The Black Cats

The Return of Constable Harkness

CONSTABLE HARKNESS LIVED ON Green Street, but much farther west than I could’ve traveled by paw—nearly half way to the Schuylkill River, by all accounts. For expediency’s sake, Eddy hailed a private car for us, an open carriage meant, I was certain, for bird watching. I so admired the acrobatics of the purple martin. Presently, the driver parked in front of a brownstone hung with potted ferns. Smoke filled the sky here, blanketing the firmament with the haze of burnt metal. This stench ruined an otherwise handsome neighborhood.

We strode the sidewalk, and Sissy coughed straightaway in the foul air. Eddy touched her shoulder with concern, but she proceeded to the constable’s stoop and rapped on the door. We waited. The constable shuffled inside, moving and shifting things around, as if our arrival had taken him from an important task. “I’ll be right back, Matilda,” he said from the interior. “Never fear.”

The door opened.

An older, white-haired gentleman I hadn’t seen since the fall stood before us in a brown suit and blue waistcoat. I hadn’t been the only one to pack on flesh since our move, though Constable Harkness wore it better than I. He held a watering pot that dripped onto the toes of his shoes. “May I help you?” he asked.

Sissy assumed the lead. “We’ve come to—”

“By God, it’s you! It’s really you!” the constable said to her. He smiled at me, teeth hidden by his bushy mustache. “And you’ve brought that cat of yours! Fine specimen, she is. Beautiful tortoiseshell.”

A cough escaped her mouth instead of a greeting.

“Come in! Come in! The air is terrible here.” The older man led us, rather her down the tapestry hall runner. “You can thank the iron works for the smoke. The factory’s almost next door.” We entered the parlor. On my last visit, I’d stayed outside and eavesdropped from the window. The interior had a brassy, bright feel, more so than I would’ve imagined given the man’s tarnished demeanor. “How have you been? Why I haven’t seen you since—”

“Since you came to our house on Coates,” Sissy added.

“Harumph, yes, of course,” he said.

The constable offered us the couch, a tufted affair that poked my hindquarters with buttons. Eddy and Sissy sat on either side of me, and I made a home between their knees. Skulls, a strange brass tube, a raccoon tail, glass orbs in every size, a collection of dead butterflies, and other oddities beckoned me from a large curio cupboard spanning the wall adjacent to the fireplace. While these items intrigued me, they paled when compared to the large ivy sitting atop the cabinetry. A fantastical plant, its numerous tendrils tumbled over the woodwork and cascaded toward the floor, giving one the impression they had entered not a brownstone, but a jungle. I longed to scale the greenery and explore the upper environs. Alas, a diversion was out of the question. Any tomfoolery on my part would unravel the investigation faster than lace tatting between the claws. Muddy had still not forgiven me for shredding her favorite doily.

“So you and Constable Harkness are acquaintances?” Eddy asked his wife. “You spoke only briefly last October.”

Sissy shook her head at Constable Harkness. Eddy did not catch it as I did.

“I am a memorable fellow,” the constable said to him. He set his watering can on a side table.

“And my cat?” Eddy asked.

“Cattarina? Why I barely know her,” he replied.

When the constable called me, I jumped from the couch and rubbed along his pant leg, ingratiating myself to him. I had escaped parrot prison, battled fire, grappled with a killer, survived bodily harm, and yet this act took the most courage. I am not, nor have I ever been one to grovel. Nevertheless, Constable Harkness had the resources to find Midnight. The older gentleman sidestepped my generous deposit of fur. Odd. Had he not spoken my name? He retreated to a wingback chair near the fireplace and flapped his fingers, discouraging me from further attempts.

“Barely know her. I see,” Eddy said. He turned to Sissy.

Her cheeks flushed more than usual. “We should explain ourselves, Constable Harkness,” she said. “We have much to tell.”

“It’s not a social call?” He glanced at the sprawling plant. “Matilda and I get so few.”

“No, it’s a matter of urgency,” Eddy said. “We fear a woman’s been harmed.”

