Murder on Show (20 page)

‘She was dead!' Hugo screamed. ‘She was! And I couldn't leave her lying there – someone might investigate the stand. I had to get her out of the way – distract attention from the stand until I had time to get the statue away – so ... so, I ...' he faltered to a halt. It was hard to rationalize what he had done next. Even though it had obviously appeared to be a logical step to him at the time.

One good thing was coming out of all this. Big cats, it seemed, were just as curious as their smaller brethren. Hugo's ranting had riveted their attention. I was not the only person, I noticed, to take advantage of this fact by slowly edging away from the centre of the aisle. Most of us were gradually retreating, in slow motion, to the comparative safety of what had been our stalls. Although, with the guard rails gone, the security they offered was purely imaginary.

Only the Inspector stood firm. It was kinder to think that than to assume that he was frozen there. Besides, he was between us and the Big Cats – any movement by him might have drawn their attention.

‘You let Pyramus and Thisbe take the blame!' For the first time, Carlotta spoke. ‘You deliberately plotted that they should be accused. It did not matter to you that you put them in danger of being killed as rogue animals.' Her eyes blazed dangerously, but Hugo could not see them.

‘Why should I care, you stupid cow?' He gave her a shake. ‘Shut up and keep out of this!'

‘Thisbe!' Carlotta said quietly, and she added something very quickly in Spanish.

The tigress raised her head, listening, then started forward with an air of determination.

‘Stop her!' Hugo pulled at Carlotta. ‘Make her go back. I warn you – you'll regret it.'

Carlotta stayed silent. Her face contorted as Hugo twisted her arm. Thisbe continued advancing.

‘Go back!' Hugo screamed. ‘Go away!' He brandished the shovel at the tigress.

Thisbe ignored him. She took her orders from Carlotta. She padded forward, waiting for the next command. She was close enough to claw them now. Hugo panicked.

Leaning around Carlotta, he struck out with the shovel. It caught the tigress on her sensitive nose and one side of her mouth.

With a shriek of agonized rage, the tigress sprang backwards. Landing, she backed still farther away, growling furiously. I was suddenly very glad that I hadn't been the one to infuriate her.

Still holding Carlotta in front of him, Hugo scrabbled wildly to pull the gold Whittington Cat out of its hiding-place. He kept both eyes on Thisbe, who was crouched, growling, glaring at him.

Hugo hauled the gold cat with the emerald eyes up into the crook of his arm. So far, so good. But he no longer had just the police – who must worry about the safety of the others in the Hall as much as bringing a criminal to book – to contend with. His principal stumbling block now was Thisbe, who recognized no other consideration than the injury he had done to her.

Thisbe ran forward a couple of feet and crouched again, tail lashing, growls rising.

Deadly adversaries, they watched each other. Trying to assess the mood, the timing, the intention, lying behind each other's eyes.

‘Call her off!' Hugo ordered Carlotta. ‘Call her off!'

Carlotta was silent. Perhaps Hugo was the only one present who did not realize that Thisbe was beyond control now. If Carlotta tried to stop the tigress, she would only undermine what authority she had over the animal.

Thisbe gathered herself and hurled into forward movement. Hugo screamed, and threw Carlotta into her path.

But he had miscalculated. Had Thisbe been intending a dash at him, Carlotta would have met the tigress head-on. But Thisbe sprang.

Recognizing her intention, Carlotta dived to the floor and spread herself flat. The tigress cleared her easily and landed on Hugo.

One final scream was all he had time for. The gold statue dropped from his arms and rolled along the floor.

‘Really!' Into the abrupt silence, Kellington Dasczo spoke Hugo's epitaph. ‘If you
will
hit a tigress on an abscessed tooth, what do you expect? It was a most uncomfortable way of committing suicide.'

Automatically, the Inspector started towards the scene. He stopped when he saw that the movement had focused the attention of Pyramus on him. The big tiger swung slowly towards us. His mate was doing just fine, and wanted no interference from bystanders. He was going to mount guard and see that she wasn't disturbed.

Personally, I wouldn't have dreamed of disturbing her. Not for the world. Hugo had bought it, fairly and squarely. In fact, I agreed with Kellington Dasczo – it was a suicide.

