Murder on Show (19 page)

‘Sure we can,' the boy said. ‘Ours is the only cat around without any tail at all. He lost it in an accident. Our uncle told us when he gave him to us. Champ fell off a lorry, and his tail snapped right off.'

‘No, it didn't,' the other boy said. ‘He lost it in a fight. Another cat bit it off. Our Champ is the best fighter in the whole city.'

That, I believed. The kids were in deadly earnest. It was too bad they hadn't their facts straight. Marcus Opal was twitching with glee.

‘You see?' he crowed. ‘You see? They don't know anything about that cat. They don't even know there
is
such a breed as the Manx. How could they possibly have owned one?'

It was a good point, but hardly decisive. I wondered if Marcus had been such an expert on cats when he was the age these kids were. The others seemed to be having second thoughts along the same lines.

Helena loosened her hold on the boy. Kellington let go of the little girl and she sidled closer to me. Something was lacking in Marcus's passionate claim of ownership. He wasn't getting any co-operation from Precious. He seemed to realize this suddenly.

‘Make him let go of Precious!' His voice was rising unpleasantly. ‘Look at him – he's strangling Precious. Precious can't breathe. He's dying!'

If Precious couldn't take care of himself, it was the first time he'd been in that condition since any of us had met him. We looked at the boy and the cat. The kid had a stranglehold on Precious, all right, but Precious didn't seem discomfited by it. Although his head was twisted to one side, and one paw was caught awkwardly under his chin, he wasn't even trying to struggle.

‘Give me that cat!' Marcus advanced on the kid, who backed away. Precious's eyes narrowed to slits, he growled and lashed out with all three available paws. But not at the kid – at Marcus.

‘What are you doing in here?' Marcus shifted his attack. ‘Children aren't supposed to be running around unaccompanied. How did you get in here?'

‘We
came
in.' The little girl spoke up, for the first time. She pressed closer to me, laying her hand on my sleeve possessively. ‘We're guests – we're guests of Mr Perkins.'

And it all clicked together in my mind, as her hand tightened on my sleeve. The embroidered familiar face on the Puss-in-Boots Guy. The way Precious had sniffed my jacket and sleeve and then given those awful interrogating yowls – every time, it had been after an encounter with the kids. After the kids had been crowding around me. Plastering their sticky little hands all over my jacket and sleeves. He'd scented them on me. He'd been trying to ask me about them. Trying desperately to communicate with me. To find a way back where he belonged. Where he was happy. He
was
their cat. I knew that now, beyond any doubt. He wasn't Precious, he was Champ from Peckham.

Vaguely, I was aware of movement at both ends of the Main Aisle. The Inspector and a couple of his men were approaching from one end of the aisle. At the other end, rounding the corner midway between Dave's stand and the Big Cage, Carlotta, Roger Chesne-Malvern and Hugo Verrier were approaching. They hadn't seen each other yet, our group was in the middle, blocking their view. They advanced on us from both sides.

Across the aisle, the carpenters tossed the last of the guard rails into the pile on the ground and moved off, presumably to begin dismantling the unoccupied aisles of the rest of the Exhibition while they waited for us to leave. I wondered how much longer the Inspector would keep us – and whether he'd like to sort out this little mess. He'd been worried about whether or not I had made off with Pandora. Here was a genuine catnapping for him to solve.

‘You know,' Kellington Dasczo said abruptly, ‘that cat looks happy. It's the first time I've seen him when he wasn't trying to tear the place apart.'

‘He knows us,' the boy said. ‘He belongs to us. He wants to go home with us.'

‘Yes,' Helena said softly, ‘perhaps he does.' She released the other boy, who moved up to stand beside his brother. The little girl smiled up at me and went over with them.

‘You can't
do
this,' Marcus Opal said wildly. ‘You can't take him away from me. He's mine – mine! What right have they to him? They don't even know what they have. You can't leave a jewel on a dungheap. It belongs to the person who recognizes it for what it is – not to the fool who threw it there. Precious Black Jade is
mine
!'

The kids were surrounding the cat, one with a throttle-hold on his neck, another tugging fondly at a dangling hind leg, the little girl patting his head rather heavily. Yet that snarling, battling spitfire hung there, offering no resistance. On his face there was an expression of foolish resignation. A loud, unfamiliar throbbing pulsed out from his throat.

