More Cats In The Belfry

  It had followed them, said the leader. Its movements had been noted by various members of the group. One had seen it on the wall, craning its neck at the rucksacks. Another had seen it jump down and start following them. Several had tried to shoo it back, but it had taken no notice. Just dodged them and kept on going, they said. It wasn't till they reached the bottom lane and started to climb the steep hillside up to the ancient camp that they realised Saphra wasn't just taking a cattish stroll. He was deliberately accompanying them. They were on their way to Burrington, to see the Rock of Ages. Miles across the hills, and they weren't coming back in this direction. So they thought they'd better bring him back – all of them together, because it was an organised party which wouldn't have known its way without the leader.

  I thanked them and held him while they started off once more. He was indignant, and would have followed them again if I'd let him. He was Stupid, said Tani. Of course they'd brought him back. They knew he wasn't a Proper Walker. They wouldn't have known if he'd been wearing a rucksack, said Saphra who, like all Siamese, thought of himself as a human being. It was worrying all the same. Some weeks earlier Janet's cat, down the lane, had gone missing. It was found, after a fortnight, right on top of Mendip, sheltering under a fallen tree and practically starving. It, too, was thought to have followed a walking party – one not so caring as the group that brought back Saphra.

  I was still worrying about it – how quickly it had happened; the need to watch his every movement, and see that the back door was closed – when, that afternoon, across in the woods getting logs and carrying the electric chainsaw, I caught my foot in a bramble and went flying. I rolled down the hillside, ripped my knee on the thorns so that it looked as though I'd been mauled by an angry lion and ended up, my knee patched with sticking plaster, flat on my back on the sitting-room floor attempting to compose myself with relaxation. I had my eyes closed, trying to blank out the tensions of the day, when I suddenly sensed that I wasn't alone. I opened my eyes. Sure enough, I wasn't. Seated side by side at my feet like a pair of candles at a catafalque, staring at me intently, were Tani and Saphra. It was past six o'clock – time for their meal – and they were willing me to remember it. I got up at once. Siamese owners know their place, even when they're at the end of their tether.

  The day wasn't over yet. Still limping round and feeling sorry for myself, that very evening I was called out to what looked like rivalling the mystery of the Marie Celeste. Miss Wellington had come down to the valley on one of her nocturnal rambles – to check that the stream was running properly, she said – and had decided to call on her sister. She'd climbed up the side lane to Poppy's cottage, knocked on the door and, getting no answer, lifted the latch and let herself in. She found an ironing board set up in the kitchen, a half-ironed blouse on it (the flatiron had been switched off, which itself added to the mystery) – but, though she had searched, heart in mouth, through every room in the cottage, there had been absolutely no sign of Poppy.

  I limped womanfully back with her. Searched every room myself. Looked in the garage. Her car, even more confoundingly, was still there. Poppy, Miss W. decided, must have been kidnapped, though for what reason, since she was neither young and beautiful nor wealthy, I couldn't imagine. She hadn't been going anywhere that night, wept Miss W. She'd have told her if she had been. We were on the point of calling the police – I'd been deputed to dial 999 – when, as I raised the receiver, I heard a car door slam in the lane outside, Poppy's voice wishing someone goodnight, and in she came. Safe, if a trifle flushed. At seeing us there, it struck me.

  The explanation was simple when we heard it. Poppy, since her arrival in the village, had joined many of the local activities and, being an ex-headmistress and used to authority, had rapidly wafted to the forefront of several of them. Among other things she was on the committee of the Friendly Hands Club and a committee meeting had been fixed for that night – something she'd quite forgotten, having already been to the library committee meeting in the afternoon. When she didn't turn up at the village hall at eight o'clock, and there was no nearby phone on which they could contact her, Mr Tooting, who had also come from another meeting and had brought his car, volunteered to drive over to find out what had delayed her.