James the Conniosseur Cat Read online

  A young woman in the audience rose. “Great Bastet,” she said in a troubled voice, “I do not know what do to. I want to marry Emil, but my family are opposed. What shall I do? Shall I marry him?”

  Mr. Poachway looked at James and prepared in a dignified way to answer, but James, who approves of young love, nodded vigorously, opened his golden eyes wide, and grinned.

  The mesmerized girl smiled and sat down.

  “Thank you, Great Lord,” she said.

  Mr. Poachway was looking uneasy.

  A man stood up and asked if he should invest in his brother-in-law’s business. James scowled and shook his head. The man sat down. All manner of questions followed. James answered each as it occurred to him. Sometimes he nodded vigorously; sometimes he shook his head and occasionally waved a paw to indicate that he thought the question frivolous.

  Mr. Poachway grew more and more restless. At last he stepped forward, bowed to James, and led the congregation in chanting, “Bring us your love, Great Lord Bastet, we prostrate ourselves before you.” James loved the prostration part. Then the congregation filed past the altar, and the sound of metal could be heard dropping into the bowl.

  Mr. Poachway stood at the front door of the flat and greeted each person, then he returned to the altar, bowed, took the offering out of the bowl, and headed for the door. James anticipated him and ran through the open door of the shrine.

  Mr. Poachway was terribly nervous. Having a god running around one’s apartment was very unsettling. James followed him to what turned out to be a kitchen, looked around, found it dirty, devoid of spirits of any kind and clearly without crab salad, anchovies, or even Meow Mix, so he tapped an empty dish and made a gesture of eating.

  “My God,” Mr. Poachway said reverently to himself, “needs an offering!”

  He tried to prostrate himself in the kitchen, but the room was too small, so he simply stood and shook.

  “My Lord,” he said at last, “let me return to the shrine, and I will bring an offering.”

  James sighed. This idiot would clearly do nothing until he was left alone in the terrible kitchen, so he led the way back to the shrine and resumed his seat on top of the pyramid and then waved his paw to dismiss Mr. Poachway, who scuttled out as fast as possible, carefully closing the door behind him.

  Soon he returned with a bowl filled with some sort of gray mush and a smaller bowl of milk.

  “Delicious lentils, my Lord,” said Mr. Poachway uneasily. He bowed again and backed out of the room.

  Mr. Poachway did not return until late afternoon, when he removed the bowls—the milk was all gone and the lentils barely touched—returned the brass bowl to its place, lighted the candles and incense, and prepared for another service. He bowed constantly and looked in fear at James from time to time. James amused himself by glowering.

  For this service the room was jammed with people. In the front of the room a young woman held an eight-month-old baby who was bored and crying.

  James shook his head, making his earrings sparkle and attracting the baby’s attention. It stopped crying. James waved a paw. The baby waved back. As the baby responded, the mother looked frightened.

  Mr. Poachway came to the altar and made obeisance, and the chanting began.

  The incense swirled around, the room grew warm. The congregation swayed in unison.

  “Love us, O Great Mother Bastet!”

  Mother! thought James in disgust as he watched the young mother struggling with her active baby.

  “Help us, Great Mother,” chanted the congregation.

  This time Mr. Poachway did not attempt to stand in front of James, but now, when the supplicants rose to ask questions, he interpreted the answers, and his interpretations were quite different from James’s indications.

  A young man across the room asked, “O Bastet, shall I leave my home and mother and travel to another land?”

  James, always in favor of adventure, nodded enthusiastically. The young man beamed.

  Mr. Poachway interjected, “My Lord Bastet suggests that a spirit of adventure is always welcome, but warns that leaving your mother could be very hurtful.”

  James had meant nothing of the kind. He began to resent Mr. Poachway, who seemed to be playing God himself.

  Mr. Poachway grew more confident as the service progressed. James grew more irritated. Finally, when James had given clear assent to a request to divorce a nagging wife, and Mr. Poachway had interpreted this as a sign that James really meant that marriage was sacred, James stretched his neck and yowled as loud as he could.

