The Black Cats

For Sale: One Muse

“THAT IS NO WAY to hammer a nail,” Muddy said. She stood under the western eave, surveying her son-in-law’s handiwork. Eddy, meanwhile, had removed one of his shoes and was using it to chastise the threshold. He brought it down repeatedly on the board, much to Muddy’s consternation. “You’ll never fix it,” she said.

I approached them, fresh from Mr. Eakins’s house, to observe the undertaking.

“I will fix it,” Eddy said. “You will see.” He raised his shoe again, laces swaying, and smacked a protruding nail head. Everyone in Poe House had either tripped over the errant barb or snagged clothing on it since moving here this spring. Though physical labor disagreed with my companion, he persisted in a manner most enthusiastic. Sweat formed on his brow, and his hair flopped forward into his eyes. Smack! Smack! With every blow of his shoe, he grunted.

“I told you,” Muddy said. “It will never work. You need something harder.”

“Your head, perhaps,” Eddy muttered under his breath. He struck the nail again.

“A shoe is no substitute for a hammer,” she said.

“We don’t have a hammer, Mother,” Sissy called from the open kitchen door. “And the Poyners aren’t home, so we can’t borrow one from them.”

“Then tell your husband to buy one.” Muddy crossed her arms over her stomach and addressed Eddy. “I’m sure the Irishman deals on credit.” She turned and disappeared into the house.

Eddy stood and slipped his foot into his shoe. “Catters, old girl, why don’t we visit Fitz together?” He reached to stroke my back, releasing a puff of fur. “Muddy won’t let up until the nail is fixed. What’s more, ‘The Black Cat’ isn’t coming along like I’d hoped. I think fresh air and a trip to the store would help with both. But we’d better hurry. He’s closing soon.”

We journeyed down Minerva, the westward sun on our faces. As we walked, I recalled the day’s events: a murder, a catnapping, a romantic rekindling. Why, I’d had enough adventure to last the summer! I glanced at Eddy, his dark silhouette a comfort. The life he provided was thrilling enough; did I need to seek diversion elsewhere? No, in this happy moment, I was content to leave the affairs of the black cat to the black cat himself.

The feeling lasted until we reached the sassafras tree.

Snip’s body had long since been removed, yet sorrow marred the courtyard, thickening the air like chowder. I pictured the little tom, running circles around Silas and Samuel, working, as Midnight said, for the laugh. I swished my tail. I could not overlook his murder now that I’d come to know him. But I needed to find a way to help that didn’t involve Mr. Eakins.

Eddy entered Fitzgerald Hardware with a spry hop. Humans were a pitiable species, but I envied their dull senses at times like these. I stepped inside the narrow store, pausing behind my friend. Glass cases stocked with an assortment of nails, metal fittings, and hinges lined the space. Atop the cabinetry, more items had been arranged: lanterns, tin funnels, boxes of gunpowder, downspouts, cast iron spiders…almost too much to behold. We found Mr. Fitzgerald in the back, dusting a row of pot-bellied stoves. The floorboards creaked, announcing our arrival.

“Afternoon, Mr. Poe.” Mr. Fitzgerald laid down his duster and winked at me. “If you’ve come for the craic about the cat, sir, I don’t know a thing about it.”

My ear flicked at the mention of cat.

“No, Mr. Fitzgerald, this call is strictly business.” Eddy clasped his hands behind his back. “I’m in need of a hammer. Do you carry them?”

“I have claw, mallet, sledge, tinner’s… What kind are you looking for?”

“The kind that punishes nails.”

“I have just the one.” The man stepped behind a long glass case and pointed to a row of tools inside. I joined the men, hopping to the counter to peruse the objects below me. I was no expert, but they looked better at pounding nails than Eddy’s shoe. The men spoke at length, exhausting the topics of hammers and hardheaded women. Since I did not think Mr. Fitzgerald sold the second, I decided the implements in the case must be the first. I had no interest in either. My attention drifted, settling on an attractive box of twine balls at the end of the counter.

And then I saw it.

The now-familiar rope hung on a peg near the pot-bellied stoves. I traversed the cabinetry and studied the cord’s composition: brown and tan jute, the former dyed with a bitter solution that smelled of walnuts, the latter left au natural. Great Cat Above, I’d located the source of the murder weapon! I narrowed my eyes at Mr. Fitzgerald and watched him share a joke of some sort with Eddy. The two men laughed. It baffled me that a human of gentle demeanor could commit such a cruelty. But Mr. Fitzgerald, indeed, had been the one to kill the black cat. I yowled to catch Eddy’s attention.

