“Pewter, if you run back to the store do you think you could get Courtney or Market to follow you?” Mrs. Murphy asked.
“Follow me? I can barely get them to open and close the door for me.”
“What if you grabbed Mrs. Hogendobber on her way to the post office? She’s around the corner.” Tucker wanted out.
“She doesn’t like cats. She wouldn’t pay attention to me.”
“She’ll come down the alleyway. She walks it no matter what the weather. You could try,” Mrs. Murphy said.
“All right. But while I’m waiting for that old windbag … What is it that Josiah calls her?”
“A ruthless monologist,” Mrs. Murphy answered her, peeved that Pewter was insisting on a chat.
“Well, while I’m waiting why don’t you tell me what you’re doing in there?”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker unfolded the adventure but only after swearing Pewter to secrecy. Under no circumstances was she to hint of any of this to Bob Berryman’s dog, Ozzie.
“There she is!” Pewter called to them.“Let’s try. Howl, Tucker.”
Pewter thundered over to Mrs. Hogendobber. She circled her. She flopped on her back and rolled over. She meowed and pranced. Mrs. Hogendobber observed this with some amusement.
“Come on, Pruneface! Get the message,” Pewter screeched. She moved toward Maude’s shop and then returned to Mrs. Hogendobber.
Tucker emitted a piercing shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber halted her stately progress. Pewter ran around her legs and back toward Maude’s shop, where Tucker let out another shriek. Mrs. Hogendobber started for the shop.
“I got her! I got her!” Pewter raced for the door.“Keep it up!”
Tucker barked. Mrs. Murphy meowed. Pewter ran in circles in front of the door.
Mrs. Hogendobber stood. She thought deeply. She put her hand on the doorknob, thought some more, and then opened the door.
“Gangway!” Tucker charged out of the door and hurried around the side of the house to relieve her bladder. Mrs. Murphy, with more bladder control, came out and rubbed Mrs. Hogendobber’s legs in appreciation.
“Thank you, Mrs. H.,” Mrs. Murphy purred.
“What were you doing in there?” Mrs. Hogendobber said out loud.
Tucker ran around and sat next to Pewter. She gave the gray cat a kiss.“I love you, Pewter.”
“Okay, okay.” Pewter appreciated the emotion but wasn’t overfond of sloppy kisses.
“Come on. Mom’s got to be at work by now.” Mrs. Murphy pricked up her ears.
The three small animals chased one another down the alleyway as Mrs. Hogendobber followed, deeply curious as to why Mary Minor Haristeen’s cat and dog were trapped inside Maude’s shop.
Harry hadn’t sorted the mail. She hadn’t properly thanked Rob for the French postcard he’d smuggled to her. She’d burned the telephone wires calling everyone she could think of who might have seen her animals.
The sight of Mrs. Murphy and Tucker along with Pewter and Mrs. Hogendobber puffing up the steps astonished her. Tears filled her eyes as she flung open the door.
Mrs. Murphy leaped into her arms and Tucker jumped up on her. Harry sat on the floor to hug her family. She hugged Pewter too. This enthusiasm was not extended to Mrs. Hogendobber, but Harry did get up and shake her hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hogendobber. I’ve been worried sick. Where’d you find them?”
“In Maude Bly Modena’s store.”
“What?” Harry was incredulous.
“We found a secret compartment! And Bob Berryman stole letters!” Tucker’s excitement was so great that she wiggled from stem to stern.
“Tucker bit the shit out of his ankle,” Mrs. Murphy added.
“Inside the store?”
“Yes. The door was shut and they couldn’t get out. I was walking down the alleyway—my morning constitutional on my way to see you—and I heard a ruckus.”
“You would have waddled right on by if it weren’t for me,” Pewter corrected her.
“What on earth were my girls doing in Maude Bly Modena’s shop?” Harry put her hands to her temples. “Mrs. Hogendobber, do you mind going back there with me?”
Mrs. Hogendobber would like nothing better.“Well, if you think it’s proper. Perhaps we should call the sheriff first.”
“He could arrest Mrs. Murphy and Tucker for breaking and entering.” Harry realized the instant the joke was out of her mouth that Mrs. Hogendobber wouldn’t get it. “Let me call Market over to mind the office.”
Market happily agreed and said he’d even sort the mail. He, too, wanted to read other people’s mail. It was an irresistible temptation.
The crepe myrtle bloomed along the alleyway. Bumblebees laden with pollen buzzed around the two women.
“I was right here when I heard Tucker.”
“Ha!” Pewter sarcastically remarked.
Harry followed Mrs. Hogendobber, who recounted in minute detail her every step to the door.
“… and I turned the knob—it wasn’t locked—and out they came.”
And in they ran too.“Come on!”
“Me, too.” Pewter followed.
“Girls! Girls!” Harry vainly called.
Mrs. Hogendobber, thrilled at the possibility of entering, said,“We’ll have to get them.”
Harry entered first.
Mrs. Hogendobber, hot on her heels, stopped for a second in front of the huge bags of plastic peanuts piled to the ceiling.“My word.”
Harry, already in the front room, exclaimed,“Where are they?”
Mrs. Murphy stuck her head out from under the desk.“Here!”
Mrs. Hogendobber, now in the room, saw this.“There.” She pointed.
Harry got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the desk. Pewter, grumbling, had to get out, as there wasn’t room for all of them.
Mrs. Murphy sat in front of the secret compartment that she had opened the night before. A small button alongside the thin molding on the seam was the key.“Right here. Look!”
Harry gasped,“There’s a secret compartment here!”
“Let me see.” Mrs. Hogendobber, negotiating gravity, hunkered down on her hands and knees. Tucker moved so she could see.
“Right here.” Harry flattened against the side of the desk the best she could and pointed.
“I declare!” Mrs. Hogendobber, excited, gasped. “What’s in there?”
Harry reached in and handed over a large ledger and a handful of Xeroxed papers.“Here.”
Mrs. Hogendobber backed up on all fours and sat in the middle of the floor.
Harry backed out and joined her.“There’s another ledger in the desk.” She got up and opened the middle drawer. It was still there.
“A second set of books! I wonder who she was filching from.”
“The IRS, most likely.” Harry sat down next to Mrs. Hogendobber, who was flipping through the books.
“I used to keep Mr. H.’s books, you know.” She laid the two ledgers side by side, her sharp eyes moving vertically down the columns. The hidden ledger was on her left. “My word, what a lot of merchandise. She was a better sales woman than any of us knew.” Mrs. Hogendobber pointed to the righthand book. “See here, Harry, the volume—and the prices.”
“I can’t believe she would get fifteen thousand dollars for seventy bags of plastic peanuts.”
This gave Mrs. Hogendobber pause.“It does seem unlikely.”
Harry took a page off the large pile of Xeroxed papers. They were the letters of Claudius Crozet to the Blue Ridge Railroad. Scanning them, she realized they involved the building of the tunnels.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Hogendobber couldn’t tear her eyes away from the accounting books.
“Claudius Crozet’s letter to the Blue Ridge Railroad.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Hogendobber looked up from her books.
“I don’t know.”
Harry had to get back to work.“Mrs. Hogendobber, would you do something if I asked you? It isn’t dishonest but it’s … tricky.”
“Ask.”
“Xerox these letters and the accounting books. Then we’ll turn it all over to Rick Shaw but we won’t tell him we have copies. I want to read these letters and I think, with your training, you may find something in the accounting books that the sheriff would miss. If he knows we’re studying the information he might take that as a comment on his abilities.”