  The congregation was electrified, and Mr. Poachway, trembling, brought the service to a rapid close, chanting “Love us, Mother Bastet.”

  The congregation rose and started to file out past the altar and the offering bowl.

  As the young woman with the baby approached, James leaned down and licked the baby’s extended hand.

  Mr. Poachway’s eyes grew larger, if possible.

  “You are especially blessed by Bastet herself,” he said to the young woman. The baby giggled. The last communicant left. Mr. Poachway shut the door, came to the altar, counted the offering with a smile, bowed to James, and said, “I will present you with an offering almost immediately, my Lord!”

  James decided to wait and see what came this time. He had no desire to go back to the kitchen.

  Shortly, Mr. Poachway returned with a bowl with some yellow rice and a piece of something else in it, and a small bowl of what appeared to be Coca-Cola.

  From his pedestal, James nodded curtly. Mr. Poachway left closing the door without a word.

  It was now evening. James had been away from home for nearly the whole day, had performed as a god on two occasions, and had been bowed to by a large number of people. More adulation even James could really not accept. He was also very tired. He climbed off the pyramid, scrunched the shiny fabric covering the altar into a bed, and went to sleep.

  The next morning he woke with the sun, paced around the room, and assessed the situation.

  He was now truly a god. He had never been so revered or adored, and he was not likely to be ever again. When the chanting started and the candles flickered and the congregation bowed, he felt truly wonderful, but the rest of the time there was no one to talk to or play with, no place to explore, no good food, delicious whiskey, or champagne, no one to stroke or scratch—in fact, nothing to do but sit on an altar and give advice. Now no one even listened to his advice, but only to Mr. Poachway’s. It was not an entirely wonderful life.

  He heard Mr. Poachway coming, and leaped on the altar. Mr. Poachway bowed, produced more food, and commented to the air, “Two services today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.”

  James grinned and began to plan how he would perform at these services. Two a day might fill his time very well.

  At Baron’s Court that morning there was great concern. James had been gone all night. After a thorough examination, William Young determined that nothing was missing at Thwaite’s, nor was James hiding there.

  By noon a conference was called in Peter Hightower’s office to review the previous afternoon. It consisted of Helena, Lord Henry, Peter himself, William Young with the Thwaite’s security chief, and me.

  “It seems to me,” said Young, “that a Mr. Poachway and James disappeared about the same time.”

  “What does Mr. Poachway look like?” asked the security chief.

  “He’s tall, dark, and thin, as I remember,” said Young.

  “Oh, that one,” said the chief. “I saw him leave in a taxi, with a big gray bundle under his arm.”

  “James has been kidnapped,” we all said at once.

  “Where does this Poachway live?” Young demanded.

  None of us had any idea.

  There was no Poachway in the telephone directory. There was no Poachway on Thwaite’s lists.

  Peter turned to William Young and said, “Call that inspector friend of yours at the Yard, perhaps he can find the cab that
transported Poachway and his gray bundle.”

  William Young looked miserable. From his point of view, the longer James stayed away, the better. Besides, he did not relish being laughed at when he asked Scotland Yard to trace a cat, so he was resistant, but at last he agreed and went to his office to telephone. All we could do now was wait.

  At Mr. Poachway’s, James had been fed and the room arranged. The candles were lighted, and a full crowd of supplicants jammed every corner. There was the same chanting as before, and Mr. Poachway knelt and bowed to the floor while James made various noises.

  Mr. Poachway called upon those members of the congregation who had problems to ask the Lord Bastet for help.

  This time, Mr. Poachway stood to one side and not only gave his interpretation of James’s responses to questions, but added occasionally a suggestion that he, Poachway, high priest of Bastet, was available for private consultation. In addition, when James, infuriated by a particular interpretation of his advice, yowled in distress, Mr. Poachway, bowing deeply, knocking his turban on the floor, would interpret the yowl as a reinforcement of his own statement.

