So I rise and amble around the front corner of the house.
She is waiting for me like a rabid panther, ready to pounce on any little failure on my part.
"Well?" she demands in a soprano shrill.
"Tighter than a tick on an Airedale."
"I did not think you would knock a door down all by your lonesome."
I sit to inspect my nails, very casually. "I do not want the scene disturbed, in case there is a big-time crime here."
"With a missing house cat?"
"Stranger things have happened."
"Name one."
I do hate it when my figures of speech are asked to stand up and defend themselves.
I nod at the attractive white silhouette, so to speak, in the opposite window. "I believe it is time to learn more of Miss Furbelow's domestic situation."
"Oh, you would just love to turn this case into Froggy Went a-Courting! Is it not a conflict of interest for an investigator to harbor romantic notions about a female client who asks him to find a missing mate?"
"On the contrary. If you read a bit more classic literature, you would know that it is standard operating procedure."
"Classic literature! You are no doubt discussing the volumes at the Thrill 'n' Quill Bookstore, with all the cool dudes and the hot dames on the covers."
"Exactly. Classic literature. Anyway, if you care to amble alter me, you will see how the old hand uses human nature to work for him without pay."
She is so silent after this, that when I arrive beneath Miss Fanny's window I am not even sure that Midnight Louise has followed me.
Miss Fanny wiggles her airy eyebrows at me, but I shake my head to show that I have found no answers across the way. I lean up against the house wall and call for her to come out.
She shakes her head, but l persist. I watch her glance over her shoulder now and again, as if undecided. Finally, she disappears.
"What is the purpose of this pantomime?" Midnight Louise asks sourly. "A road show of Romeo and Juliet? "
"Please. I am working."
"Yes, I can tell. No doubt this house would fall over if you were not leaning up against it."
"Can it, sister. I heard something around the front."
"Are you claiming an incestuous relationship with me?"
"I am claiming no relationship. That is a just an expression."
"No doubt from one of those seriously out-of-date books you lounge around on at the Thrill
'n' Quill. You would be more in keeping with the tempo of the times it you called me 'girl,' as in
'you go, girl, go.' "
This is too much. This is the last whisker! I sit right down and curl my upper lip.
"Listen, squirt. I do not lounge on anything but my laurels at the Thrill 'n' Quill. I go there only on business to consult my, er, librarian, Ingram. As for calling you 'girl,' I am given to understand that would be the supreme insult. I do not mind tossing the casual insult, but I do try to avoid the socially irredeemable faux pas. And now you tell me that 'girl' is okay?"
She shrugs, looking very pleased with herself, which is nothing new in her arsenal of expressions.
"Times change, Daddy dudest. 'Girl' is now considered a term of empowerment. I guess you could call it discrimination reversed."
I shake my head, hoping that the rattling I hear is water in my ear rather than my brains hitting a dead end.
"Look. I do not care about terminology. I am more worried about termination at the moment."
Her ears prick. "You are saying you suspect serious foul play in the disappearance of Wilfrid?"
"Now the . . . ahem, girl gets it! And first I have to talk to Miss Fanny again." Midnight Louise puckers her black-velvet brow and says no more for the moment. I think I have faked the kit out. I was not born yesterday, as she is too fond of reminding me.
I trot to the front door to find a pretty picture installed there: Miss Fanny Furbelow sitting on the stoop with her long white train fluffed around her dainty feet.
"Just shoot me with a Hasselblad," Midnight Louise mutters, but it is under her breath.
"What a coquette."
"A lovely girl." I say pointedly, before trotting over and getting down to business. "I assume you are here because I requested your presence."
Miss Fanny nods, looking a bit confused.
"I also assume your . . . pet . . . is at home to let you out."
"She is a retired meter maid and is usually amenable to my requests, since I am fixed and only go next door."
I nod, well pleased. "Good girl," I say. Hey. if an uppity, ultra-liberated snip tells me this is okay, I will use it to the max, if not to the manx.
"Now, the next thing we must get your, er, pet to do is to come out alter you."
Jeez, I do not like using the term "pet" for humans. Apparently a movement is afoot to grab every denigrating term in the book and flaunt it. I do not need to prove my superiority to humans by calling them "pets." The difference is obvious to any trained observer.
Of course such an observer cannot be human.
Please do not waste time calling me a feline chauvinist. I am impervious to politically correct cant. Or can.
Meanwhile. I have two dames on my hands, both of the "girl" persuasion.
"Oh," says Miss Fanny. "I do not think I can get my pet to do everything I say. She is very independent."
"Nonsense," Miss Midnight Louise spits. "These humans are pushovers it you know how to handle them."
"For once we agree." I say with a small smile. "All right. It is obvious that your 'pet' has one soft spot."
"Where?" Miss Fanny asks with wide-open blue-gold eyes. "I am soft everywhere, of course, but she is soft only in certain places, which I have selected for private pummeling when I am in the mood."
"I am not interested," Miss Louise spits, "in your private dependency relationships."
"You," l say, gazing deeply into Miss Fanny's eye-eyes, "are her soft spot. Therefore, we will put you in danger."
"Daddy dearest! This is the client. We do not risk the client."
"l understand that, gentlest girlie," I grit right back at the little spitfire. "We merely make the gullible pet believe that the soft spot is in danger. Therefore"--l turn to Miss Fanny in a businesslike mode-"you will 'disappear' for the nonce, while Miss Louise and l have hysterics by your window. When your loyal body servant comes to the scene of the disturbance, we will subtly lure her to the neighboring house, encouraging her to think that you are trapped therein.
She will obviously leave no modern method of entry untried in her fever to enter the place."
"Oh!" Miss Fanny's odd-colored eyes melt into caramel and blueberry syrup as she gazes upon me. "You are so clever. I have only to play hide and seek for a while, then, and leave it to the professionals?" She looks trustingly from Louise to myself.
I pat her gently on the, er, flank. "Exactly. Now, do you have some special hiding place in the vicinity?"
"I do rather enjoy the arbor under the oleander bushes in bloom."
"Excellent. Off with you, and leave the rest to us."
She scampers away, tail high, wide, and handsome.
"You are quite an operator," Midnight Louise admits. Or accuses. Sometimes I cannot quite tell the difference.
"Thank you. Girl."
"I did not say 'operative.' I said operator. There is a difference, but I am sure you are unable to discern it."
"Whatever. Now comes the hard part. We must attract the pet's limited attention span, and lead it where we wish it to go.
Are you ready to scream yourself hoarse, it need be?"
"I am ready to walk a tightrope on my hind legs, if need be. I believe you are climbing up the wrong tree, but if you are willing to pussyfoot out on a limb, so am l. I do so like to watch things fall."
I say nothing in response. We return to the widow's walk window, now empty of a piquant little feline face, and proceed to yowl in tandem and hurl ourselves up at the glass.
It takes only ten minutes to draw Miss Fanny's meter maid to the window.