Champ was purring.

Marcus seemed to know that he had lost. ‘I couldn't resist,' he wailed. ‘He was so beautiful, so perfect, just what I had been looking for. Why shouldn't I? I took better care of him than they ever could. I fed him better, housed him better, provided him with a mate, gave him every luxury –'

‘Alas,' Kellington sighed, ‘he loved not wisely, but too well.'

It seemed to be the opinion of them all. Helena smiled at him sympathetically and then, over my shoulder, at Roger, who had joined us.

It was impossible not to feel sorry for Marcus. You could tell yourself that he didn't deserve it, that he was a thief – but he was so crazy about that cat. I wondered, if I had the chance to tuck Pandora under my jacket and sneak away with sporting odds against being caught, how far I could be trusted myself.

‘You've still got Topaz,' I tried to comfort him, holding the little golden cat out to him.

‘No.' He took her automatically, stroking her sadly. ‘She's gone too. Beyond my reach. She's lovely – but what use is a little queen without the perfect stud?'

Carlotta and Hugo had stopped beside the Big Cage, they seemed to be arguing. The Inspector was abreast of us now.

‘Excuse me, sir,' he called out, ‘we'd like to speak to you again. Just a formality. If you'd come along with us.'

‘Yes, of course.' Roger Chesne-Malvern smiled and stepped forward.

‘No, sir, not you,' the Inspector said. ‘Verrier – I mean – Mr Verrier, is the one we want.'

Hugo looked down the aisle at us all, and moved back. He still kept a hold on Carlotta's arm and she moved with him. She didn't seem to like it, she said something sharply to him.

He struck her across the face. While we still goggled, he swung her around in front of him like a shield.

‘Now, just come along quietly,' the Inspector said, in tones of sweet reasonableness. ‘You can't do yourself any good by behaving like this.'

‘Come and get me!' Hugo challenged. He lurched up against the Big Cage. I saw the swift, blurred motion of his hand, as he pulled at something. Then, for good measure, he kicked the cage.

The Inspector wasn't as familiar with the set-up as the rest of us. He didn't realize what had happened. Intent on Hugo, he had not seen the door at the end of the cage slide upwards.

Advancing, he stopped suddenly at finding his path to Hugo blocked by two Sumatran tigers.

‘Stay still!' Carlotta shouted. ‘Oh, please, do not anybody move.'

The humans didn't need telling, but the cats scented danger and scattered. Animated chunks of fur flew through the air and lit out for what they considered safety. Pandora, I was glad to see, was a real little PR cat. At the first sign of trouble, she was going to pretend she wasn't there and hope it would pass over her head without noticing her. She sent me a look of frantic innocence – that was one cage door
she
hadn't opened – and went to ground under the table.

One cat miscalculated. A silver idiot ran directly up the aisle towards the tigers, catching their attention. One great paw swung out and the white cat went flying through the air to land somewhere behind Carlotta and Hugo. Betty Lington screamed sharply and began sobbing. She tried to move forward, but Helena Keswick caught her arm.

‘It's too late to do anything,' Helena said. ‘It won't help if they kill you, too.'

‘Please!' Carlotta struggled against Hugo. ‘Let me go. Let me talk to Pyramus and Thisbe. I must calm them. They are overwrought – it is dangerous. They must return to their cage.'

‘That's the idea, my pet.' Hugo continued backing slowly, pulling Carlotta with him. ‘Let the nice policemen put them back in their cage. We're leaving.'

‘You're under arrest!' the Inspector snapped at him.

It was a pretty good try. Especially for a raging ailurophobe who was caught up in what must be every ailurophobe's most secret nightmare, standing his ground before a pair of cats weighing at least 350 lbs. each.

The tigers seemed bewildered at being out of their cage and faced with so much light and space. One, on hearing Carlotta's voice, had turned that way and seemed to be considering going to her. The other was facing the Main Aisle squarely and obviously didn't like the sight. The terrible challenging scream sounded again. Then the tiger began to pad forward slowly.

‘For God's sake,' Marcus Opal shouted, ‘can't you shoot him?'