Now that I thought it over – and I much preferred to concentrate on that, rather than watch what Thisbe was doing – she had been giving every indication that something was wrong with her. All those roars and growls, the way she gnawed her meat so cautiously, on one side of her mouth only – perhaps we ought to have spotted it before.

The growling was diminuendo now. Thisbe raised her head and looked around, as though puzzled. She pawed at the broken bleeding heap on the ground a couple of times, but it didn't move again, and she lost interest. She turned away. For her, the incident was over.

‘Thisbe ... Thisbe ... querida ...' Slowly, Carlotta glided toward the tigress, murmuring coaxingly in Spanish. Thisbe, tail still lashing restlessly, watched her advance. No one else dared move.

Carlotta's eyes were sparkling as she challenged the big cat. I realized that she was enjoying herself. In a way, it was understandable. When a woman's formative years have been spent as the lynchpin of a Revolution, what does she do for an encore? Some people are never happy unless they're putting themselves in one firing line or another.

‘Thisbe ...' Thisbe went to Carlotta. I think we were all holding our collective breath, but Thisbe's flash of temper was over. She had no grudge against Carlotta, who had never harmed her.

Carlotta led her gently back to the cage. As she walked past the head of the aisle, we could see the swelling on her jaw. It was now large enough to be noticeable, and would probably be the source of her reprieve. A dose of chloroform and a good vet, and Carlotta could convince the authorities that Thisbe's nature was again as sweet as it had ever been.

Pyramus had been moving docilely, following Thisbe towards the cage. It looked as though our troubles were over. Relief made the Inspector reckless.

‘Let's clear up this mess,' he snapped to the constable. They started forward.

Pyramus whirled abruptly. They froze again. Carlotta glanced at them helplessly, but all her being was concentrated on persuading Thisbe into the cage. She would have to come back for Pyramus after that.

Pyramus wasn't waiting for her. Growling, tail lashing, he moved towards the Inspector. He paused and roared the ear-splitting challenge again.

A lighter, softer, but equally furious challenge sounded from behind us, farther down the aisle. I turned to see with horror that Mother Brown had taken up a stance in the centre of the aisle.

Back arched, tail bushed, hair bristling, that poor, crazy, gallant little cat was ready to take on a tiger in defence of her kittens.

What else could I do? As Pyramus started forward, I snatched up the sculptor's stand, sending the photograph flying. Holding the stand in front of me, I tried to block Pyramus's advance.

I had only a few seconds of regretting the pretentious black velvet draped around the stand, which made it more awkward to manage. Then a swipe from Pyramus's paw tore the velvet away and sent it flying after the photograph.

The tiger stood staring at the four legs of the stand, as though puzzled at the way a human could suddenly grow such strange appurtenances. Since he had stopped moving forward, I decided to see if I could urge him backward, on the principle that every few feet farther away he got from the women and children would give them a better chance of escaping.

‘Get back! Back!' I jabbed the metal legs at him tentatively. He was a great, powerful beast. If he took another swing and connected with that rigid metal, I stood a good chance of getting a broken arm as the sculptor's stand was torn from my grasp.

Pyramus growled and retreated a few inches. Injudiciously, I feinted with the spidery metal legs again. ‘Back!'

This time he decided on action. He lunged and his teeth closed over one leg. He gnawed at it, growling viciously, then seemed surprised at the resistance his teeth encountered. He also seemed vaguely surprised that I was still standing, instead of falling before his attack.

I began to understand why animal trainers used chairs. That beast thought the sculptor's stand was an extension of me – part of me. There he was, doing his level best to gnaw a chunk off of me, and I seemed unharmed. It began to shake his confidence. It occurred to me that I could shake it a bit more.

‘Back!' I shoved the stand at him. The end of the leg already in his mouth slipped a little farther in. It must have seemed to him that I was trying to jam it down his throat. Perhaps I might have, if I thought I stood a chance of succeeding.

He snarled and retreated again, to ease the pressure against the back of his throat. Then retreated still farther, to spit the thing out of his mouth altogether.

