Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin (7 page)

The first room on the left was a small but beautifully furnished guest bedroom, with a walnut daybed and wardrobe, a Queen Anne chest of drawers, and a skirted easy chair beside a reading lamp. The daybed had been made up, ready for use, but the chest of drawers and wardrobe were empty. I wondered if the bed had ever been slept in, or if the room had been set aside in anticipation of visitors who’d never arrived.

I nodded with satisfaction when the next room proved to be a neatly arranged home office. A banker’s desk paired with a wide-bottomed wooden swivel chair sat against one wall; a dark mahogany cupboard and a black, four-drawer file cabinet sat opposite. The furnishings were heavy and handsome—businesslike rather than charming.

Even here, however, there was a disappointing absence of clutter. The desk’s surface was as empty as its drawers, and there were no file folders in the black cabinet. The cupboard, too, was empty. The office could have been anyone’s.

A wastepaper basket stood beside the desk, but there was nothing in it. Where were her bills? I wondered, recalling the trash-filled wastebasket in the lobby. Why weren’t the file drawers filled with bank statements, tax forms, correspondence? I had no intention of reading my late friend’s papers, but I wanted to know what had happened to them.

Perplexed, I moved across the hall into a dining room that was as dramatic and as formally appointed as the front room, with forest-green walls, a twinkling chandelier, a Hepplewhite dining set, a collection of small, dim still lifes in oil, and a mahogany breakfront displaying a magnificent Sevres dinner service for twelve. I wasn’t immune to the room’s elegance, but I felt a touch of exasperation when I found nothing but silverware in the breakfront’s drawers, and large serving bowls and platters in its lower compartments. Where was her
stuff
? I wondered.

The bathroom came next. Its old-fashioned claw-foot tub and pedestal sink had, I was certain, replaced the modern fittings originally installed in the apartment, as had the teak-framed, mirrored door that enclosed the modern, glass-shelved medicine cabinet.

A translucent bar of inexpensive face soap rested in the oval soap dish on the sink, and the medicine cabinet held the kind of toiletries used by a woman more concerned with cleanliness than vanity. The generic cotton swabs and the bargain-priced jar of cold cream brought to mind the serviceable coats and galoshes in the foyer’s closet, and told me more about Miss Beacham than anything else I’d seen.

Miss Beacham might have lived in private splendor, but the face she’d presented to the outside world had been a humble one. No one passing her on the street would have guessed that the plain woman in the beige raincoat and black rubber boots was a connoisseur of fine furnishings, and only a mind reader could have known that a woman who evidently spent little on herself would one day give away thousands of pounds.

Miss Beacham, it seemed, had lived a double life. I couldn’t help wondering why.

Hungry for clues, I opened a connecting door and discovered a walk-in linen closet filled with the faint scent of lavender. The sweet floral fragrance triggered a mundane but bothersome query in my mind.

Had Miss Beacham emptied her refrigerator before her final trip to the hospital?

I stepped into the hallway and sniffed the air experimentally, but detected only the mingled scents of floor polish and dust. If anything in the kitchen had gone bad, the stench hadn’t yet reached the hall.

“Can’t hurt to check,” I muttered, and trotted to the rear of the apartment, where I found the kitchen.

It would have been a bright and cheerful room—a perfect place for baking raisin bread, I noted wistfully—if the day had been bright and cheerful. A well-scrubbed pine table sat opposite the double sink, the walls were pale yellow, the countertops creamy white, the floor was covered with terra-cotta tiles, and the modern cabinets were finished in golden oak. A yellow corkboard dotted with colorful pushpins had been affixed to a door that led, presumably, to a pantry or a storage cupboard, and the large window over the sink would have admitted plenty of sunshine, had there been any to admit.

Unfortunately, the gray day had given way to an even grayer twilight. I glanced at my watch and saw, to my amazement, that it was three o’clock—well past my usual lunch hour. My promise to Bill combined with rising protests from a pathetically hollow stomach clinched my decision to give the refrigerator a quick inspection and leave the cabinets and the pantry until after I’d had a bite to eat.

It was a sensible plan and I would have followed through on it if a bloodcurdling wail hadn’t stopped me in my tracks. Startled, I yelped in alarm, looked wildly around the room, and froze, petrified by the sight of two demonic yellow eyes peering at me through the kitchen window.