“We will leave soon, Catters,” he said. He gave the shopkeeper a somber look. “Now about your store credit…”

Mr. Fitzgerald had already killed one cat this morning, and I, for one, didn’t want to be the second. So I nudged the box of twine balls from the counter to accelerate my plot. They bounced and rolled along the floor, coming to rest beneath the pot-bellied stoves. The men stopped speaking and looked at me. Splendid.

“Catters?” Eddy said. “What on earth are you doing?”

I knocked a tin of thingamabobs to the floor. One needed a glossary just to shop here.

“Catters!”

When both men approached, I leapt to the rope to draw notice. Naturally I brought it down on top of myself. Rationation is not without peril. I poked through the heap of loops and meowed for Eddy. He would recognize this as the same material from which the killer had made this morning’s noose, and Mr. Fitzgerald would be exposed as a torturer and a fiend. The neighbors might turn against him, but this mattered less than the truth. Three cheers for me, the greatest cat in all of—

“Cattarina, stop this tomfoolery at once!” Eddy said.

Mr. Fitzgerald stood behind Eddy and peered over his shoulder. “Well, I’ll be graveled. Think she’s chasing a mouse?”

“I think she’s chasing her sanity,” Eddy said.

I sank my teeth into the jute and held fast to the clue. To quote the famous philosopher, Cato, “We are twice armed when we bite in faith.” I had just become a formidable opponent.

Eddy tried tugging the line from my jaws. Then he pulled me around the floor like a child’s toy—a wooden cat on a string. When he paused to rethink this strategy, I doubled my efforts, tangling and winding into the coil until I’d knotted myself to the bitter end. With enough tortitude, any problem could be solved, I reasoned. Soon, Eddy would appreciate the significance of the rope, and I could let go of the blasted thing. I hoped it happened before dinner.

“Well, that is that, I’m afraid. Good day, Mr. Fitzgerald.” Eddy placed the hammer in his pocket and dragged me toward the door, my teeth still grasping the clue. To my horror, my fur cleaned a path on the dusty floor behind us. Still I did not let go.

“Wait! Mr. Poe!” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “Don’t mean to start a chafe, but I can’t let you to leave without paying for that item.”

Eddy paused near the entrance. “I have already purchased this hammer on credit. Perhaps we can make a similar arrangement for the rope?”

“We have a limit, and you’ve reached it.”

Eddy scowled at me, his cheeks red. “Then would you like to buy a cat?”

The shopkeeper eyed me. “At the moment, no.”

“A barter, then.” He took a deep breath. “The hammer for the rope.”

“That I can do, Mr. Poe,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “That I can do.”

Eddy left the hardware store, dragging me belly up in the dirt behind him. At least we were no longer in the company of a murderer. Tabitha and Abner Arnold watched us from the doorway of the shoemaker shop next door. Abner appeared to have recovered from his trip to Jolley Spirits and stood a little straighter. Tabitha, meanwhile, hadn’t changed a whit. She scowled at us, unamused by our conduct. Throughout the courtyard, I wished for street. When we reached Franklin, I wished for soft earth. Cobblestones are for paws, not backs. The entire trip home, Eddy did not speak to me. And he certainly did not speak to the neighbors, try as they might to engage him.

“You’ve got an odd anchor, Poe!” Mr. Cook shouted from his front stoop. “It’s got teeth and tail!”

Mrs. Cook stuck her head out of an upstairs window and pointed. “Look! He’s caught a catfish on his line. I know what Mrs. Clemm is cooking for dinner!”

Their jeers held no meaning. I had a job to do, and nothing would stand between me and my quarry, not even my pride. Just the same, I hoped I wouldn’t encounter the tabbies, George and Margaret, or the Coon Cats, Samuel and Silas. Vanity aside, I still prized my dignity.

Eddy continued in silence, stopping every few houses to see if I’d let go of the rope. But he never once looked—really looked—at the object between his fingers. With each passing stone that scraped my back, my course grew more certain. Midnight was right. To help Snip and protect the cats of Philadelphia from Mr. Fitzgerald, I had to steal Mr. Eakins’s book.