‘Good boy, Douglas, you've got him going!' Kellington was doing more than simply cheering me on. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he had caught up Pearlie King's three-legged stool. Holding it in front of him, he closed in beside me on the left.

Gerry grabbed the pitchfork from Dave and moved in on my right. I was protected on both flanks now, and began to feel slightly better about the situation. I would still rather have been practically anywhere else in the world at the moment; but, at least, I didn't feel quite so naked now.

‘Keep moving,' Kellington directed. ‘It's the footwork that does it – I've watched a lot of animal acts. Always keep them moving, so that they can't get enough balance to spring, and you're all right.'

I wished I could be as sure of that as he sounded. But it was no time for arguing.

Thisbe was safely inside the cage, and Carlotta stood by the door of the cage, ready to raise it again when we had Pyramus into position to manoeuvre into it. She called out something encouragingly. But as it was in Spanish, I couldn't tell whether she was trying to encourage us or the tiger.

We moved forward slowly in unison. Before the combined onslaught, Pyramus fell back. Unfortunately, he seemed likely to back into the Inspector, who was still in the centre of the aisle, by the cage.

‘I'd move out of the way, old chap, if I were you,' Gerry called out. It seemed to break the spell. The Inspector found that he could move after all – and move pretty fast. He got half-way up the winding iron staircase leading to the Press Gallery before he stopped. He seemed to feel safe there, and we were too occupied to tell him that big cats have no more trouble climbing steps than small cats.

We were at the head of the aisle now, backing Pyramus around the corner, when he decided on another show of strength. He gave a snarling roar and lashed out with a paw. It snapped one leg off Kellington's stool and sent it hurtling to land at the foot of the Press Gallery staircase. The Inspector flinched.

But we all still kept moving, and the fact seemed to rattle Pyramus. He backed away, growling. Carlotta spoke again and he turned to her. She pulled at the chain and the cage door slid upwards.

With a last, hunted glare at us, Pyramus turned and rushed into the cage, where he knew he would be safe from the problems he was meeting in the cold, cruel world outside. Carlotta let the door drop shut swiftly.

It was over – and we were still alive. We lowered our defensive weapons and grinned at each other shakily.

‘Shall we,' Kellington said, ‘draw straws to see who gets to faint first?'

One by one, the cats crept back into view. Pandora surfaced first, delicately stepping over the hamper, yawning and stretching, as though she had simply dropped off for a while. Pearlie King paused to sharpen his claws on a chunk of railing, as though in readiness to go into battle. Champ and Topaz emerged from under the same table, looking unconcerned. It was amazing the way every one of those cats managed to give the impression that they had simply had better things to do during the recent unpleasantness than attempt to join in. I realized that all cats were born PR characters – perhaps it was due to be their next incarnation. Or had been their last.

The owners swooped on their respective cats. Helena Keswick was nuzzling Mother Brown with a display of affection I no longer thought excessive. I discovered that I was nose-deep in Pandora's fur, myself. It occurred to me that it was time I did something about regularizing our position.

Roger Chesne-Malvern was with Helena. I started towards him, then turned back. ‘Gerry,' I said apologetically, ‘I know it's a small flat, but –'

‘I saw it coming,' he said resignedly. ‘I warned you. That's a very expensive bit of fluff – she'll be mainlining caviar in no time at all.'

‘Not if some sneak doesn't introduce her to it,' I said.

‘All right, have it your own way,' he said. ‘You will, anyway. Heaven help you the day some woman gets her hooks into you – you've no sales resistance at all.'

‘Thanks, Gerry.' I went over to Roger Chesne-Malvern. Then I was completely tongue-tied. How do you ask a man if he'll sell his late wife's cat to you, but allow you to postdate the cheque until you're sure
her
cheque to your Company has cleared?'

‘... six months is plenty,' he was saying to Helena. ‘Damn it, we're not living in Victorian times.' He looked up abruptly, and there was no time to retreat.

I cleared my throat and plunged in. ‘I was wondering,' I said, ‘if you'd consider selling Pandora –?'

‘No.' He smiled, but shook his head firmly. ‘I wouldn't dream of selling Pandora.'