The Tell-Tail Heart: A Cat Cozy (Cattarina Mysteries) (12 page)

"Once we tell Constable Harkness about the
affair," Eddie continued, "it will be over. I never dreamed to catch
a murderer. Sissy will be thrilled, and Muddy will be… Well, Muddy will be
asking if there's money in it."

I meowed. Yes,
catch a murderer
. But Mr.
Uppity did not live to the north. He lived to the south, a direction from which
we were heading away. Had the visit with Caroline been for naught? I sat near
him and formed a strong mental picture of Rittenhouse Square, hoping my friend
would take it into his own mind. Telepathy between cats is common, but I had
never tried it with a human, and certainly not with Eddie. Due to our similar
interests and tastes, we operated in tandem so often that alternative
communication hadn't been necessary.

Eddie laid his hand on my back. "I hope the
constable pays Mr. Ferris a visit before he flees, for surely he will when Miss
Ferris tells him of my visit. I was overly curious about her eyes, and that
detail will not escape a businessman like him." He pressed his mouth into
a grim line and stared out the window. "Think of it, Catters, that
black-hearted fellow may be leaving Philadelphia—right now—as we journey
to Constable Harkness's house." A half block later, he rapped on the
glass. "Driver, turn around and take us to Rittenhouse Square, Walnut Street."

I rubbed my head along his arm, cheered by the discussion
of Rittenhouse and the swerve of the carriage. My gambit had worked! When we
reached the park, the driver stopped at the end of the block, nowhere near the correct
address. Very well. Eddie had taken me this far; I would take him the rest of
the way. As he exchanged money with the driver, I hopped to the sidewalk and
dashed down the street until I arrived at Mr. Uppity's home. In the bright
afternoon sun, the structure looked even more ramshackle than it had before. Paint
peeled from the shutters like dead snakeskin and cracks disgraced the walkway. When
Eddie approached, I climbed the front steps to the porch and waited.

"Catters!" he shouted. "You
must
stop running from me. My heart cannot take it." He leaned on the brick
fence that closed the yard and studied the house. When he'd caught his breath,
he joined me at the door and read the tarnished brass plate beneath the bell
box. "Mr. Gideon Ferris." The astonishment on his face amused me
beyond description. "I don't believe it. I simply do
not
believe
it," he said. "How did you know?"

I meowed, prompting him to turn the ringer. Did
I have to do everything myself? When the bell failed to summon anyone, Eddie
knocked. No response. Minding an overgrown thistle patch, he crossed the lawn and
shouted into a partially open front window. Again, no response. Eager for
answers, I jumped to the sill and listened through the gap.
Bump-bump.
A
sound not altogether human reverberated from the structure. Mr. Uppity may not
have been home, but
something
was inside.

"I tell you, Sissy," Eddie said, "Caroline
Ferris was as beautiful as she was sad. But a single glance of her dull,
lifeless eyes is enough to send a man to his grave."

Eddie hadn't given me a chance to investigate
the odd
bump-bump
. He'd whisked me from the sill and down the street
where we hailed an omnibus to Constable Harkness's neighborhood. I say this in
warning: the omnibus is a torture device wherein humans squeeze together on
little bench seats, sneeze and cough at intervals, and natter on about the
weather. Private transport agrees with me so much more. Once we arrived at our
destination, Eddie told the constable countless stories of Mr. Ferris while I
listened from the front windowsill. Throughout the day, I began to understand
that Mr. Ferris and Mr. Uppity were one and the same. But he would always be
Mr. Uppity to me. Shortly after, the Poe family gathered in the front room of
our little house on Coates.

"Send a man to his grave?" Sissy sat
on the chaise and fanned herself with a lace fan, her face flushed. "How
you exaggerate, husband."

"A skill for which I am paid," Eddie
said.

"Not often enough," Muddy said. She
rocked her chair.
Squeak, squeak.
I sat on the hearth near her, swiping
my tail back and forth in a little game with the rails. They'd caught me once.
But only once.

"Mother," Sissy said, "must you
always turn the talk? Let Eddie finish."

"Actually, Virginia, she reminded me a
little of you." He leaned back in his desk chair, hands clasped behind his
head, and began the full account of our adventures. Even though the fire had
died, the hearth retained enough heat to warm me during the retelling. From the
length of his speech, he'd spared no detail. He finished by adding me to the
story. "We have Catters to thank for the outcome. If not for her, I wouldn't
have met Miss Ferris or known where to find her uncle." He looked at me. "You
ran right to 207 Walnut and waited for me, didn't you?"

Sissy smiled. "Detective Dupin would be
proud."

"That doesn't matter," he said. "As
long as
you
are proud."

"I am, very, but I wish Mr. Ferris had been
caught. Is there nothing else we can do?"

