“Oh nonsense!” flustered Mr. Whipplestone. “Nonsense, my dear fellow! Really! Nonsense! Well,” he added uneasily, “one says that.”
“Let’s hope one’s right.”
Troy came back. “The Ng’ombwanan Ambassa’dor,” she said, “would like a word with you, darling.”
“God bless his woolly grey head,” Alleyn muttered and cast up his eyes. He went to the door but checked. “Another Sanskrit coincidence for you, Sam. I rather think I saw him, too, three weeks ago in Ng’ombwana, outside his erst-while emporium, complete with anklet and earring. The one and only Sanskrit or I’m a displaced Dutchman with beads and blond curls.”
The Chubbs raised no particular objection to Lucy—“so long as it’s not unhealthy, sir,” Mrs. Chubb said, “I don’t mind. Keep the mice out, I daresay.”
In a week’s time Lucy improved enormously. Her coat became glossy, her eyes bright and her person plumpish. Her attachment to Mr. Whipplestone grew more marked, and he, as he confided in his diary, was in some danger of making an old fool of himself over her. “She is a beguiling little animal,” he wrote. “I confess I find myself flattered by her attentions. She has nice ways.” The nice ways consisted of keeping a close watch on him, of greeting him on his reappearance after an hour’s absence as if he had returned from the North Pole, of tearing about the house with her tail up, affecting astonishment when she encountered him, and of sudden onsets of attachment when she would grip his arm in her forelegs, kick it with her hind legs, pretend to bite him, and then fall into a little frenzy of purrs and licks.
She refused utterly to accommodate to her red harness, but when Mr. Whipplestone took his evening stroll she accompanied him, at first to his consternation. But although she darted ahead and pranced out of hiding places at him, she kept off the street and their joint expeditions became a habit.
Only one circumstance upset them and that was a curious one. Lucy would trot contentedly down Capricorn Mews until they had passed the garage and were within thirty yards of the pottery-pigs establishment. At that point she would go no further. She either bolted home under her own steam or performed her familiar trick of leaping into Mr. Whipplestone’s arms. On these occasions he was distressed to feel her trembling. He concluded that she remembered her accident, and yet he was not altogether satisfied with this explanation.
She fought shy of the Napoli because of the dogs tied up outside, but on one visit when there happened to be no customers and no dogs she walked in. Mr. Whipplestone apologized and picked her up. He had become quite friendly with Mr. and Mrs. Pirelli and told them about her. Their response was a little strange. There were ejaculations of “Poverina!” and the sorts of noises Italians make to cats. Mrs. Pirelli advanced a finger and crooned. She then noticed the white tip of Lucy’s tail and looked very hard at her. She spoke in Italian to her husband, who nodded portentously and said “Si” some ten times in succession.
“Have you recognized the cat?” asked Mr. Whipplestone in alarm. They said they thought they had. Mrs. Pirelli had very little English. She was a large lady and she now made herself a great deal larger in eloquent mime, curving both arms in front of her and blowing out her cheeks. She also jerked her head in the direction of Capricorn Passage. “You mean the pottery person,” cried Mr. Whipplestone. “You mean she was that person’s cat!”
He realized bemusedly that Mrs. Pirelli had made another gesture, an ancient one. She had crossed herself. She laid her hand on Mr. Whipplestone’s arm. “No, no, no. Do not give back. No. Cattivo. Cattivo,” said Mrs. Pirelli.
“Cat?”
“No, signor,” said Mr. Pirelli. “My wife is saying ‘bad man.’ They are both bad. Cruel people. Do not return to them your little cat.”
“No,” said Mr. Whipplestone confusedly. “No, I won’t. Thank you. I won’t”
And from that day he never took Lucy into the Mews.
Mrs. Chubb, Lucy accepted as a source of food and accordingly performed the obligatory ritual of brushing round her ankles. Chubb, she completely ignored.
She spent a good deal of time in the tub garden at the back of the house making wild balletic passes at imaginary butterflies.
At nine-thirty one morning, a week after his dinner with the Alleyns, Mr. Whipplestone sat in his drawing-room doing the Times crossword. Chubb was out shopping and Mrs. Chubb, having finished her housework, was “doing for” Mr. Sheridan in the basement. Mr. Sheridan, who was something in the City, Mr. Whipplestone gathered, was never at home on week-day mornings. At eleven o’clock Mrs. Chubb would return to see about Mr. Whipplestone’s luncheon. The arrangement worked admirably.
Held up over a particularly cryptic clue, Mr. Whipplestone’s attention was caught by a singular noise, a kind of stifled complaint as if Lucy was mewing with her mouth full. This proved to be the case. She entered the room backwards with sunken head, approached crab-wise and dropped something heavy on his foot. She then sat back and gazed at him with her head on one side and made the enquiring trill that he found particularly fetching.
“What on earth have you got there?” he asked.
He picked it up. It was a ceramic no bigger than a medallion, but it was heavy and must have grievously taxed her delicate little jaws. A pottery fish, painted white on one side and biting its own tail. It was pierced by a hole at the top.
“Where did you get this?” he asked severely.
Lucy lifted a paw, lay down, looked archly at him from under her arm and then incontinently jumped up and left the room.
“Extraordinary little creature,” he muttered. “It must belong to the Chubbs.”
And when Mrs. Chubb returned from below he called her in and showed it to her. “Is this yours, Mrs. Chubb?” he asked.
She had a technique of not replying immediately to anything that was said to her and she used it now. He held the thing out to her but she didn’t take it.
“The cat brought it in,” explained Mr. Whipplestone, who always introduced a tone of indifference in mentioning Lucy Lockett to the Chubbs. “Do you know where it came from?”
“I think — it must be — I think it’s Mr. Sheridan’s, sir,” Mrs. Chubb said at last. “One of his ornaments, like. The cat gets through his back window, sir, when it’s open for airing. Like when I done it out just now. But I never noticed.”
“Does she? Dear me! Most reprehensible! You might put it back, Mrs. Chubb, could you? Too awkward if he should miss it!”
Mrs. Chubb’s fingers closed over it. Mr. Whipplestone, looking up at her, saw with surprise that her apple-pink cheeks had blanched. He thought of asking her if she was unwell, but her colour began to reappear unevenly.
“All right, Mrs. Chubb?” he asked.
She seemed to hover on the brink of some reply. Her lips moved and she brushed them with her fingers. At last she said: “I haven’t liked to ask, sir, but I hope we give satisfaction, Chubb and me.”
“Indeed, you do,” he said warmly. “Everything goes very smoothly.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said and went out. He thought: “That wasn’t what she was about to say.”
He heard her go upstairs and thought: “I wish she’d return that damned object.” But almost immediately she came back. He went through to the dining-room window and watched her descend the outside steps into the back garden and disappear into Mr. Sheridan’s flat. Within seconds he heard the door slam and saw her return.
A white pottery fish. Like a medallion. He really must not get into a habit of thinking things had happened before or been heard of or seen before. There were scientific explanations, he believed, for such experiences. One lobe of one’s brain working a billionth of a second before the other or something to do with Time Spirals. He wouldn’t know. But, of course, in the case of the Sanskrit person it was all perfectly straight-forward: he had in the past seen the name written up. He had merely forgotten.