Mrs. Murphy’s pupils enlarged, and she saw a narrow opening to the left of the large flue. In the process of remodeling, a few loose bricks had become dislodged—just enough room for an athletic cat to squeeze through. “Here I come.” She sprang off her powerful haunches but miscalculated the depth of the landing. “Damn.” The tiger hung on to the opening, her rear end dangling over the side. She scratched with her hind claws and clambered up the rest of the way.
“Tricky.” Paddy laughed.
“You could have warned me,” she complained.
“And miss the fun?”
“What’s so important up here?” she challenged him, then, as her eyes became accustomed to the diminished light, she saw he was sitting on it. A heavy waxed oilskin much like the covering of an expensive foul-weather coat, like a Barbour or Dri-as-a-Bone, covered what appeared to be books or boxes. “Can we open this up?”
“Tried. Needs human hands,” Paddy casually remarked although he was ecstatic that his find had produced the desired thrill in Mrs. Murphy.
“What’s going on up there?” Tucker yelped.
Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out of the opening. “Some kind of stash, Tucker. Might be books or boxes of jewelry. We can’t open it up.”
“Think the humans will find it?”
“Maybe yes and maybe no.” Paddy’s fine features now came alongside Mrs. Murphy’s.
“If workmen repoint the fireplace, which they’re sure to do, it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll look inside here or just pop bricks in and mortar them up.” Mrs. Murphy thought out loud. “This is too good a find to be lost again.”
“Maybe it’s treasure.” Tucker grinned. “Claudius Crozet’s lost treasure!”
“That’s in the tunnel; one of the tunnels,” Paddy said, knowing that Crozet had cut four tunnels through the Blue Ridge Mountains in what was one of the engineering feats of the nineteenth century—or any century. He accomplished his feat without the help of dynamite, which hadn’t yet been invented.
“How long do you think this has been in here?” Paddy asked.
Mrs. Murphy turned to pat the oilskin. “Well, if someone hid this, say, in the last ten or twenty years, they’d probably have used heavy plastic. Oilskin is expensive and hard to come by. Mom wanted one of those Australian raincoats to ride in and the thing was priced about $225, I think.”
“Too bad humans don’t have fur. Think of the money they’d save,” Paddy said.
“Yeah, and they’d get over worrying about what color they were because with fur you can be all colors. Look at me,” Tucker remarked. “Or Mrs. Murphy. Can you imagine a striped human?”
“It would greatly improve their appearance,” Paddy purred.
Mrs. Murphy, mind spinning as the fur discussion flew on, said, “We’ve got to get Larry over here.”
“Fat chance.” Paddy harbored little hope for human intelligence.
“You stay here with your head sticking out of the hole. Tucker and I will get him over here. If we can’t budge him, then we’ll be back, but don’t you leave. Okay?”
“You were always good at giving orders.” He smiled devilishly.
Mrs. Murphy landed in the hearth and took off for the door, Tucker close behind. They crossed the lawn, stopping under the kitchen window, where a light glowed. Larry was fixing his cup of morning coffee.
“You bark, I’ll jump up on the windowsill.”
“Not much of a windowsill,” Tucker observed.
“I can bank off it, if nothing else.” And Mrs. Murphy did just that as Tucker yapped furiously. The sight of this striped animal, four feet planted on a windowpane and then pushing off, jolted Larry wide awake. The second thud from Mrs. Murphy positively sent him into orbit. He opened his back door and, seeing the culprits, thought they wanted to join him.
“Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, come on in.”
“You come out,” Tucker barked.
“I’ll run in and right out.” Mrs. Murphy flew past Larry, brushing his legs in the process, turned on a dime, and ran back out through his legs.
“What’s the matter with you two?” The old man enjoyed the spectacle but was perplexed.
Again Mrs. Murphy raced in and raced out as Tucker ran forward, barked, and then ran a few steps away. “Come on, Doc. We need you!”
Larry, an intelligent man as humans go, deduced that the two animals, whom he knew and valued, were highly agitated. He grabbed his old jacket, slapped his porkpie hat on his head, and followed them, fearing that some harm had come to another animal or even a person. He’d heard about animals leading people to the site of an injured loved one, and a flash of fear ran through him. What if Harry’d been hurt on her way in to work?
He followed them into the addition. He stopped after walking through the door as Mrs. Murphy and Tucker dashed to the fireplace.
“Howl, Paddy. He’ll think you’re trapped or something.”
Paddy sang at his loudest, “‘Roll me over in the clover/Roll me over/Lay me down and do it again.’ ”
Tucker giggled as Mrs. Murphy leapt up to join Paddy, although she refrained from singing the song. Larry walked into the fireplace and beheld Paddy, his head thrown back and warbling for all he was worth.
“Got stuck up in there?” Larry looked around for a ladder. Not finding one, he did spy a large spackling compound bucket. He lifted it by the handle, discovering how heavy it was. He lugged it over to the hearth, positioned it under the opening, where both cats now meowed piteously, and carefully stood on it. He could just see inside.
He reached for Paddy, who shrank back. “Now, now, Paddy, I won’t hurt you.”
“I know that, you silly twit. Look.”
“His eyes aren’t good in the dark, plus he’s old. They’re worse than most,” Mrs. Murphy told her ex. “Scratch on the oilskin.”
Paddy furiously scratched away, his claws making tiny popping noises as he pulled at the sturdy cloth.
“Squint, Larry, and look real hard,” Mrs. Murphy instructed.
As if he understood, Larry shielded his eyes and peered inside. “What the Sam Hill?”
“Reach in.” Mrs. Murphy encouraged him by back-stepping toward the treasure.
Larry braced against the fireplace with his left hand, now besmirched with soot, and reached in with his right. Mrs. Murphy licked his fingers for good measure. He touched the oilskin. Paddy jumped off and came to the opening. Mrs. Murphy tried to nudge the package, but it was too heavy. Larry tugged and pulled, succeeding in inching the weighty burden forward until it wedged into the opening. Forgetting the cats for a moment, he tried to pull out the oilskin-covered bundle, but it wouldn’t fit. He poked at the bricks around the hole and they gave a bit. Cautiously he removed one, then two and three. These bricks had been left that way on purpose. The two kitty heads popped out of the new opening. Larry squeezed the package through and almost fell off the bucket because it was so heavy. He tottered and jumped off backward.
“Not bad for an old man,” Tucker commented.
“Let’s see what he’s got.” Mrs. Murphy sailed down. Paddy came after her.