"No. Constable Harkness will handle the
rest." Eddie sat forward and rubbed his hands together. "At any rate,
I am glad that you're feeling better. My thoughts scarcely left you today."

"Yes, the nap did wonders for me," she
said.

I approached Sissy and let her pet me. I liked
Caroline, but she was no substitute.

Muddy yawned. "Now
I
am tired."
She resettled her shawl around her shoulders and nestled into the chair.

They talked awhile longer, speaking of tea and
dinner and other things that made my stomach go grumbly. So I turned to groom
my back haunch, noticing I reached it more easily today. Perhaps running about
town had trimmed my middle. I stretched to the other side and found those
curves equally easy to navigate. I'd lost Mr. Uppity, but I'd also lost weight.
I could live with that—for now. But that sound, that blasted
bump-bump,
gnawed at me.

A loud knock drew our attention to the front
door. Eddie rose to answer it, speaking to the guest with incredulity. "Constable
Harkness? I didn't expect to see you here. Come in. Please." He showed the
man into the front room and introduced him to his "sweet wife, Mrs. Poe."

Nodding and hand shaking and so forth.

"I'm here to let you know about Gideon
Ferris." The constable's tone had taken on newfound civility since his
last visit to Coates Street. But I still didn't like him.

"What happened?" Sissy asked. She sat upright
on the chaise and closed her fan.

"He's left Philadelphia," Constable
Harkness said. "We spoke to his houseboy, Owen. He'd just come from the
livery stable, complaining of a bum knee. Seems a horse had thrown him that
morning. Once we pressed him, he told us how Mr. Ferris killed those women and stole
their eyes. He even said Ferris admitted to murdering the Wills patient, Tom
Sullivan."

"He's growing bolder," Eddie said. "But
why take a leg?"

"Hah! To make your doll," Muddy added
with a snicker.

"What's that?" the constable asked.

"She suffers the occasional spell,"
Eddie whispered to him. "Please continue."

"Owen, the houseboy, was half out of his
mind, scared to even speak with us. I'm sure he knew we'd come to send his
employer to prison. Nonetheless, he invited us in, we had a look around, and saw
no sign of the old man." He fingered the brim of his hat. "Apparently,
Mr. Ferris rode west this morning by train, bound for Virginia, without so much
as a goodbye to his niece." He nodded to the women, then headed for the
door. "Just thought you should know."

Eddie saw him out and returned, his face darkened
by disappointment. "They will never find him. Never," he said. "Gideon
Ferris is gone."

Sissy rose and put her arm around him. "You
did your best, Eddie. Why don't you go out and get some air, clear your head.
It will be good for you." She smiled. "And you're in need of a new
pen, aren't you? Why don't you visit the stationer's store? Have a look around.
Cheer yourself up."

"Are you sure?"

"Mother will keep an eye on me."

Muddy waved dismissively.

"And bring me back a sweet from Jersey's
Dry Goods on the way home," Sissy said. "Licorice cats if they have
them."

"Of course." Eddie rocked back on his
heels. "I may stop by Shakey House to tell Murray, Abbot, and the rest of
the boys about this business. But I won't be long."

Shakey House? I had no intention of following
him there.

"Just be back by dinner," Sissy said.

He kissed her on the cheek and left, giving us
the quiet house. I yawned with the growing afternoon, tired as Old Muddy. But I
had not abandoned the hunt as Eddie obviously had. I leapt to the windowsill to
watch him leave for the pub. This was no longer about writing or despondency or
any other damnable thing. It was about
my
satisfaction now. Mr. Uppity
would not best me. I would not let him. I pictured him hiding in his house,
waiting for cover of darkness to either kill or escape. And that
bump
-
bump
…
I could not rest until I learned its source.

When Sissy and Muddy left for the kitchen, I tripped
the front door latch and started for Rittenhouse with the goal of luring Mr.
Uppity to the Eastern State Penitentiary. I would put him where he belonged
with a bit of humbuggery, for it would take a thief to catch a thief. And I prayed
Midnight would help devise a plan.

Bump-bump

A
fter my earlier apprenticeship
in public transport, I embraced these ways, hopping on and off the backs of carriages
to reach Rittenhouse in half the time. If anyone noticed me, I jumped down and
waited for another horse and buggy to pass. I became so adept at this game that
toward the end, my paws rarely touched the ground. I even stooped to catching an
omnibus at one point. While I loathed these high-occupancy coaches, they let me
ride inside when the roads grew too crowded. Cats are adept at underfoot
travel, and with proper concentration, they can slip in and amongst human legs with
near invisibility. So I gained egress with no appreciable hardship, save for a
bent whisker.

