SAY GOODBYE TO ARCHIE: A Rex Graves Mini-Mystery (5 page)

“I cannot really concur that Patricia has lost her marbles,” Rex said. “She seems remarkably lucid to me. In fact, she
appears to be holding it together rather well considering she lost Archie only three days ago.”

“Funny you should say ‘lost.’ That’s what I mean, really. She’s become forgetful. Well, age will do that to the best of us. But I’m not just talking about being able to hold a story together. She’s been getting clueless about things.
Leaving her purse in shops, forgetting to put the rubbish out on the right day. All that precedes Archie’s death.”

“Forgetting to lock her doors?” Rex asked.

“That sort of thing. Two weeks ago she forgot to tell me she’d made a change in the proofs for the latest book, which necessitated me making a modification to one of the illustrations. So now I had to show Claude with a canary in his mouth instead of a mouse. Thank goodness it wasn’t the cover. Fortunately, someone in the editing department caught it before the book went to print and called me direct, but it was last-minute stress, and I have to watch the old blood pressure.”

Rex did not think Roger looked like someone who needed to watch either his weight or his blood pressure. He appeared incredibly fit for his age.

“Just telling Rex about our little mouse-up with the publisher, Patricia,” Roger said wickedly as the writer approached with a cup of tea.

“Yes, sorry about that mix-up over the mouse,” she said, and sipped her tea. “You came up trumps. And the canary was so much more
Claude
, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Roger replied with too much enthusiasm. Connie returned and sat down dejectedly with her melted biscuits and stale wilted sandwiches.

“The level to which I have sunk,” Roger resumed when Patricia was out of earshot, and yet not seeming to care if Connie heard. However, she seemed wrapped up in her own thoughts, and Rex returned his attention to the illustrator. “I used to be quite a successful painter, in the Impressionist style, actually.”

“But you are better known for Claude,” Connie replied to Rex’s surprise. Apparently she had been paying attention, after all, if only the vaguest of sorts.

“This is true.” Roger hung his head. “I should not sound so churlish and ungrateful. I just wish Patricia would do something with the Claude merchandizing rights. Felicity has failed to persuade her. By God, children should be walking around in Claude tee-shirts and with him on their satchels and gym bags.”

“I think that’s precisely what Patricia wants to avoid,” Rex said.

“Why ever not, though? After all, Claude is educational. Did you know the meaning of contradictory when you were knee-high to a grasshopper?” Roger asked him.

“I did,” Connie retorted. “And look where it got me.”

“Oh, come off it, old girl. You’re well rid of Nigel. He had absolutely no imagination. Running off with his secretary, indeed!”

“They’re not called that anymore, Roger! And what does it matter? She’s young and she’s pretty, and I’m stuck with bringing up two kids on my own!” Connie burst out of her chair, knocking it backwards onto the grass and spilling her tea.

“Oh, dear,” Roger said watching as she stumbled back to the house. “Did I say something wrong?”

“You probably should not have said anything at all.
Seems she’s still bit raw over her divorce.”

“Nigel was a swine. Why does she persist in mooning over him?”

Rex was not there to answer that question and wished Roger had not caused Connie to leave. Or had he done so on purpose? Rex glanced at him innocently drinking his tea. Charles came hobbling towards them and took Connie’s vacated chair.

“What’s up with Connie?” he asked.
“Rushed past me in tears. Did Mother upset her again?’

“No, it was me,” Roger admitted. “I’m afraid I put my foot in my mouth. Say, what’s wrong with your own foot?”

“I tripped over one of Archie’s mice. The black-and-white chequered thing with catnip in it that he liked so much. I think I sprained my ankle. Dot’s fetching some ice. I don’t know why Mother doesn’t get Faye in once a week to tidy up. It’s not like she can’t afford it, and Faye needs the money. The place is such a mess you can barely see the floor. Someone’s going to have a really bad fall one of these days. Ouch,” Charles exclaimed, stretching out his leg and depositing his sandaled foot gently on the soft bed of grass.

Dot approached on her cane with a bag of frozen peas and handed it to Charles with instructions to place it on his swollen ankle for twenty minutes.

“You are such a busy bee,” Roger said. Rex could not tell if he was mocking her.

Charles thanked her profusely and bent forward to wrap the packet around his bare ankle.

“Would you like some more tea, Reginald?” Dot asked.

There was nothing Rex would have liked more, and said he would get it himself.

“Sit, sit,” she told him before he could get up, holding out her arm for his cup and saucer. “Milk, sugar?”

“Aye.
One, thank you.”

“Note how she didn’t ask if I wanted any tea,” Roger said with amusement as she
hobbled to the table.

“Well, she only has the one hand,” Rex pointed out. A walking cane occupied her other.

“Wouldn’t have made a difference. She doesn’t like me.”

“And why is that?”

“She’s jealous of my relationship with Patricia. Dot is a wannabe writer. Doubt she’s any good, but she’s always pestering Patricia with questions about writing and gets resentful when I’m here at the house trying to get some actual work done.”

This triangle involving Patricia reminded Rex of the one Roger had mentioned existed with Noel, the neighbour. It all seemed unnecessarily complicated
and childish. “Well, Dot is sewing on your button,” he reasoned.

Roger shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“I tried attending her book club, but really, it was too pretentious. I felt outnumbered by all the women. This village is full of old biddies. If I weren’t so attached to my cottage, I’d leave. It must be something in the sea air. They just keep on going on. They’re indestructible.”