The constable scowled and clutched the arms of his chair. “Mr. Poe, you should work on your story openings. You might’ve told me this in the first place. Now take the work of Washington Irving—”

Eddy shot to his feet. “Washington Irving is much overrated. And there is nothing wrong with my storytelling.”

“Really, sir, I must object. Washington Irving is a brilliant writer, a visionary—”

“Visionary? I’ll grant you Irving is a pioneer. But sir, he is no writer.”

Sissy tugged Eddy’s coat sleeve and coaxed him back to the couch of many buttons. “Husband, we are here to discuss Mrs. Arnold, not debate literature.”

I jumped on his lap to keep him seated. Midnight could not afford another delay.

Eddy stroked my back and settled onto the cushions. Once he began the oft-told story, I left him in favor of the curio cabinet. I pawed open the door to inspect the skulls. Some belonged to humans, others belonged to dogs and rabbits, others still belonged to species of unknown origin. I wondered if the gentleman had hunted them himself. If so, my estimation of him had just increased whiskerfold.

“Those are suspicious circumstances, Mr. Poe,” he said at the end of Eddy’s tale. “What is your account, Mrs. Poe?”

Eddy crossed his arms and his legs. “Yes, Mrs. Poe, I am awaiting your account as well. Your full and truthful account. Will you give it?”

She laughed gaily, an odd response to what should have been a serious conversation. “You must excuse my husband, Constable. We’ve had an unsettling day. And we owe it to Abner Arnold. He is up to mischief, I know it.” She fixed the older man with a dark stare. “I feel it.”

Constable Harkness pursed his lips then said, “I don’t like the sound of that Arnold fellow. I’ll round up the watchmen and question the neighbors, new and old. Don’t worry, Mrs. Poe. We’ll find Tabitha Arnold if she’s alive.” He offered his hand to her, helping her from the couch. “Or even if she’s dead.”

***

“Quiet! Quiet!” Constable Harkness shouted over the voices. A familiar crowd assembled near Mr. Arnold’s house on Logan, evidently at the behest of the watchmen. A pawful of these black-cloaked enforcers lined the sidewalk, spacing themselves like crows on a clothesline. They held their long, pointed poles at an angle, forming a crisscross between each man to keep people from wandering. I did not count Watchman Smythe among their number. A pity. I’d met him during my last adventure and considered him trustworthy.

“Thank you all for coming,” the constable said to the people once they’d settled. “If you are forthcoming, I will be brief. If you are not, you will stand beneath this hellish summer sun until I am satisfied.” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief and tucked it in his waistcoat pocket.

I climbed to Eddy’s shoulder and surveyed the gathering over the top of Sissy’s bonnet: Mr. Eakins, Mr. Cook, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Pettigrew, Mr. Jolley, even the old lady with the parasol whom we’d spoken to near the Arnold’s old home, and of course, Abner Arnold. Anyone with knowledge of the cobblers had been invited. I couldn’t have done a better job if I’d picked them myself. The watchmen must have escorted them here while Eddy, Sissy, and I dined at home with Muddy.

“Can we get on with this nonsense?” Mr. Jolley asked. “I left my cook in charge of the till, and I’ll bet my dying breath he’s filching it.”

“Very well,” Constable Harkness said. “Today, Mr. E. A. Poe and his wife paid me a visit, claiming that a Mrs. Tabitha Arnold, citizen of the Spring Garden District, has gone missing from her home. This home.” He motioned to the shanty behind him.

Abner Arnold leaned against the garden gate, his shirt collar damp with sweat. His perspiration didn’t register as peculiar on a summer day. The sun had dampened my coat, too. But when combined with his vacant stare and yellowing skin, it pronounced health problems for all to see. This illness had affected his reason, for he seemed less concerned with the citizens gathered against him than the object in his pocket, which he fingered beneath the fabric.

“We’ve heard as much from the watchmen,” Mr. Pettigrew shouted. “Tell us why we’re here.”

