SAY GOODBYE TO ARCHIE: A Rex Graves Mini-Mystery (6 page)

“Really, Roger!”
Dot chided without missing a beat in her sewing.

He continued regardless. “Sales have dwindled dramatically, according to her editor, whom I dined with last week.
Claude the Contortionist Cat
and
Claude the Contrary Cat
had ‘weak and predictable plots,’ the reviews said, and lacked the cautionary aspect that parents had come to love so much. ‘See what happened to Claude when he got too inquisitive?’ ” Roger said, his voice denoting quotation marks. “ ‘That’s right! His tail got stuck in a mousetrap!’ Or, ‘Look what happened to Claude when he gazed in the mirror once too often. He saw the image of a bigger, meaner cat that Horrible Harry had pasted over the looking glass, and was so frightened he wouldn’t look at his reflection again!’ That was in
Claude the Conceited Cat
.”

“My son
loved those books when he was a bairn,” Rex reminisced aloud. “Not sure it cured him of mirrors, though. He is pretty vain.”

Roger barked out a laugh. “Aren’t we
all! Well, Archie’s nine lives are well and truly over now, poor bugger. But at least his were blessed. And he made it to one hundred and twenty-six in human years! That I should be so lucky. Thank God it’s a closed casket. Frankly, I find the whole thing frightfully gruesome. So much more pleasant if we could all be playing croquet on the lawn. Oh, there’s Noel sitting on his own. Excuse me while I go say hello. I don’t want him to think I’m avoiding him.”

He wandered off, to Rex’s disappointment. Roger had a penchant for gossip, which might come in useful. And he appeared to be perceptive. Perhaps with his artist’s eye he could see behind the subject at hand. Certainly, Rex would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of
his acerbic wit.

“This is Faye,” Patricia announced out of the blue, practically dragging a young woman over to Rex’s chair. A rather delicate name for such a chunk of girl, Rex thought. Her appearance was slovenly, her dun hair loosely bound in a ponytail, her frock a size too big on her large frame.

“I ‘do’ for Mrs. Forsythe,” she explained in a broad Sussex accent. Her slightly crossed eyes made her look slow-witted or else sly. “I didn’t miss it, did I?” she asked her employer. “I wouldn’t want to miss poor Archie’s burial, only me mum needed me. I’ve so many younger brothers and sisters, you wouldn’t believe!” she told Rex, who smiled at her candour. “I almost missed the bus.”

“You’re just in time,” Patricia assured her.

Rex recalled that in the event of the cat surviving Patricia, the will provided that Faye should live at the Poplars and take care of him until his natural death, whereupon she was to receive a sizeable amount of money to start again somewhere, and the house would then go to Connie and Charles. In the reverse event, Faye would receive a gratuity of three thousand pounds, a substantial amount for a girl of her means.

Patricia moved off, muttering something about making sure everything was in place for the ceremony. Rex inferred he was meant to speak to the girl and find out what he could.

“This is very hard on her,” she said, gazing after Patricia. “She was bonkers about Archie. He was the perfect nap cat-lap cat. Just a big softie, really.”

“Hard on you too, she told me.” Aside from being saddened by Archie’s death, Faye must be disappointed not to benefit from the more generous terms of the will. But perhaps she was fonder of Patricia than Archie…

Faye plopped down on Roger’s chair. Dot had finished sewing his button on his cardigan and went to present it to him. Charles was limping around the tea table, so no one was within earshot as Rex prepared to glean what information he could from Patricia’s fortnightly help.

“I understand that Patricia holds you in such high regard that she entrusted you with the care of her cat and also the house in the event of her demise.”

Faye nodded solemnly. “I would’ve stayed here fulltime to take care of the place and Archie, if it had been the other way round than what happened, and been more than glad to do it. But I never really expected Archie to outlive Mrs. F. I mean, he was a cat. He was getting on in years, and she’s as fit as a fiddle. It was just in case she was run over by a bus or something, I s’ppose. She couldn’t bear the idea of him being homeless, and she didn’t want him put with a family that might mistreat him, or him put back in a cat shelter. He didn’t really like other cats.”

“Or dogs,” Dot remarked, returning to resume her knitting.

“What aboot Connie or Charles?” Rex asked Faye over the clatter of needles. “Couldn’t they have taken care of him?”

“
Miss Connie is too busy with her kids. And Mr. Charles has got only a small flat in London. Archie would’ve been miserable there. I think Miss Connie would like to live at the Poplars. Without her mum, I mean. It’s great for kids here. Nice and safe.”

“Do you know if she left you something in her will
in the current situation?” Rex enquired disingenuously, knowing the answer and taking the opportunity of Dot being in conversation with a new arrival standing over her chair, a man in Wellington boots who had a loud blustering voice.

“I’m sure I don’t.” The young woman blushed all over her plain face, though made significantly less plain by comparison with all the older guests. “I’m only part-time, but I been coming here going on four years.”

So she would know the family quite well, Rex deduced from that. “If Connie or Charles could not have taken Archie in, could one of them not have moved back here?”

Faye’s crossed eyes widened as she appeared to wonder at
all his questions. But not for long. “Like I said, Miss Connie’s got enough on her plate already what with being a single mum, and Archie did demand quite a bit of attention. And Mr. Charles isn’t partial to cats. Mrs. F. wanted to keep Archie in his ‘accustomed habitat,’ is what she said, and,” here Faye flushed again, “she confided to me that she didn’t want Miss Connie’s two kids what she called ‘terrorizing’ poor Archie.”