“Noel doesn’t attend
the book club?”

“No, he’s got more sense. As do the other men around here. They’re probably glad to get rid of their wives of a Wednesday evening and watch whatever they want on the telly.”

“Where is the book club held?”

“It’s a revolving thing. The members take turns to host it. It’s usually a wine and cheese do.”

“Do you happen to know where it was held this past Wednesday?”

“When Archie took sick, you mean? Are you sleuthing?” Roger grinned, baring a fine set of teeth, which might have been false. “You’re a Crown prosecutor up in Scotland, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“It must be hard to switch off from asking questions, am I right?”

“Something like that,” Rex prevaricated. Roger was a shrewd fellow, the sort of person you never knew quite where you stood with. Rex did not wish to divulge too much.

“It was held at Madeline’s,”
Roger said. “She runs a small bed-and-breakfast to help pay her mortgage. Her husband ran off, just like Connie’s, but made it all the way abroad. Took the lady of the manor with him. That white mini-mansion on the hill. She was the doctor’s wife.”

“Dr.
Beaseley’s?”

“Yes, but remember, we call him Beastly around here. And you know what’s even stranger about Dr. Strange’s name, the local vet’s?
”

Rex was not sure any of this was relevant to his cat murder inquiry, but asked the required question anyway.

“His middle name is Moore!” Roger laughed with childish delight. “As if Strange wasn’t enough.”

“Getting back to the Wednesday book club, you seem well-informed for someone who doesn’t attend anymore.”

“Well, they’re always wittering on about it. I don’t know what they’ll do when they run out of Jane Austen.”

Dot came back with Rex’s tea, apologizing for it having taken so long. “I had to make a fresh pot,” she explained.

“Don’t worry about me, Dot,” Roger said pointedly. “I’ll get my own.” And rose to do so.

“Roger is a frightful gossip,” she said to Rex. “I don’t know what he’s been telling you, but you should take everything he says with a grain of salt.”

“He was just telling me aboot your book club. My mother enjoys hers.” Rex explained it was one of the few things that got her out of the house.

“Shame she doesn’t live here. We could do with some new blood.” Dot sat down stiffly in Roger’s chair, resting her cane against her knees, and slid the handles of the patchwork bag from her arm. Within seconds she was knitting again, needles jabbing and clicking.

“How many members do you have?” Rex asked casually, stirring his tea.

“Seven now.
All women!”

“That’s a good turnout for such a
wee village.” He wondered how he could ask which guests at the tea party had been present without seeming too obvious. “Does Connie attend when she’s staying at her mother’s?”

“No, she never has. And she didn’t arrive until after
…you know. But we do have a guest on occasion. This week it was Felicity Parker giving some tips on how to find an agent. She had some business with Patricia and was kind enough to stay for the club.”

Rex looked around for Felicity.

“She’s inside with her client,” Dot informed him. “Fortunately, the story’s almost finished. Patricia said she can’t bear to look at it. Says it’s her last one.”

“Hopefully, Felicity will persuade her otherwise.”

“I think she’s in there doing just that.”

Roger, returning with his refill of tea and a glass of lemonade, said Patricia probably just wanted to get on with burying her cat and for everyone to go home. He drew up a spare chair, since Dot was sitting in his.

“Roger,” she said in a whining voice, “I sometimes think you say things just for effect, without the least regard for how they might sound.”

“Just as well I’m not a writer then. I’d be censored right, left and centre by every book club in Britain!”

“Roger’s right,” Charles interjected from his chair, removing the peas from his ankle. “Once Archie is laid to rest, perhaps we can all get back to our lives.”

*

“Charles, don’t be so heartless,” Dot said.

“I didn’t mean to be.”

“What are you knitting, Dot?” Roger asked. “Is that robin egg blue? Lovely colour.”

“It’s a baby blanket for the WI.”

Rex was hypnotized by Dot’s deft fingers as the woollen square grew before his eyes.

“Archie was ailing, let’s not forget.” Roger set his empty cup under his chair. “Better to have him go out with a bang. I’m sure Felicity will put out a press release. There’ll be a surge in sales once word gets out. Perhaps news of his ‘murder’ will introduce Claude to a whole new readership. ‘Who is the cat killer?’ everyone will be asking. Can you imagine the outrage from cat lovers all over the world?”

“You don’t sound overly fond of Archie,” Charles remarked. “For one who created his fictional image.”

“He was a cat, for God’s sake. Naturally, I’m sorry for Patricia. I know it’s hard to lose a pet, especially a cash cow. But Archie was not the saint she makes him out to be. He got to be very demanding, imperious even, and she was at his constant beck and call. Archie this, and Archie that. And would you just look at Archie!” Roger downed the rest of his lemonade and crunched on an ice cube. Rex wondered again if he wore dentures. He was still a handsome man, if a bit haughty-looking.

“Not to mention the hairballs he chucked up all over the place,” Charles said with distaste. “One time I found one on the bed.”

Rex wished now he’d been more insistent about staying at Madeline’s bed-and-breakfast.

“Truth be told,” said Roger, who seemed inclined to tell the truth at every turn, “the last two Claude books didn’t do nearly as well as their predecessors, like I told Rex earlier. It appears the great Patricia Forsyth is losing her touch and running out of ideas.”