Some time between lunch and tea, in the squishy
middle of the afternoon, I arrived at Midnight's house, confident that he could
devise a scheme for drawing Mr. Uppity to the penitentiary. I yowled and yowled
outside his front door, but only little Sarah came to greet me. A slip of a
girl, she wasn't much more than two braids and two skinned knees clothed in velvet.
She gave me a ham rind, which I accepted, and a red ribbon around my neck,
which I did not. So I left for the grocer's, thinking Midnight might've gone
back to steal another sausage. I wish I had not been right.

His voice drifted from the entrance as I neared
the shop. "It's easy to steal," he said. "Watch me, and I'll
show you how it's done. Which do you want, the jerky or the salted cod? Or
both. I can get both, I know it."

I waited for a woman and her two children to
pass. Then I ducked around the doorframe to catch Midnight and another cat, a
beautiful tiger-striped molly, at their plotting. They sat beneath a teepee of
mop handles, surveying the baskets and bins. At the sight of them together, my
hackles rose and my claws unsheathed. Midnight must have meant more to me than
I'd realized.

"The salted cod," the molly said. She
flicked the tip of her tail. "That's my favorite."

If Auntie Sass were here, she'd have given them
the "ol' spit and hiss." It took some effort, but I pulled my claws
back and smoothed my hackles. A fight would only delay the search for Mr.
Uppity, and, whether I liked it or not, I had no claim to Midnight. We didn't
share a connection like Snow and Big Blue or even Eddie and Sissy. Yet I could
not leave without inflicting
some
sort of wound. I switched my tail and
said, "I prefer the sausage. Pity I shared mine yesterday with a cad."
The bon mot zipped through the air and landed at the center of Midnight's chest.

He looked at me with big, round eyes. "Cattarina?"
I turned to leave. "Wait! Cattarina!"

I ignored his pleas and dashed up the block,
detouring through Rittenhouse Square. A group of nannies and baby carriages
provided cover along the paved paths that intersected the lawn. The wheels
rolled over my paws at several turns, but these pains paled to the one in my
heart when I exited the park alone. Midnight had given up without effort. I
swallowed. Then again, so had I. Blasted pride. Now I had no one to help me with
my plan or, rather, absence of plan. I uttered a curse far more scathing than "fiddlesticks"
and crossed the street to Mr. Uppity's house. I sat before the three-story building
and licked my aching paws. I had started this hunt alone; I would finish this
hunt alone. Except without Midnight's help—or even Eddie's—the logistics
of depositing a full grown human inside a fortress of stone seemed impossible.
I couldn't very well carry him by the scruff of the neck, though not for lack
of want.

A light breeze blew, fanning my whiskers and
stirring the curtains in the front window. Mr. Uppity had yet to close the sash.
I hopped on the sill and examined the slender gap below the casing, an opening
too small for my ample figure. What an embarrassing predicament to get stuck!
Excuse
me, sir, would you mind laying a boot to my backside and pushing me through?
There's a good boy. Now come along to prison.
Humph. I blew out my breath,
wiggled a bit, and slipped through with unexpected ease, slumping into the
parlor with a thump. I'd lost more weight than I'd thought.

I crouched behind the curtains and waited to see
if the noise of my unfortunate landing would call someone from another floor.
When it did not, I emerged and surveyed the room. The man had no furniture,
well, none to speak of with any fondness, and what little he did have had been
pushed against the walls, as if in anticipation of a dance assembly. I blinked
at the busy striped wallpaper, dizzied by the pattern. Mr. Uppity already lived
in a prison of his own making, complete with bars! Most men had no decorating
sense. Thinking of our own home, the pieces that gave it a cozy feel had been supplied
by Sissy. Pillows and doilies and the like. Yet Eddie was not without these
sensibilities. He had many strong opinions on the placement of furniture and
exercised them to Muddy's consternation. I lingered in the doorway and swiveled
my ears, listening for human activity. I heard not a thing, not even the
bump-bump
of before. This emboldened me to enter the hallway.

The house smelled of rancid meat and dander
enough that I wondered why the man hadn't opened all his windows. Perhaps he'd grown
used to the scent or even liked it. Either way, I had no interest in the idiosyncrasies
of a killer, save for those that would help me catch one.

My pulse intensified as I entered the kitchen. Beyond
a scrap bucket full of cabbage leaves, I found nothing of interest, and yet,
for some inexplicable reason, my heart began to beat faster still as I
reentered the hallway. I followed it to what I guessed would be the drawing
room or even the dining room. My assumption, however, proved wrong, and I
discovered a bedchamber instead. I had never seen one on the first floor of a house
so grand. Then again, I hadn't been inside any grand houses aside from Mr.
Coffin's. Curiosity got the best of me one day, and I followed him home for
tea.