‘Don't be a fool,' Kellington snapped. ‘You know our police don't carry guns.'

‘Then hit it with a truncheon,' Marcus insisted. (I'd like to have seen him try it and so, obviously, would the Inspector.) ‘Where's your truncheon?'

‘We don't carry them any more.' The Inspector's eyes swivelled viciously towards Marcus – if he could have turned that look on the tiger, he might have had a sporting chance of stunning it. ‘They issue us with walkie-talkies these days, sir.'

Now that he mentioned it, I recognized the crackling noise in the background – I'd thought it was my nervous system breaking up. From the commotion issuing from it, I gathered Headquarters was tuned in to us and knew what was happening.

‘How long will it take help to get here?' I asked the Inspector.

‘They'll be here as soon as possible, sir,' he said. Which translated, as we all knew, into ‘
Too long.
'

I was nearest the Inspector and could pick up occasional words squawking over the box. Words like, ‘Whipsnade', ‘RSPCA' and ‘Regent's Park'. By the time they rallied their forces and found animal trainers competent to deal with the situation, we could all be mincemeat.

‘You mean there's nothing we can do except stand here and wait?' Marcus protested.

‘If you're a religious man, you might try praying,' the Inspector said.

‘I'd rather try a double brandy,' Gerry murmured.

The tiger had stopped advancing and had half-turned to look back at his mate. She was still watching Carlotta and Hugo with a great deal of interest. My own view wasn't too good but, from what I could see, I didn't blame her.

For a man who wanted to get away so urgently, Hugo was behaving in an extraordinary manner. He had stopped by Dave Prendergast's stand and, still shielding himself with Carlotta, had taken the new shovel and was prodding it into the thick carpet of Pussy No-Poo beneath the roots of each tree.

Carlotta had gone very quiet after her first outbreak. Hugo had either half-strangled her, or she had decided that she was in the hands of a raving lunatic. Either way, she was offering no resistance, despite the fact that he was only holding her with one arm. Although, if he had done much sculpting, he must have arms as strong as a blacksmith's.

The other tiger moved back a few paces and seemed undecided as to whether or not he wanted to join his mate. She had inched forward slightly, still watching Carlotta. Carlotta was watching her, too, but there was no hint in either face of what they might be thinking.

It was so silent, barring the crackle from the walkie-talkie, that we heard the
‘thunk'
as the shovel struck something solid. Hugo pulled up the tilting sapling, tossed it aside, and then tried to use the shovel as a lever to raise his find.

By then, we all knew, or guessed, what he must be after. A golden head rose into view as the chemical turf slid away. As Marcus had been saying, a jewel on a dungheap indeed.

‘We know all about it, Verrier,' the Inspector said. ‘The whole insurance fraud you planned. Just come along quietly.' They were fairly brave words from a man who wasn't going anywhere himself just yet. ‘You can't get away with it.'

‘So that was it,' Helena Keswick said. ‘He stole his own statue to collect the insurance money. And then, I suppose, he intended to melt it down and use the gold again. Or just sell the gold. But Rose –'

‘Rose was upset about something.' Roger Chesne-Malvern was grim. ‘She hadn't time to explain, but I gathered it was partly to do with her emerald earrings, and partly to do with the amount the statue had been insured for.'

‘That's right,' Helena said. ‘We were all rather surprised when we learned the amount. It was higher than we had thought.'

‘Precisely,' the Inspector said. ‘Mrs Chesne-Malvern had planned on a smaller sum. She was only thinking of it from the publicity angle, she hadn't intended to realize on the policy. After the theft, when the insurance adjuster interviewed her and she learned the actual amount of the policy for the first time, she began to be suspicious. I presume that she took the matter up with Verrier. That was the night he killed her.'

‘It was an accident,' Hugo shouted. ‘I was trying to reason with her. She wouldn't listen. It was her own fault. I pushed her and she fell. She hit her head on the corner of this stand. She was dead when I picked her up.'

‘Was she?' The Inspector was completely deadpan. ‘You thought the guard was dead, too, didn't you? That's why you left him there without finishing the job.' It could have been, it probably was, a bluff. But my blood ran cold.