Six

The yellow eyes blinked and a sinuous form took shape in the gloom as the black cat stretched its mouth wide to emit another chilling yowl.

“You
stupid
creature,” I fumed, clapping a hand over my galloping heart. “You scared the
spit
out of me. Shoo. Go away. You don’t live here.”

The cat bumped its head against the windowpane, and it suddenly occurred to me that the foolish animal was sitting on a rain-slicked windowsill
four stories
above the ground.

“How on earth did you get up here?” I demanded.

The cat tapped the window with its claws, then reared up on its hind legs and pressed its front paws against the slippery pane.

“Are you
crazy?
” I cried, rushing to the sink. “Sit still or you’ll break your neck!”

The cat began to prowl back and forth along the sill, flicking its long black tail and yowling.

I gripped the sink and watched in consternation, terrified that the stupid beast would miss its footing and plunge headlong to the parking space reserved for Miss Beacham’s nonexistent car. I told myself resolutely that I couldn’t let a strange animal into an apartment that didn’t belong to me, especially a stray cat that would no doubt sharpen its claws on Miss Beacham’s irreplaceable upholstery and distribute hair balls liberally across the priceless Persian rugs.

But I couldn’t let it fall, could I?

A dozen stoplights flashed crimson in my brain but I ignored each and every one of them as I darted over to close the kitchen door and raced back to open the window. The cat slipped inside, shook droplets from its fur, and sat on the counter beside the sink, regarding me expectantly.

He was a neutered male and he seemed to be well cared for. He had no visible scars or injuries and he wasn’t alarmingly thin. He was, in my opinion, quite handsome. His wide-set eyes were as yellow as dandelions, his whiskers were wonderfully long, and his black coat gleamed like satin. He appeared to be a well-fed, healthy house pet whose curiosity had led him into danger.

“You know what killed the cat, don’t you?” I said darkly. “If I wasn’t such a softy, you’d be down to eight lives by now. Cats don’t
always
land on their feet. I suppose you expect me to go door to door, searching for your owner?”

The cat gazed pointedly at the cabinet above his head, stood on his hind legs, and patted the door with one damp paw, mewing plaintively.

“Filled with mice, is it?” I shook my head, opened the cabinet door, and let out a soft cry of surprise.

The cabinet was filled with cans of cat food—expensive,
gourmet
cat food. Two blue willow-patterned china bowls sat toward the front of the bottom shelf. Between them lay a silver teaspoon. Its handle took the form of an elongated cat.

“Meow,” said the cat.

I continued to stare at the cat food while the light of understanding slowly dawned. Miss Beacham had told me that she’d never owned a cat, but that didn’t mean she’d never loved one. The bowls, the spoon, and the food supply bore mute witness to her fondness for the creatures. Did she feed every stray that showed up on her windowsill, I asked myself, or was the black cat a special friend?

“Hamish?” I said, reaching out to the cat. “Are you Hamish?”

The cat swatted my proffered hand peremptorily and let out another nerve-shattering yowl.

“Sorry,” I said, withdrawing hastily. “Dinner first, introductions later.”

I filled one bowl with water, emptied a can of cat food into the other, and placed both on the floor. Hamish leapt down from the counter and began eating as if he’d never been fed. While he demolished his dinner, I rinsed the empty can and the cat-shaped spoon, set them on the draining board to dry, and boosted myself up on the sink to take a look outside.

The bare branches of a copper beech beckoned to me from the gathering gloom. The closest were no more than three feet away. Any cat worth his salt could use the tree as a handy stepladder and—with a carefully judged leap—gain access to Miss Beacham’s windowsill.

“So you’re not just a pretty face.” I slid down from the sink and closed the window. “You’re a clever climber, too. Tell me, did Miss Beacham provide for your
every
need?”

I surveyed the room attentively and noticed for the first time that a cat flap had been set into the door sporting the bright yellow corkboard. When I crossed to investigate, I found a utility room with a washer and dryer as well as shelves stocked with folded grocery bags, dust cloths, buckets, and miscellaneous cleaning supplies. I was completely unsurprised to discover a sack of kitty litter beside a plastic litter box on the floor.

