Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

He averaged about three mice a month (“Beats me how they get in,” Clara said time after time), took them through the cat door in the bottom of the kitchen door, deposited them behind the garage, where the gardener put them in with the grass and foliage cuttings.

Musophobic Bunny had not gone into hysterics since Midnight’s first catch five years back. Unfortunately, the record would soon be broken.

Clara’s dire prediction came true, Bunny sailed home on cloud nine from her June 1994 trip, all aflutter. She had met Prince Charming.

“The most handsome, charming, compassionate man you can ever imagine, Clara,” she gushed. “Imagine an international entrepreneur cancelling an important meeting with Wall Street bankers to rush to a Pittsburgh nursing home to visit his hundred-and-five-year-old great-aunt. Wait until you see him, Clara. And you will. He’s coming to visit us on Saturday. You’ll love Tony, Clara; I’m sure you will.”

“What did I tell you,” wailed Clara to Midnight that evening when they were alone in her apartment. “I knew it was gonna happen, just knew it. She’s been a sitting duck ever since the poor mister’s been gone. And did you hear her — he’s ‘Tony’ already. Ha; ten to one Prince Charming Tony is nothing but a two-bit gigolo that any grown woman with half an ounce of common sense could see right through. I’ll never understand why someone like her — a college graduate, reads two books a week — can be so simple-minded. Can you, Midnight?”

That statement would have given Sigmund Freud pause, and Midnight was no Freud. He was simply a cat, a smart cat but still a cat. Clara (the poor woman needed someone to talk to) frequently forgot that.

Prince Charming arrived around four Saturday afternoon in a rented car. Clara, all gussied up (scorn for two-bit gigolos had lost out to feminine vanity), looked great. So did Midnight; bathed, brushed, scented. But Bunny outshone both of them. She had spent two hours at her favorite beauty parlor, gotten “the works,” wore a gorgeous blue pants suit she had bought on Fifth Avenue. She looked no more than forty, in the bloom of radiant womanhood.

Tony rang the doorbell. Clara (having vowed to be totally immune to “the most handsome, charming, etc. etc.”) opened the door while holding on to the doorknob. Which was a good thing; otherwise she might have fallen backward. For Prince Charming was everything Bunny claimed. And he was not only incredibly handsome, he oozed masculinity, mischief, mystery. Poor Clara; bells rang, harps played, drums banged. Tony had that effect on women.

“You must be Clara,” he said, favoring her with a gorgeous smile. “Bunny has told me how valuable you are to her.” (Bunny had covered a lot of territory on the short flight to Pittsburgh.) Tony took one of Clara’s hands, squeezed it.

Then he saw Bunny. He gave dazed Clara’s hand one last strong squeeze, strode quickly to where Bunny was standing, took both of her hands in his, held them tightly while exclaiming in a voice that throbbed with manly mellifluence, “Wow, Bunny, you look like two million dollars.”

Poor Bunny, she blushed, she giggled, she glowed, she managed to say, “Oh, Tony, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such things.”

“No, I mean it. You look fabulous.” Poor Bunny, she almost simpered.

Then it was Midnight’s turn. He had been lurking behind a chair, watching with ill-concealed disgust the way the two women were fawning over an obvious four-flusher. He didn’t fool Midnight. Cats can tell.

“And here’s Midnight, our family pet,” Bunny finally said as she motioned for Midnight to come forth and greet Prince Charming. Tempted to unleash a venomous hiss, Midnight refrained, Bunny having implored Clara to be sure Midnight was on his best behavior, her shameful musophobia always lurking in the background. Clara had — not happily either — followed instructions, and Midnight had finally gotten the drift.

So he came up to Tony, favored him with a curt meow, turned and left the room, determined to vent his disgust on a wayward mouse.

“Midnight doesn’t seem to like me,” said Tony, grinning boyishly.

“Oh no, darling,” Bunny said quickly. “He’s shy. Once he gets to know you, he’ll be quite friendly.”

Preliminaries out of the way, time flying (it was June eleventh, less than three months from the fateful deadline), operating from the best motel in town, buoyed by the evidence of big money — the mansion with its luxurious furnishings, the three servants, the expensive foreign car in the driveway — Tony wooed the enchanted Bunny with a ton of well-honed charm, dozens of roses, candlelight dinners at The Lookout, the hotel-restaurant in the mountains east of town.

It worked. Less than two weeks after he turned his roguish smile on Bunny on the flight to Pittsburgh, she capitulated, joyously accepting his offer of marriage.