Patricia interrupted to introduce the large man in wellies, who was holding, somewhat incongruously, a delicate china tea cup and saucer. “Reginald, I’d like you to meet Doug Strange. He’s the local veterinarian. He can’t stay long.” She seemed anxious for him to talk to the vet, and took herself off again, leading Faye away with her on the pretext of needing her help.

“I dropped by to see how Patricia was getting on,” the vet told Rex. He had a neatly clipped greying moustache that ran along the length of his top lip and put Rex in mind of a broom brush. “I was delivering a calf at the Parridge farm. I understand she plans a small ceremony here in the garden with a marble plaque to mark the spot. ‘In loving memory of Archie,’ sort of thing. ‘May the wicked be avenged.’ That bit is probably not part of the engraving, but I’m sure it’s implied.” Dr. Strange winked with complicity. “She’s on a crusade to find out who killed her cat, as you know. Though she told everybody he had simply eaten some foxglove.”

“I’m not sure of the details of the ceremony. But, aye, Patricia got me down here to look into Archie’s possible murder.”

“Presumably she thought you, being a barrister, could get to the bottom of it?”

“Something
like that.” No point going into his hobby of solving murder cases, which he undertook in his spare time. These had never involved an animal before. “She told me Archie had been poisoned.”

The vet nodded.
“Toxicosis. I found digitalis in his stomach. Patricia insisted I look for poison, having found some bits of purple petal in his vomit. Given the symptoms and evidence, I was able to narrow it down. Shame. Nice animal and a good patient. Didn’t try to claw me up like a lot of cats when I examined him in the past. He seemed to understand it was for his own good.”

“Would he have had many good years left?”

“Hard to say. Cats are among the most resilient of creatures, and very stoic. Sometimes it’s hard to know how much they’re suffering. Archie was slowing down, like the rest of us, but he still had quality of life. He was very alert, and, of course, brought Patricia so much comfort in her old age.”

“No question about the poison, then?”

“None.”

“Could he have eaten it accidentally?”

“Cats have more sense. Dogs, on the other hand, get into all sorts of things. In any case, I found the foxglove diced up in the contents of his stomach. Couldn’t have done that himself. Stitched him back together, though, good as new. Patricia insisted.”

“Have you come across other cases of pet poisonings?”

Dr. Strange pondered the question briefly, tea cup and saucer split between two strong hands. “Not deliberate, no.” He looked Rex direct in the eye. “I hope you find out who did this, for Patricia’s sake. And everyone else’s.”

*

Rex sat back in his chair as Dr. Strange moved off to talk to Noel. The little man in the yellow bowtie wore thick lenses in his glasses and appeared nimble and shrewd. Rex wanted to have a word with him as well, to try to determine how much rancour actually existed over the incident of his dog’s nose. He wondered how much money Patricia’s neighbour had stood to gain had Cutie Pie won an award at Crufts, though it probably wasn’t all about the money, but also about prestige. Rex couldn’t imagine owning a show animal. In as far as he had ever envisioned having a dog, it was a large shaggy affair bounding about his weekend lodge in the Highlands, not prancing around an arena before a panel of judges.

The only other person he had not had an opportunity to speak with was Felicity Parker. The literary agent had just
reappeared around the side of the house looking somewhat exasperated. This might be a good moment. She might be in the mood to vent, and people who vented tended to leave discretion to the wind. He rose from his chair holding his tea cup and approached the table at the same moment as she did.

“Barely enough left in the pot for two,” he said, lifting it. “But by the looks of it, your need is greater. May I pour you a cup?”

Felicity glanced at him and her gaze fixed. She smiled, he thought, flirtatiously. She was not wearing a wedding ring.

“Oh, thank you, yes. I’ve just had a taxing half hour with Patricia. Not the easiest client,” she added, looking at him for a reaction, perhaps gauging whether it was safe to engage him in her confidence. She fluttered scoops of black lashes above her pink blush and vermilion lip gloss. Altogether too much artifice for a face of her years,
decided Rex, who preferred natural.

“Old people can be difficult,” he commiserated, pouring out tea. “She’s my mother’s age. They were at school together. My mother is too frail to travel from Edinburgh, so I came on her behalf to offer our condolences to Patricia.”

“You knew Archie?”

“Well, I met him many years ago. And got frequent news bulletins from my mother as to how he was getting on. Patricia sent me some of her early books for my son.” He handed the agent her cup of tea and refilled his own with what was left.

“Oh.” Felicity sounded disappointed. “I, uh, so you’re married?”

“Widowed.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said with too much feeling.

“I’ve been a widower for a long time. And my son’s all grown up. But he did enjoy the Claude books. He found the cat very endearing. Roger does a grand job with the illustrations. Really brings him alive. Well, I suppose Claude will live on in spite of what’s happened.” He looked at Felicity, waiting for an answer.

“Don’t know about that. The last two books haven’t earned back their advances, at least not yet. The Claude series is running out of steam. Roger didn’t want to be associated with those last stories. ‘Not up to snuff,’ he said.”

Rex could well imagine him saying that.

“The trade reviews lacked their usual hypey exuberance,” Felicity went on. “Some online reviews were even making jokes like, ‘What’s next?:
Claude the Arthritic Cat? Claude the Geriatric Cat?
’ It was humiliating.”

For Patricia or for you?
Rex wondered.

“I’ve just been suggesting revisions for the latest manuscript
in an attempt to save it, but Patricia is refusing to listen. Says her heart’s not in it. And yet the deadline is coming up. She’s really left it to the last minute this time.”

“Could you not just take over?”

“I could. I’m a published author myself, and I know Claude inside out. I could probably swing it.” Felicity looked pretty determined, but Rex knew Patricia was not one to be pushed around by anybody.