“There were too many conflicting stories about the woman,” the constable said. “So I brought you here to sort it out. Some believe Abner Arnold is behind her disappearance. Who holds this opinion? Speak now.”

“Oh, me,” Mr. Eakins said. “Anyone who can kill a cat is deranged enough to kill a human.” He scratched his elbow.

“Kill a cat?” Constable Harkness asked.

Kill a cat. Yes, now they were snapping the reins. What had taken me a day to solve had taken these people over a moon. Poe family excluded, most humans exhibited a feebleness of mind I found appalling. For this very reason, cats allowed themselves to be domesticated. Had we not, humans would have gone extinct from sheer stupidity. One had only to witness the use of a chamber pot to agree.

“Yes,” Mr. Eakins said. “I set him up with a black tom named Pluto. A few weeks later, the poor creature was hung from a tree near his shop…with its eye gouged out! Who else could have done it?” He motioned to the cobbler with a gnarled finger. “Out with it, Arnold. Acknowledge the corn.”

The accusation woke Mr. Arnold from his daze, and he took his hand from his pocket, giving full attention to the crowd.

“It’s true,” Mr. Pettigrew said. “Pluto’s ghost visited that same night, burning Mr. Arnold’s house down and leaving a demonic mark as a warning for all to see.”

Eddy touched my tail. “A fine likeness of you, eh, Catters?” he whispered.

I was too busy avoiding Mr. Arnold’s cold stare to reply. The man had noticed my personage atop Eddy’s shoulder and gazed at me with consternation, as if he recognized me but couldn’t sort the particulars. Pardon, but do we frequent the same stationer’s? The same grocer’s? No, no, I burned your house down and drove you insane. Ah! That clears it up! Good day, miss! The few instances we’d met, he’d been inebriated, and I attributed his memory loss to this. For once, I thanked liquor.

The lady with the parasol nodded. “You won’t find a more pickled human being than Abner Arnold. The devil drove him to drink, and the drink drove him to kill. I lived next to him on Green Street.”

“What superstition!” Constable Harkness said. “Who has evidence of the cat’s killing?”

“I do,” Sissy said. She opened her white tasseled wrist bag—she’d secured the carryall after our luncheon—and produced the page I’d torn from Mr. Eakins’s Book of Cats. “This proves Mr. Eakins gave Mr. Arnold the black cat. It contains the Arnolds’ old address and a drawing of the creature.” She ignored Eddy’s sharp inhale and offered the clue to the constable. “And many witnessed Pluto hanging from the tree. The courts aren’t interested in animal cruelty, I know. But this proves he’s capable of dreadful things.”

Mr. Eakins gave a little hop and clap. “Hee! That came from my book all right. But I don’t know how you got it, Mrs. Poe.”

“I-I found it in the street,” she said. She glanced at me, then back to the crowd. “Mr. Fitzgerald, tell everyone about the rope Abner Arnold bought from your shop.”

Eddy gave Sissy a wry smile and whispered, “This is your affair, not the constable’s, is it not? Superb orchestration, my dear. Detective Dupin may yet have a rival.”

Sissy put her finger to her lips.

“That’s right, Mrs. Poe,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. With his near-emaciated frame, he was the only one among us not sweating. “He bought the rope from me in May. I’ve long suspected Abner of the cat’s hanging. And just last night, I witnessed the couple arguing.”

Abner Arnold forgot about me. He shook his head as a dog might after a good rain shower then took a series of slow, labored steps toward Mr. Fitzgerald. Had he been this feeble last night, Midnight might’ve escaped unharmed. I wondered what had caused the stark change in his personality.

“This is all very interesting,” Constable Harkness said, “but I fail to see how the killing of a cat—”

“Forget the cat,” Mr. Arnold said with a rasp in his throat. “Fitzgerald took Tabitha from me. Then he killed her!”

Whispers rose from the crowd, the loudest of which came from Mr. Pettigrew, “Pshaw, that Irishman couldn’t scare a crow from a cornfield.”

