The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

“Thank you, Bobbie. That’s an extremely interesting account. We’ll discuss it further, after I’ve made some inquiries. Meanwhile, I’d consider it classified information if I were you.”

“Classified! Don’t worry, Mr. Hopple.”

“Was that the stableboy?” his wife asked. “Is anything wrong? . . . Darling, is anything wrong?”

Mr. Hopple had walked to the south window and was gazing in the direction of the meadow—a study in preoccupation. “I beg your pardon. What did you say? That boy told me a wild story . . . . Ten-foot diameter! He’s right; that’s remarkably small.”

There was a loud thump as a six-year-old threw himself against the bedroom door and hurtled into the room.

“Darling,” his mother reminded him, “we always knock before entering.”

“They’re gone! They’re gone!” he shouted in a childish treble. “I wanted to say good morning, and they’re not there!”

“Who’s not there, darling?”

“The Gang! They got out the window and climbed down the waterwheel!”

“Donald! Did you leave the window open?”

“No, Mother. The window’s broke. Broken,” he added, catching his mother’s eye. “The glass is kind of . . . melted! I think Whiskers did it. He kidnapped them!”

She shooed him out of the bedroom. “Go and get dressed, dear. We’ll find the Gang. We’ll organize a search party.”

Mrs. Hopple slipped into a peignoir and left the suite. When she returned, a moment later, her husband was still staring into space at the south window. “Donald’s right,” she said. “The glass has actually been melted. How very strange!”

Still Mr. Hopple stared, as if in a trance.

“Dearest, are you all right? Did you hear what Donald said?”

Her husband stirred himself and walked away from the window. He said: “You can organize a search party if you wish, but you’ll never find the Gang. They’re not coming back. Neither is Whiskers.”

He was right. They never came back. The two smartest kittens in the stable also disappeared that night, according to Donald, but the rabbits were found in the greenhouse, having the time of their lives.

Life at Hopplewood Farm is quite ordinary now. Garage doors open. Cars start. Television reception is perfect. Only during severe electrical storms does the power fail. No one lets the rabbits out of the hutch. The tractor is entirely reliable. Nothing tries to sneak down the chimney. Window glass never melts.

And little Donald, who may suspect more than he’s telling, discusses planets and asteroids at the dinner table and spends hours peering through his telescope when his parents think he’s asleep.

The Sin of Madame Phloi

“The Sin of Madame Phloi” was first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, June 1962.

From the very beginning Madame Phloi felt an instinctive distaste for the man who moved into the apartment next door. He was fat, and his trouser cuffs had the unsavory odor of fire hydrant.

They met for the first time in the decrepit elevator as it lurched up to the tenth floor of the old building, once fashionable but now coming apart at the seams. Madame Phloi had been out for a stroll in the city park, chewing city grass and chasing faded butterflies, and as she and her companion stepped on the elevator for the slow ride upward, the car was already half-filled with the new neighbor.

The fat man and the Madame presented a contrast that was not unusual in this apartment house, which had a brilliant past and no future. He was bulky, uncouth, sloppily attired. Madame Phloi was a long-legged blue-eyed aristocrat whose creamy fawn coat shaded to brown at the extremities.

The Madame deplored fat men. They had no laps, and of what use is a lapless human? Nevertheless, she gave him the common courtesy of a sniff at his trouser cuffs and immediately backed away, twitching her nose and showing her teeth.

“GET that cat away from me,” the fat man roared, stamping his feet thunderously at Madame Phloi. Her companion pulled the leash although there was no need; the Madame with one backward leap had retreated to a safe corner of the elevator, which shuddered and continued its groaning ascent.

“Don’t you like animals?” inquired the gentle voice at the other end of the leash.

“Filthy, sneaky beasts,” the fat man said with a snarl. “Last place I lived, some lousy cat got in my room and et my parakeet.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But you don’t need to worry about Madame Phloi and Thapthim. They never leave the apartment except on a leash.”

“You got TWO? Well, keep ’em away from me or I’ll break their rotten necks. I ain’t wrung a cat’s neck since I was fourteen, but I remember how.”

And with the long black box he was carrying, the fat man lunged at the impeccable Madame Phloi, who sat in her corner, flat eared and tense. Her fur bristled, and she tried to dart away. Even when her companion picked her up in protective arms, Madame Phloi’s body was taut and trembling.