea of combining book reviews with a wine column and moving to the Lifestyle pages of his Sunday newspaper.

  His “Through a Glass, Darkly” pages had been a great success – with the public. The large photograph of Sutton relaxing in his wing chair, with the lamp table beside him, the lamp casting a benevolent glow over his features and the wide circular table holding a small stack of books, a decanter and half-filled glass, obviously touched a chord deep in the public heart – this was what they thought the Literary Life was like. The wine shippers had had no complaints (except for the occasional suggestion that a bottle might be used instead of a decanter), but the change had been greatly to the detriment of the mystery-writing community.

  “Isn’t it just our luck?” Fredericka Carlson had lamented.

  “Why couldn’t the bastard have turned out to be a jovial drunk instead of a nasty one?”

  Others voiced the opinion – off the record, of course – that the steaming rancour had set in when Plantagenet Sutton realized that a good review of a wine was likely to bring him a case of the favoured beverage, while a good review for a book brought him no return at all. His opinion of every book had grown more and more venomous, every witticism at the author’s expense, every verdict thumbs-down.

  “I suppose there’s no hope of him retiring?” Lorinda was momentarily wistful.

  “Not while he can still lift a glass to his lips,” Macho sneered.

  “Anyway,” Lorinda tried to look on the bright side, “in
Coffers Court, they’re only renting; they haven’t bought the leaseholds yet. Maybe they won’t stay.”

  “We can but do our best to ensure that.” Macho’s lips twisted unpleasantly.

  “We couldn’t do that ...” Lorinda said uncertainly.

  “Maybe you couldn’t.” She hadn’t thought it possible, but Macho’s smile became even more unpleasant. “But would you like to bet how forbearing Rhylla Montague is going to be? She took to her bed for three days after she saw what Gemma had done to her last opus. Then Sutton, in his infinite laziness, reviewed the book from the potted version in the magazine – and slaughtered it. And they’re all under the same roof now.”

  The urgent summons of the telephone saved Lorinda from having to reply. With relief, she rose and crossed to answer it, narrowly avoiding tripping over Roscoe, who had wandered back into the room to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

  “Lorinda, have you heard?” Fredericka Carlson’s voice was unnaturally shrill. “I can’t believe it! What have we done to deserve this?”

  “Steady, Freddie,” Lorinda said. “Macho is here now. He’s just told me. Come over and join us for drinks.”

  “We’ll need them! Horrors to the right of me, horrors to the left of me – I don’t know why 1 came to this place! I’ll be right over!” Freddie slammed down the phone and it seemed only seconds before she was at the door.

  “They’re going to kill each other, you know,” she announced. “It’s only a question of time – and I’d rather not be around here when they do it.”

  “You’re just trying to cheer us up,” Macho said. “They’re thick as thieves. Lorinda and I were just saying that it must have been Gemma who told that – that churl – that there was a flat going spare at Coffers Court.”

  “Not them!” Freddie threw Macho a withering look as she hurled herself into Lorinda’s vacated chair and automatically began stroking the cats stretched along its arms. “That would be too much to hope for! I mean, my lot – the next-door neighbours, the other half of the house. I never should have let Dorian talk me into that semi-detached. ‘They’re Americans, so they’ll only be here three or four months of the year, six at most,’ he said. ‘It will be like having a house all to yourself, except that it will be cheaper than a detached,’ he said. Hah! Bloody hah!”