The watchmen knocked their poles together, quieting the crowd.

Mr. Arnold screwed himself up to his full height, still a tail-length shorter than Mr. Fitzgerald. “Fitzgerald! Tell everyone how you came to my house last night with an axe.” He wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve.

Mr. Fitzgerald laid his hands alongside his cheeks. “I’m afraid it’s true.”

“You turned up last night to threaten me. Said if I didn’t let you leave with my wife, you’d give me the blade.” He made a chopping motion against his scarred neck. “You gave it to her instead.”

The lady with the parasol gasped.

“No!” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “You’re lying!”

I yawned. Talk, talk, talk. We needed claws on the ground and tails in the air. And why had no one thought to search the home? I hopped to the ground and wove my way to the garden gate, avoiding the many feet. Something about this morning’s exploration bothered me, though I could not say what. I thought back to my investigation, going over each room in my mind. I remembered nothing of importance. I’d found the house in perfect order and the cellar empty.

The dispute continued behind me.

“Constable Harkness!” It was Mr. Cook’s turn. “I saw the shopkeepers arguing a few weeks back, something about a tree. Mrs. Arnold wanted to chop it down, and Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t. They came at each other, hammer and tongs, I tell you. Then he finished the fight by saying he’d make her pay if she touched the tree again.”

Mr. Fitzgerald pinched the bridge of his nose.

Mr. Pettigrew spoke next. “Mr. Fitzgerald had plenty of answers when I visited him this morning. He knew Mrs. Arnold wouldn’t be around to open her store. It was all very mysterioussss.” He drew out the last word.

“Whose side are you on, Pettigrew?” Constable Harkness said.

“Fitz is no murderer,” Eddy announced to the crowd. I so admired his speaking voice. He saved it for recitation since it commanded full attention—as it did now. All listeners turned to him. “Mrs. Poe and I are united in our support.”

“I could not agree with my husband more,” Sissy said.

“Thank you,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “I am glad someone will vouch for me.”

I sat on the walkway and swiveled my ears. Mr. Arnold had shut the front door, but I had other means of entry. I reached the kitchen window to discover a rag stuffed in the broken windowpane. Drat. I could not enter here. I retraced my steps to catch Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Arnold on the brink of physical confrontation. They faced each other, hands balled into fists.

“You killed her, Arnold,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “And are looking to blame me.”

“Not true! Not true!” Mr. Arnold shouted to the listeners. “Mr. Fitzgerald did it. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you can’t trust the Irish.”

Mr. Fitzgerald charged Mr. Arnold and knocked him to the ground. The meaning of Irish eluded me, but it held power. The two men grappled on the sidewalk, punching and flailing and kicking. One of the watchmen inserted his pole between the men and pried them apart. This did not please the shopkeepers, and the men rejoined to finish the battle. At Constable Harkness’s signal, the full complement of watchmen intervened. I marveled at the writhing pile of humans. Extinction indeed.

On my second sweep, I detected an indistinct yelp, so faint I could not divine its direction. Then I heard it again. It could’ve been my imagination. Or the wind. Nonetheless, I trotted around the house to investigate, pausing before the cellar doors. I had examined the earthen room this morning and found it empty. Empty? Had I not seen the bag of cement and the tower of bricks? No, they’d been missing. I’d found another clue! As before, I squeezed through the warped opening and descended the street staircase into darkness. A respite from the sun, the damp stone floor welcomed my paws. The sharp odor of quicklime permeated the air, along with a weaker but no less nauseating smell. I sneezed.

“Help me,” someone said.

I froze near the kitchen staircase, frightened by the request.

“Oh, won’t somebody help me.” The weak but familiar plea arose from the wall to my right. My tail switched side to side. Someone had placed bricks over the recess near the stairs, entombing my pal between the layers. Damnation. The new masonry resembled the old, and in my haste this morning, I’d failed to notice the damp mortar.

“Don’t worry, Midnight!” I yowled. “I have found you!”