“A good hostess is prepared for everything,” I declared, tipping litter into the plastic box.

Hamish padded to my side as I filled the box, as if to supervise the operation, then returned to his bowls, to continue the equally important business of stuffing his face. I turned my attention to the refrigerator. It had not only been emptied, but scrubbed clean. I recalled the grubby state of my own refrigerator and winced. Miss Beacham’s housekeeping skills put mine to shame.

The rest of the kitchen cabinets were filled with cooking utensils, an unusually large number of bread loaf pans, and a variety of canned goods. Since I couldn’t leave Hamish alone in the apartment—or toss him back onto the windowsill to meet an uncertain fate—I decided to plunder Miss Beacham’s shelves for my supper.

While Hamish cleaned his paws and whiskers, I heated a can of vegetable soup and ate it at the pine table in the kitchen. I was scooping up the last spoonful when I heard the familiar sound of my cell phone ringing, far away in the living room. I ran to answer it.

It was Bill, calling to tell me to spend the night in Oxford.

“Get a room at the Randolph,” he said. “Do not, I repeat,
do not
attempt to drive home tonight. The fog’s so thick I can’t see Peacock’s pub.”

“You can’t see across the square?” I said, amazed.

“I can’t see the war memorial,” he replied. “I’ll have to drive home at two miles an hour.”

“What about the boys?” I asked anxiously. “Are they still at Anscombe Manor?”

“They’re at home with Annelise,” Bill reassured me. “Mr. Barlow dropped them off at the cottage before the heavy stuff set in.”

“Thank heavens,” I said, and was momentarily distracted by Hamish, who bounded into the living room, batting a crumpled ball of paper before him like a hockey puck. I watched in fascination as he braced his paws against the Persian carpet, waggled his haunches, pounced, sent the ball of paper skittering beneath the Regency bookstand, and dove after it.

“Where did you find
that?
” I said.

“Where did I find what?” Bill asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the cat. He’s found a ball of paper to play with, and it’s not mine.”

A brief silence ensued, followed by: “The cat?”

“Er. Yes. The cat. Didn’t I mention him?” I chided myself silently for leaving the kitchen door open in my rush to answer the phone, and told Bill about my uninvited guest. “I’m pretty sure he’s the mysterious Hamish Miss Beacham missed so much while she was in the hospital,” I concluded. “I can understand why she was fond of him. He’s beautiful, for one thing, and he’s like a little bouncy ball when he’s playing. He’d be good company for a woman living on her own.”

“I’m sure he would,” said Bill, “but you can’t take him with you to the Randolph. What are you going to do with him?”

The ball of paper popped out from beneath the bookstand and Hamish popped out after it. He chased it to the Queen Anne settee and gave it a smack that sent it skidding across the carpet to land at my feet, whereupon he seemed to lose interest in his improvised toy. He preened his gleaming black coat for a moment, then jumped up onto the settee and began to clean his whiskers. He seemed completely at ease, as if a spot of postprandial grooming before the hearth were part of his regular routine.

“I can’t take him to the Randolph,” I said slowly, “I can’t leave him alone in the apartment, and I can’t throw him out into the rain.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll stay here tonight and figure out what to do with him tomorrow. I’ll call Miss Beacham’s lawyer and ask if I can use her guest room.”

“I wouldn’t mention Hamish to him,” cautioned Bill. “Mr. Moss may not be as softhearted as you are.”

“Mum’s the word,” I said. “And if Mr. Moss vetoes the idea, Hamish and I will camp out at St. Benedict’s. Julian won’t mind feeding an extra pair of strays.”

“Julian lives to feed strays,” Bill said with a chuckle. We chatted for a few more minutes, then said good night.

I dug Miss Beacham’s letter out of my shoulder bag and tapped in the number for the law firm of Pratchett & Moss. A youthful-sounding female answered. When I told her my name, she put me through directly to Mr. Moss.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Shepherd,” he said. His sober tone and cultivated accent brought to mind an image of a well-tailored, white-haired gentleman who preferred trained hunting dogs to playful cats. I warmed to him nevertheless, if only because he’d gotten my name right. Most people got it wrong because I hadn’t changed it when I’d married. My husband was Bill Willis, but I was and always would be Lori Shepherd.