Richard Jury Mysteries 10: The Old Silent Read Online Free Page B

by pressure of foot or paw, whence the hinges would fold and
the screen fall back, covering the box. Inside was a tin of sardines.
Racer said he'd got this idea from old films he remembered about
hunters and Hottentots (or some other aborigine) where the Hottentots
were always falling through holes covered with vegetation into nets
that quickly tightened.
    He forgot that Cyril—the cat that had wandered into the halls of
Scotland Yard seemingly out of nowhere—was not a Hottentot. Jury and
Fiona marveled at the pure idiocy of the sardine box-trap. True, the
screen banged shut. But all Cyril had to do was nose it open when he
had dined on his tin of sardines. Thus Racer must have had some vague
plan that he would catch Cyril at it, that he would return from his
club and find claws scrabbling at the screen. If Racer and Cyril (Fiona
had said) ever met, it would be in Hell. And it would be (Jury had
said) a brief meeting indeed, since Cyril could walk through flames
without singeing his burnished copper fur. Houdini (they had both
agreed) would have got free faster from that underwater escape if he'd
had Cyril with him.
    Fiona had two dozen sardine tins in the filing cabinet, which she
was constantly using to replace the ones that Cyril ate. Cyril loved
the box; it was a second home. Sluggish from his meal, he would
sometimes nap on the can and Fiona would have to drag him out before
Racer returned. Jury told her not to worry; Cyril could scent Racer's
approach from vast distances. The cat could hear him, smell him, even
see him when Racer was pushing open the glass door of New Scotland
Yard. They did not want Racer to think his contraption wasn't working,
or his inventiveness might take a nose-dive and he'd revert to some
other means of disposal, like painting the carpet with poison.
    Yes, thought Jury, the depression was lifting, as he saw Fiona's eye
rove the room in search of the cat Cyril. He was missing, and Jury knew
where he was, though Racer hadn't twigged it. Jury screened his eyes
with his hand in a posture of sickliness that allowed him to look at
the bottom of the bookcase that Racer had converted into a drinks
cabinet. Tiny tinklings of glass emerged from it. Racer could cup his
ears all he wanted, but he was getting deaf.
    The cabinet was fitted with doors easily opened by hitching a
finger (or paw) in the handle. Unfortunately, Racer would walk by
occasionally and kick the door shut. He had commissioned Fiona to get a
lock and key, grumbling (Fiona'd told Jury) about the char being at the
booze bin again. ("That's what he calls it, imagine? Common, ain't it?"
she'd added, tossing down her nail file and picking up the buffer.)
    Inside the cabinet were two or three bottles each of Remy,
Tanqueray, Black Bush and aged Scotch, fallen off backs of vans
(according to Fiona): gifts from villains that Racer had done little
favors for. There was a miniature replica of a beer keg with a spout
and a small cup for catching the whiskey. Right at eye level, if you
were a cat. Cyril often wandered from the inner to the outer office in
a weaving, wondering way.
    "He'll get sick," Fiona had said after one of the booze bin jaunts.
    "Cyril? You know he's only doing it to drive Racer crazy."
    "Maybe he should have a liver test."
    "If you want my opinion," said Fiona, nodding toward her beloved
(now sick) superintendent, "a couple of weeks off—"
    "No, I do not want your opinion, Miss Clingmore. I cannot recall
the last time—if ever there was one—that I wanted your opinion." He was
still twirling his thumbs, looking from his secretary to his
superintendent with that
got you both on the run, haven't I
?
expression.
    Fiona pursed her bright red lips and said, hefting the pile of
papers, "So you want me to shred this lot, I expect." She quietly
chewed her gum and regarded him, poker-faced.
    Racer's already alcohol-mottled face flushed a rosier red. "
Shred
?
I do not
shred
papers."
    "No? What about all them—those—letters to