  This was no fun at all. Here he was, the god—or goddess—Bastet, mighty lord of the congregation, relegated to sitting on top of a cardboard pyramid in a dingy room, being taken over completely by his high priest. Changes would have to be made.

  At last the congregation left. Mr. Poachway reentered, promising an offering and happily removing an overflowing bowl of coins and bills and closing the door carefully behind him.

  “Another service this afternoon,” he said as he returned with a bowl of tiny white grains in a brown sauce, with bits that appeared to be fish, and more Coca-Cola. James hates Coca-Cola.

  James ate a little from the bowl, and paced the room in deep thought.

  When the afternoon congregation arrived, he waved his paw like a cheerleader at the chanting, leaped off his perch, and performed all his old dances on the altar table.

  The congregation was mesmerized, but Mr. Poachway seemed to have lost his terror, and to James’s performance he kept up a running commentary leading the congregation where he wanted them to go. As the session grew longer, the room grew very stuffy with the odors of incense, sweat, fish, and cat offal. (Mr. Poachway had not realized a litter box was as necessary as an offering.)

  Slowly James realized he had met his match. All this adulation was fine, but he was its prisoner. It was time to find another adventure. So he returned to his place on the pyramid and caterwauled.

  Mr. Poachway rushed to the closing chant, crying, “Bless us, Lord Bastet,” and the congregation began to file out, now dropping large notes in the brass bowl. It took some time, since there were twice as many people as had come to the first service the day before.

  James waited till the last of the procession was passing by, then jumped off the altar, streaked for the open door, and—leaping between the legs of the final attendees—raced past the front door and across the lawn into the next dooryard, where he stopped to get his bearings. Then he headed for home, friends, and real food.

  It was evening when a sad group—Peter, Helena, Lord Henry, and I—arrived at Baron’s. I inserted my key in the door and opened it. As I did so, a scruffy gray cat came streaking up and slid in the door. James jumped on his table, and we all took turns hugging him, and then we all rode up in the elevator to the sixth floor to report to Mrs. March, and then down to four to assemble in my flat for celebrations.

  Various reviving foods and drinks were passed around, and James gorged himself on anchovies and Devonshire cream while Peter Hightower reported on his afternoon.

  “William Young finally got through to his friend the Scotland Yard detective inspector, and after much joking about a lost cat, the Yard sent a circular to all the taxi companies asking for information about a man and a cat going anywhere about the time our guard saw Mr. Poachway leave,” Peter began.

  James stopped eating at the word “detective,” and looked questioningly at Helena.

  She reads his mind better than the rest of us, so she stopped Peter for a minute and explained. “A detective is a person who finds out things. Those who are criminals are targets of most detectives, but they find lost people or, like you, lost cats, or objects of value. They are usually very clever people.”

  James nodded and his eyes assumed their intelligent look, and he now casually lapped at his cream. All the anchovies were long since gone.

  “In any case,” Peter continued, after a nod from James, “no sooner had the request for information been circulated than a call came in from a cabdriver who had taken a man matching Mr. Poachway’s description, carrying a big gray cat under his arm, to an address on Effra Road in Brixton. I asked him to come around to Thwaite’s to see me. He did so immediately, and when he commented that the cat wore—or certainly appeared to wear—earrings, I knew we were on the right track. We drove out to the address, and there was, indeed, the Temple of Bastet and a frantic Mr. Poachway, searching for his god who had disappeared.”

  James looked a bit sheepish.

  “Mr. Poachway and I talked a bit and I explained that James really was not Bastet, but a very intelligent and unusual cat.” James nodded vigorously, and his earrings bobbled. That stopped him for a moment, and he hopped on Helena’s lap and signaled her to remove the earrings. Godhood was being abandoned, for the moment anyway.

