Black As He’s Painted

‘Have you recognized the cat?’ asked Mr Whipplestone in alarm. They said they thought they had. Mrs Pirelli had very little English. She was a very large lady and she now made herself a great deal larger in eloquent mime, curving both arms in front of her and blowing out her cheeks. She also jerked her head in the direction of Capricorn Passage. ‘You mean the pottery person,’ cried Mr Whipplestone. ‘You mean she was that person’s cat!’

He realized bemusedly that Mrs Pirelli had made another gesture, an ancient one. She had crossed herself. She laid her hand on Mr Whipplestone’s arm. ‘No, no, no. Do not give back. No. Cattivo. Cattivo,’ said Mrs Pirelli.

‘Cat?’

‘No, signor,’ said Mr Pirelli. ‘My wife is saying “bad”. They are bad, cruel people. Do not return to them your little cat.’

‘No,’ said Mr Whipplestone confusedly. ‘No, I won’t. Thank you. I won’t.’

And from that day he never took Lucy into the Mews.

Mrs Chubb, Lucy accepted as a source of food and accordingly performed the obligatory ritual of brushing round her ankles. Chubb, she completely ignored.

She spent a good deal of time in the tub garden at the back of the house making wild balletic passes at imaginary butterflies.

At 9.30 one morning, a week after his dinner with the Alleyns, Mr Whipplestone sat in his drawing-room doing The Times crossword. Chubb was out shopping and Mrs Chubb, having finished her housework, was ‘doing for’ Mr Sheridan in the basement. Mr Sheridan, who was something in the City, Mr Whipplestone gathered, was never at home on weekday mornings. At 11 o’clock Mrs Chubb would return to see about Mr Whipplestone’s luncheon. The arrangement worked admirably.

Held up over a particularly cryptic clue, Mr Whipplestone’s attention was caught by a singular noise, a kind of stifled complaint as if Lucy was mewing with her mouth full. This proved to be the case. She entered the room backwards with sunken head, approached crab-wise and dropped something heavy on his foot. She then sat back and gazed at him with her head on one side and made the inquiring trill that he found particularly fetching.

‘What on earth have you got there?’ he asked.

He picked it up. It was a ceramic no bigger than a medallion but it was heavy and must have grievously taxed her delicate little jaws. A pottery fish, painted white on one side and biting its own tail. It was pierced by a hole at the top.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked severely.

Lucy lifted a paw, lay down, looked archly at him from under her arm and then incontinently jumped up and left the room.

‘Extraordinary little creature,’ he muttered. ‘It must belong to the Chubbs.’

And when Mrs Chubb returned from below he called her in and showed it to her. ‘Is this yours, Mrs Chubb?’ he asked.

She had a technique of not replying immediately to anything that was said to her and she used it now. He held the thing out to her but she didn’t take it.

‘The cat brought it in,’ explained Mr Whipplestone, who always introduced a tone of indifference in mentioning Lucy Lockett to the Chubbs. ‘Do you know where it came from?’

‘I think – it must be – I think it’s Mr Sheridan’s, sir,’ Mrs Chubb said at last. ‘One of his ornaments, like. The cat gets through his back window, sir, when it’s open for airing. Like when I done it just now. But I never noticed.’

‘Does she? Dear me! Most reprehensible! You might put it back, Mrs Chubb, could you? Too awkward if he should miss it!’

Mrs Chubb’s fingers closed over it. Mr Whipplestone looking up at her, saw with surprise that her apple-pink cheeks had blanched. He thought of asking her if she was unwell but her colour began to reappear unevenly.

‘All right, Mrs Chubb?’ he asked.

She seemed to hover on the brink of some reply. Her lips moved and she brushed them with her fingers. At last she said: ‘I haven’t liked to ask, sir, but I hope we give satisfaction, Chubb and me.’

‘Indeed you do,’ he said warmly. ‘Everything goes very smoothly.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said and went out. He thought: ‘That wasn’t what she was about to say.’

He heard her go upstairs and thought: ‘I wish she’d return that damn’d object.’ But almost immediately she came back.