I stood in the open doorway of Mr. Uppity's
private abode. The shades had been pulled, casting the room in shadows that flitted
between the bed and dresser in a most unsettling way. They weren't real. They
couldn't be. I scolded my imagination and entered the room. The further I
progressed toward its center, however, the faster my heart pounded until I thought
it would leap from my chest, such was the ferocity of its tempo
.
Bump-bump,
bump-bump
. The constant drumming drove me mad as it shuddered along my
bones, my skin, my muscles. I sat back to consider this strange turn in my
health—
bump-bump
—and solved the conundrum. My chest cavity
didn't contain the beat; the floorboards did. The sound lay beneath my
haunches.

Bump-bump.

I shot forward and arched my back.

Fright pricked me with her pin-sharp claws. What
the devil lived beneath the floorboards? Ignorance seemed like a reasonable
state in which to remain. Yet I could not give in to my fear. Not only was my
pride at stake, Philadelphia's citizens depended on my success. I listened once
more.

Bump-bump.

My toes vibrated with the sound. At first, I
thought it mice. But the pulse was too strong. It writhed beneath me with the
strength of a full-grown man. I
had
to take a closer look. I reentered the
kitchen and found the cellar entrance—a whiff of damp earth beneath the
jamb told me as much. With the help of a close-by worktable, I pawed the knob
and had it turning in no time.

The door swung open. I descended the steps.

Bump-bump. Bump-bump.

The rhythm grew louder as I entered the chilly subterrain.
Clever as I may be, I hadn't mastered the working of a gas lamp or candle. So I
crept through the dark, unsure of my route until my eyes adjusted. Even then,
footing remained far from certain. The smell, however, did not. Decaying flesh
had an unmistakable odor.

Bump-bump. Bump-bump. Bump-bump

I followed the noise to an area directly beneath
the bedchamber. Owing to the quality of the home, workmen had finished the space
with more lumber and white plaster. However, someone or something lived between
the cellar ceiling and the first floor because a large, wet stain marred the patch
overhead. Using a cannery shelf as a viewpoint, I located the entrance with
little difficulty. Carved in the ceiling atop the stairs, the black mouth hung
wide and round, waiting to be fed. I reached it by scaling the handrail and
jumping to a sconce. The size of the opening gave me courage, for it appeared no
bigger than my head. Whomever or whatever lay in wait could not be any larger
than this, I reasoned. I said a little prayer, leaped into the unknown, and belly-crawled
between the floors.

Bump…bump.

The thumping stopped. I paused. I crept forward.
I paused. I sniffed. The odor of rotting meat mingled with that of another: rat
urine. My whiskers shot forward.

Silence.

The rodents must have caught my scent, too, because
they began to scramble in countless number. They scurried between the joists,
knocking the bedchamber floor with their backs as they tried to flee.
Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump.
I'd never caught a creature this large before, and I could hardly count
that chicken last summer. She was an old, fat pillow—mostly feathers. But
I'd come too far to let a little thing like teeth stop me. Ahead I forged. I
hadn't gone three steps when I broke through the mysterious wet patch I'd seen earlier.
From this small hole grew a very large one that unraveled half the ceiling. I fell
in a jumble of blood-soaked plaster and rats upon the cellar floor. Great Cat
Above! Half the rodent population of Philadelphia had been living here.

And they'd been feasting on Mr. Uppity.

A Leg Up

P
ieces of Mr. Uppity's body lay scattered
in the rubble. An arm here, a leg there—still clothed, I might add. They
could've belonged to another human if not for the head.
That
familiar item
lay near my front paws, nose pointing north like a sundial. Covered by a milky
veil, his eyes were no more useful than Caroline's, an irony that did not
escape me. Yet even in death, the blue orbs still had the power to terrify. I
let the rats slither into the corners, undisturbed, and contemplated this bizarre
outcome. Even if Mr. Uppity had been the one to kill those women, someone else
had killed
him
.

The front door opened and slammed shut.

I waited, hoping I wouldn't be discovered. A
spry human with a bed sheet could've caught me here, given the cramped space
and lack of escape choices. My gaze traveled to the ceiling. What luck! The
floorboards of the bedchamber hadn't given way, increasing the odds of my
deception. If need be, I would stay here all night and slip out in the morning.
I'd just settled into my predicament when I recalled the basement door. I'd
left it ajar.

Footsteps struck the wood overhead with irregularity.
Thud, clack, thud, clack.

If escape was my first priority, evidence
finished a close second. I couldn't leave without a piece of Mr. Uppity.
Setting aside my disgust, I clawed loose the body part that would convince
Eddie: an eye. If I made it out alive, I would show it to him, he would show it
to the constable, and my killer would be caught. I grasped the item gently between
my teeth and headed for the door.