Her name was Georgette.
“Harold!” she cried as she spotted me on her way to Hamlet’s former bungalow. “What’re y’all doin’ here?”
“The usual,” I said. “Solving mysteries. Talking to bones. Fearing for my life.”
Georgette giggled. “You’re such a tease,” she said. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Who was that?” I heard Howie ask Chester.
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“Her name’s Georgette,” Chester answered. “She was boarded here the last time we were.”
As Jill helped Georgette settle into her bungalow, I heard a soft rustling sound and caught a blur of movement across the way. Bob’s door was slightly ajar; his bungalow was dark.
“He’s gone,” I murmured.
He was gone, but he didn’t get far.
Jill turned and spotted him just as Bob was almost inside the office. “Now where do you think you’re going?” she called out lightheartedly. “And how did you get out? My goodness, Dr. Greenbriar’s right. We are going to have to do something about these locks.”
Making sure Georgette’s door was shut tight, she trotted across the compound and caught Bob by the collar.
“Just what are you snooping around for, huh?” She sat down on a step and began patting him. Bob panted appreciatively.
“Guess it gets kind of lonely out here, doesn’t it? It’s not like you can talk and keep each other company. Do you miss Tom and Tracy?”
Bob yipped excitedly at the mention of their names.
“I know you do. But they’ll be back soon. I don’t know why they stopped sending postcards, but I wouldn’t worry. I’ll bet they miss you just as much as you miss them.”
A clock somewhere struck the hour.
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Gosh,” Jill said. “I’ve got to get home. I only stayed late because Georgette’s owners had to drop her off tonight and I convinced Dr. Greenbriar he should let me take care of it. He’s been working too hard. I worry about him sometimes.” She yawned and stretched. “Listen to me ramble on. I’m really tired, aren’t you, Bob?”
Bob woofed. Jill smiled at him.
“You’re a good dog, Bob,” she said. “And I like your hat.”
She led him back to his bungalow then, closed the door, checked the latch, and went back inside. As careful as she was, however, she apparently was too tired to remember to cover Ditto’s cage—which, as it turned out, was a stroke of good fortune for the rest of us.
No sooner had the light gone out than Ditto began to squawk: “Oh, what is it again? What is it again? Six-one-one-one-five. Six-one-one-one-five … two! That’s it, two! That’s it, two!”
“Thats it!” another voice echoed.
“My goodness.” Georgette’s voice floated through the air like a dandelion fluff on a summer breeze. “What all is going on here?”
Whoever had yelled, “That’s it!” fell silent.
“Six-one-one-one-five-two?” Chester cried. “That spells fakeb! Greenbriar is a fakeb?” “Would someone pretty please tell me what’s going on?” Georgette said again. “I’m as mixed-up as an acorn on a dogwood tree.”
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At that, everyone began talking at once. I don’t know how she heard anything^ but somehow she pulled one name out of all the yammering.
“Hamlet?” she said. “Why, I knew him. I stayed here about a month ago and he was here too. He just left, did you say? Oh, I’m so glad. Archie must’ve come for him at last. That’s all Hamlet was livin’ for, y’know.”
Before anyone disillusioned her about Archie, Chester thought to ask about someone else.
“Did you know a dog named Rosebud?” he asked.
A hush fell over the place.
“Why, sure,” said Georgette. “She and I got to be best friends. And the funny thing is we live right around the block from each other back home. In fact, I just saw her this morning. We had a nice little game of Rip-the-Rag before lunch. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” said Chester. “What kind of dog is she?”
“A Yorkie.”
The next sound I heard was someone panting furiously. Whoever it was sounded terrified. I was less than thrilled to realize it was me.
Chester’s door opened as he stepped out into the compound. “There’s something I’d like to show you, Georgette,” he said.
One by one, all the doors opened. We followed Chester to the familiar mound of dirt in the far corner next to Georgette’s bungalow. Chester
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pawed at the ground until the bones shone in the moonlight. Georgette gasped at the sight, but when Rosebud’s collar came into view, she laughed.
“So that’s where it went,” she said. “That was Rosebud’s favorite collar. She lost it one day during a game of Food-Dish-Food-Dish-Who’s-Got-the-Food-Dish and we never could find it.”
“But it spoke to us,” The Weasel said.
“We all heard it,” said Bob.
“Those bones, that collar,” Linda said.
“She said her name was Rosebud,” I explained. “She told us she was a Yorkshire terrier and that she’d been, well …”
“Terminated,” said Howie. “All because she knew the secret of Chateau Bow-Wow.”
“Well,” said Georgette with a shrug, “I don’t know beans about any secret of Chateau Bow-Wow, but I can tell you this. Rosebud went home weeks ago in the arms of a little girl named Trixie Tucker and she’s alive and well. I think y’all are the victims of a hoax.”
Chester nodded his head slowly. “I think perhaps we are,” he said. He looked around at all of those gathered. Linda averted his gaze, while Bob defiantly stuck out his chin. Felony and Miss Demeanor stared at him with eyes as blank as windows in a house where nobody’s home—except you had the feeling somebody was lurking behind the curtains. As for The Weasel, well, he looked so
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innocent you couldn’t help wondering if it was real or just a very good act.
Back in the privacy of our bungalows, I asked Chester, “Who would do such a thing? And why?”
Chester didn’t have an answer for me. He just sat, looking out into the dark night, perhaps wondering whether the secret—or the hoax—would reveal itself before the break of day.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Voices in the Night
VOICES again. I had been dreaming about steak tartare, which is really strange because I have no idea what steak tartare is. But it sounded good and I decided I was going to have to have some just as soon as I got home.
My stomach rumbled.
And then I heard the voices again.
“Don’t do it for us, do it for Hamlet.”
I strained to listen, but all I heard was the click and shuffle of a door opening and the soft rustle of something moving.
“Chester,” I whispered.
“Shh.”
Chester, apparently, was already awake and listening.
I inched forward to see what I could see. The
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moonlight was sufficient to make out three shadowy figures scurrying across the compound. I knew in a flash who they were. Chester knew too.
“Just as I suspected,” he said. “The Weasel is nothing but a weasel. And those two cats aren’t worthy of the name Felis catus.”
What a night. First steak tartare and now this.
” ‘Domestic cat,’ ” Chester explained, anticipating my befuddlement. “I’ve got to go after them.”
“But why? Maybe they’re just sneaking inside to watch a little late-night television.”
Chester snorted. ” ‘Don’t do it for us, do it for Hamlet.’ That’s what they said, Harold. It’s a conspiracy, don’t you see that? What if Hamlet is the ringleader? Greenbriar himself could be involved. Our nation’s freedom may be at stake!”
I had the feeling Chester the reader was through with horror novels and had moved on to spy thrillers.
Gingerly, I inquired, “Chester, would you consider the possibility that you might be blowing this thing out of proportion?”