  “However, I was no farther along, really,” Peter continued. “I’d found where James had been, but not where he was now. I had the cabbie drive aimlessly around the neighborhood in case we might run across him, but of course we didn’t, and at last I returned to Thwaite’s, paid a huge cab fare, and found Helena and Lord Henry waiting for me. We sat around mournfully, wondering what on earth to do. The detective agreed to send out a general alarm for a gray cat wearing two gold earrings, but he didn’t expect any results except a lot of calls from practical jokers. At last we came around here, and here you were! How did you manage?”

  James only simpered.

  Then, when Peter had telephoned the detective inspector to report the return of the cat, we all settled down to watch the late news.

  When the news was over, everyone left, and soon thereafter Mrs. March’s familiar knock sounded. When I opened the door, James, instead of playing games, saluted her warmly and trotted off happily.

  CHAPTER 10

  The following day, James was back on his table, or rather under it, observing unseen. He also seemed to be spending more than the usual amount of time checking out apartments, and in fact he found a pin one tenant had dropped off a nightstand, and returned it amid an orgy of thanks.

  On one of his regular afternoons at Thwaite’s, when James and Peter Hightower were busy sorting stamps, they were interrupted by a visitor.

  Detective Inspector Home was announced. Peter welcomed him warmly and James examined him carefully.

  “I see you found your cat safely,” commented Inspector Home.

  “Yes, he found his way home,” said Peter.

  “Well, my problem involves forgery. I’m told you people are unmatched at detecting stamp forgeries. I wonder how you can do on money?”

  “Glad to try,” said Peter, who suspected that Inspector Home was, in part, taking up his time as a reprisal for using the Yard’s time for a cat. “Let’s see what you have.”

  Home produced a five-pound note. Peter examined it, opened his wallet and took out a note of his own, laid them together on the desk, turned to James, and said, “Are these the same?”

  James looked at the two notes briefly, and shook his head.

  “Got another fiver?” asked Peter.

  Home produced a note from his wallet and laid it next to the two.

  “Which one is different?” Peter asked.

  James patted the first note Home had produced.

  “What part of the note is most distorted?” asked Peter.

  James patted the upper left-hand corner of the bill.

  Home whistled so
ftly. He looked very thoughtful.

  “I came here to scoff when you failed my test,” he said ruefully. “Our experts, after a long session with a magnifier, came to the same conclusion this cat arrived at in a few seconds. I see why you wanted him back.”

  “We wanted him back because we love him!” Peter said indignantly.

  “Well,” said Home, “that may be. Now I have a real problem.”

  He pocketed his bogus five-pound note and his good one, Peter returned his note to his wallet, and the desk was cleared while Inspector Home produced a small stock book. On the outside it appeared to be a bound notebook, but it had, instead of the usual paper pages, cardboard pages fitted with four horizontal slots into which stamps could be inserted for safekeeping. The book had four pages, and these were, indeed, full of stamps.

  “We found this on a man we strongly suspect of being a fence for stolen property. He was on his way out of the country when he got involved in a brawl. We have to turn him loose today if we can find nothing more than breach of the peace to hold him on. He claims these are mostly cheap stamps, part of his own collection.”

  Peter took the stamps out of the stock book, put the book to one side, and examined the stamps. James examined the book.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary here,” Peter commented at last. “All very ordinary stamps, most of them in ordinary condition. Value of the whole lot isn’t over fifteen pounds, and that’s being very generous. He picked up the book and started to replace the stamps.

  James patted his hand.

  “Something here?”

  James nodded and laid a paw on the top of one of the cardboard pages.

  Peter took out his magnifying glass and carefully examined the top of the page.

  “Look here,” he said excitedly. “This page has been very carefully slit and re-glued at the top.”

  Then, very delicately, Peter felt the page. “There’s something inside,” he exclaimed.

  James nodded.

  Peter produced a sharp knife and slit open the glued edges. He gently pinched the page and, using a pair of stamp tongs, drew two stamps out of the hollow space inside the cardboard.