Glancing at Kit, Dulcie dropped from the awning to a bench, then to the sidewalk. With the kit close behind her, they skirted through the bushes past the uniformed officers and the coroner and the body. Crossing the porch in shadow, within moments they were inside the house, silent and unseen. Following Detective Garza and Helen Thurwell through the house, Dulcie and Kit glanced at each other, their curiosity equally sharp, equally predatory and keen.
Joe Grey trotted fast up the four blocks to Wilma's stone cottage and, avoiding the front garden, galloped around behind where the wild hill rose steeply at the back. Leaping up through the jungle of tall grass, its dry swords laced through with new green shoots, he spun around, standing tall on his hind paws and peered over the rustling jungle, in through the guest-room window.
He could see Kate's tan wheeled suitcase lying open on a luggage stand. The only clothing not folded into it was her blue velvet robe, which was thrown across a chair. The black tom crouched just beside the bed. Even as Joe watched, Azrael slid up and into the open suitcase among her sweaters and silk lingerie bags, and began to paw through them, his black tail lashing as he prodded and poked with demanding paws. Joe watched him, frowning. Kate was all packed to head home, the hangers in the closet empty, the bedding turned back, the sheets and pillowslips removed and piled in a heap in the corner. That, Dulcie had told him, was the way Wilma liked her guests to leave a room. Neither Dulcie nor Wilma could understand why a house guest, on departing, would make up the bed with dirty sheets when his host would only have to strip them off again, to put on clean ones for the next round of company.
When the tom had finished patting and pawing at the sweaters and lingerie, he turned his attention to the side pockets of the suitcase, sliding his quick black paw into one pocket after another, searching as thoroughly as would any human thief.
But searching for what? Why would this feline thief waste his time with maybe a few hundred dollars in cash, say, when he was accustomed, working with a human partner, to robbing far more productive safes and cash registers? And why Kate?
Kate had told Wilma that the choker she wore last night was paste, fake jewels. So why would this black beast want it? And where was his human partner? Who was Azrael running with now, if old Greeley was out of the picture? Joe watched, fascinated and filled with questions as the tomcat rooted and dug.
When the cat had investigated nearly every inch of the suitcase and had slyly smoothed each item back as it had been, when he was rooting in the last small pocket, he paused.
With his paw deep in the smallest pocket, he remained very still. His mouth was open, panting, his ears shifting in every direction, seeking for the faintest sound.
The tip of his tail twitching with excitement, Azrael withdrew his paw, claws extended. Dangling from those curved rapiers was a round flashing key fob attached to a long silver key.
Dropping his prize on the carpet, he stood looking down at it. A very plain key and curiously flat, no little ridges as most keys had to fit into the mysterious depths of their given lock. This key did have little protrusions to code the tumblers, but each was precisely cut, at right angles. And Joe Grey smiled.
Clyde carried a key like that, struck from a flat sheet of metal, each straight cutout with only right angles and precise corners, a key that looked as if it would be easy to reproduce but, for reasons Joe didn't understand, was apparently hard to duplicate-or maybe locksmiths did not keep that kind of blanks, in some universally agreed-upon deference to security.
Leaving the safe deposit key lying beside the suitcase, Azrael leaped to the dresser. Pawing through a sheaf of papers that were weighted down with a hairbrush, he was once more thorough and intent. He sorted carefully thought the stack but, not finding what he was seeking, he abandoned the papers at last and tackled a leather briefcase that stood leaning against the mirror.
Poking his black nose in, then all but climbing inside, the tom wiggled and shook the bag as if fighting some inner fastener. Pawing and nosing, he backed out after some minutes, gripping in his teeth a small blue folder. A checkbook? Joe was so fascinated that he stepped on a thistle hidden among the grass, the barbs stung like needles. Flinching at the pain, he watched Azrael open the folder and stare down at the pad of checks.
Was he reading the bank's name and location? Joe watched him remove a check carbon with a careful paw and pat at it until he had folded it into quarters. Pressing the creases with his paw, he retrieved the key, laid it on the folded carbon and took them both clumsily in his teeth.
Holding his head high so as not to drag the key and maybe not drool on the carbon, Azrael left the room flaunting his prize as he might flaunt a pigeon he had captured on the wing.
Outside on the hill, Joe Grey moved fast, leaping down through the grass, heading for Dulcie's cat door. He was around the house by the corner of the garage when he heard the cat door flap, and the black beast burst out and down the steps, flashing away through Wilma's garden.
Silently Joe followed.
Metal and paper are not mouth-friendly, the one brutally hard, the other inclined to become soggy. But, heading across the village and keeping to the shadows, Azrael was on an incredible high. What he carried was practically an engraved invitation, a passport to jewels that, according to Emerson Bristol's true account of the matter, were worth a hefty fortune. The scenario was quite different from what Kate Osborne believed. And that should lead to ridiculously easy pickings; as simple as snatching baby birds from a sparrow's nest.
9
The body had been taken away. On the trampled front lawn of the yellow Victorian cottage, the coroner stood talking with Captain Harper. Inside the house could be seen, through a front window, Detective Dallas Garza and Helen Thurwell standing in a book-lined room, talking. In the same room, unobserved, Dulcie and the kit lay sprawled beneath a leather easy chair, peering out, watching and listening.
The cats weren't sure whether Helen was some sort of witness, or a suspect. Though of course Garza would want to question her, she was Quinn's sales partner. Dulcie looked around the study, mentally yawning. Quinn's house was dullsville.
One would think a real-estate agent would have a lovely home, maybe small and modest but certainly designed with character and imagination. James Quinn's residence looked as if Quinn, who was a widower, cared little about his surroundings. As if the living room were no more than a wide passageway to the bedroom or kitchen but otherwise of no use. The furniture was old and cheap, the colors faded almost to extinction; there were no pictures on the walls, no books or flowers or framed photographs on the end tables. She imagined Quinn bringing home a bag of takeout for his supper, eating it alone in the kitchen or on the couch as he watched TV on the relic set, imagined him coming into his study to do a little paperwork, then off to bed.
Maybe his social life and nice meals, whatever elegance he might enjoy, centered around the golf course. Certainly Quinn had nice clothes, certainly he dressed very well; she had seen him around the village. Whether dressed for work showing houses or for the one sport in which he indulged, he always looked well turned out.
Quinn's study was just as dull as the rest of the house, furnished with scarred and mismatched furniture and cheap plywood bookshelves. Helen stood looking down at Quinn's battered oak desk, which was strewn with folders and papers lying every which way atop a black leather briefcase.
"He never kept his papers like this, in such a mess. James might not be… have been much for a pretty house," she said almost as if she'd read Dulcie's thoughts, "but he was a neatnik when it came to work."