They had managed to work the blue collar off by pushing at its Velcro tabs so that Mrs. Tobias couldn’t tell the difference between the two cats. The only way Harry could tell the difference (and Harry didn’t pay much attention, anyway) was when Schrödinger was with her kittens. That meant the extra cat was Morris. Harry put the collar back on, puzzled as to why it didn’t stay.
Mungo had pulled it off again. No one around here really took a blind bit of notice; Morris could have been sporting the Union Jack and no one would see. That’s what happened when you were too caught up in yourself-Mrs. Tobias with her pies and poached salmon; Harry with, well, Harry.
For another hour they waited side by side on a window seat behind Harry’s desk in the living room.
Finally, the Jaguar pulled up at the curb. It was not yet dark, but getting there, the light softer, bluer, diminished.
Come on! Positions! said Mungo.
They bounded off the window seat, ran toward the front door with Mungo squarely in front, Morris against the wall. When the door opened, Mungo barked up a storm and Morris flat-bellied herself around the edge of the door. All she saw was a foot shod in cordovan brown calf leather.
Bark. Bark.
Harry frowned. “What?”
Wouldn’t you like to know? Harry couldn’t pick up this message, of course, he being human (although Mungo thought that far from settled). Mungo then rushed to the living room and hopped up on the window seat to watch Morris, who was not yet in the car but trying. One try-Whoa! Cat didn’t make it. Another-Oops! Almost, but not quite. Then he saw Morris gather herself in that way cats do, every little muscle concentrated, focused… There! Morris got her paws hitched over the window and she was in. Mungo wanted to applaud.
Harry was back with the ridiculous lead that Mungo allowed to be snapped onto his collar. Ho-hum. As if he needed one. As if it controlled him. But Mungo tried to “scamper” off the seat, thinking scampering more befitting Harry’s idea of dogdom. He stopped short of tail wagging. He wouldn’t lower himself.
Off they went out the door, down the white steps to the car. Back door opened, Mungo hopped up to the seat and looked down at Morris lying placidly on the floor, paws tucked in.
All the work. All the work falls to me, thought Mungo. He sent a message to Morris:
When we get there, just repeat what you did in reverse-wait for us to get out of the car, ease yourself out the window, and follow.
No answer came from Morris.
Was the cat asleep?
The Old Wine Shades was in the City, but Harry treated it as his local, despite its being a bit of a drive. It took Harry less than fifteen minutes given the hairsbreadth distance he allowed between his car and the rest of the world: hairsbreadth from other cars, people, curbs, cats, and dogs. Mungo was glad just to get there alive. Harry wound between Embankment and the river as if the car were a zipper, then funneled off into King William Street and then into Arthur.
The Jaguar stopped in a no-parking area right beside the pub, Harry thinking it was his God-given right to park anywhere he chose.
Mungo sent Morris the message to wait, wait until they were out.
You already told me that.
The tone was truculent. Mungo could have done with some appreciation.
Inside, seated at the bar in his favorite place, Harry engaged in one of his winey talks with Trevor.
Mungo stared at the door, wondering where Morris was; Morris must have missed the opening of the door and was stuck outside. For heaven’s sakes.
Trevor had gone off somewhere and returned with a bottle, and the two men spent more valuable minutes talking about it.
O Boredom, I salute you!
Where was the Spotter? Mungo knew he was-There! Coming through the door, followed by Morris. The Spotter didn’t see her. My God! Couldn’t even detectives suss out they were being followed by a cat? Mungo hoped his faith wasn’t misplaced.
“Hullo, Harry. Mungo.” Jury tossed his coat on a stool and reached down to give Mungo’s head a rub. Then he saw Morris. “What the hell’s your cat doing here, Harry?” Jury laughed.
Harry looked down. Frowning deeply, he said, “Schrödinger? That’s not Schrödinger.”
Right! thought Mungo. Right! It’s not.
Harry turned and looked down, frowning. “At least I don’t think so.”
Wrong! Trust Harry not to know his own cat.
“Schrödinger,” Jury said with a laugh. “The cat’s dead; the cat’s alive.”
No! thought Mungo. NO no no no no no. Don’t go off on that quantum mechanics stuff!
Harry was nonplussed. “How the devil did you get in here, Shoe?”
No oh no oh no!
Morris stuck by Jury’s leg, staring up at him. Staring, sending him all sorts of messages, each tumbling over the one before, hoping by sheer volume to penetrate the dense mass of the human brain. I’m not Schrödinger, I’m not Shoe, I’m Morris, Morris, Morris, from the Black Cat in Chesham…
“What is this?” asked Jury, drinking the wine Trevor had just poured. “It’s good.”
Trevor, wine expert, rolled his eyes. “Surprise, surprise, Superintendent.”
Mungo sat hard by Morris and joined in: Look, look, this isn’t Schrödinger, this isn’t Shoe, no no, not Shoe, it’s Morris, Mor-risss, MORRIS, M-O-R-R-I-S…
Harry, cat completely forgotten, was winding up one of his interminable paeans to the good grape and saying, “So, are you getting anywhere with these two murders?”
Standing on his hind legs, Mungo placed his front paws on the edge of Jury’s chair. It’s not Shoe-Listen! The Black Cat, the Black Cat, the pub the Black Cat…
Morris joined in: Black Cat Black Cat Dora Dora’s cat…
Jury frowned. “What’s with Mungo? He seems distracted.” He rubbed the dog’s head.
A woman on the other side of Harry bent down to look at the cat and cooed, “What a pretty kitty. What’s his name?”
“Schrödinger. It’s a she.”
Not Schrödinger, she’s Morris. Morris. Mungo kept it up.
The woman frowned. “That’s a funny name. Whatever does it mean?”
Jury could hear Harry testing the point of each word before he flung them at her like a handful of darts.
“It means ‘cat’ in quantum physics,” he said this without looking at her.
“Well. We’re not very friendly, are we?” She sniffed and moved from the stool to a table.
Free of her, Harry went back to the subject. “Be careful, or you’ll have another Ripper on your hands. Was she, as they say, ‘interfered with’?”
“You think I’m going to give you the details?”
Mungo turned in circles at his feet, while Morris was close to clawing her way up his leg. Mungo thought in a minute he might even bark. Why couldn’t the Spotter sort it?
“I don’t see why not,” said Harry. “The tabloids will dish up details.”
Mungo wondered how to spell “Black Cat.” Morris was supposed to be staring, staring at the Spotter. It looked as if she were sleeping on her feet. That better hadn’t be so.
Jury was looking down at Morris, looking from Morris to Mungo. Mungo watched his face, his expression of real consternation. The dog could almost see the tumblers of the lock clicking: Something about this black cat-and Mungo, Mungo trying to tell me something?… Click. Wait. The Black Cat, that pub… Click. Dora. Dora’s cat… Click, click, click. My God! Could this be Dora’s-?
Yes yes yes yes. The Spotter was thinking hard, even if Mungo had to make up his thoughts. Mungo waited for the words that would get Morris back to Dora-
Jury said, “Is a dog a lot of trouble?”