Black As He’s Painted

‘I must be getting fanciful,’ he thought.

A faint rhythmic scuffling redirected his attention to the cat. With her ears laid back and with a zealous concentration that spoke volumes for her recuperative powers, she was tidying up. This exercise was followed by a scrupulous personal toilette, which done, she blinked at Mr Whipplestone and pushed her nut-like head against his ankle.

He picked her up and returned indoors.

II

The fashionable and grossly expensive pet-shop round the corner in Baronsgate had a consulting-room, visited on Wednesday mornings by a veterinary surgeon. Mr Whipplestone had observed their notice to this effect and the next morning, being a Wednesday, he took the cat to be vetted. His manner of conveying his intention to the Chubbs was as guarded and non-committal as forty years’ experience in diplomacy could make it. Indeed, in a less rarefied atmosphere it might almost have been described as furtive.

He gave it out that he was ‘taking that animal to be attended to’. When the Chubbs jumped to the conclusion that this was a euphemism for ‘put down’ he did not correct them. Nor did he think it necessary to mention that the animal had spent the night on his bed. She had roused him at daybreak by touching his face with her paw. When he opened his eyes she had flirted with him, rolling on her side and looking at him from under her arm. And when Chubb came in with his early morning tray, Mr Whipplestone had contrived to throw his eiderdown over her and later on had treated her to a saucer of milk. He came downstairs with her under The Times, chose his moment to let her out by the back door into the garden, and presently called Mrs Chubb’s attention to her. She was demanding vigorously to be let in.

So now he sat on a padded bench in a minute waiting-room, cheek by jowl with several Baronsgate ladies, each of whom had a dog in tow. One of them, the one next to Mr Whipplestone, was the lady who trod on his foot in the Napoli, Mrs Montfort as he subsequently discovered, the Colonel’s lady. They said good morning to each other when they encountered, and did so now. By and large Mr Whipplestone thought her pretty awful, though not as awful as the pig-pottery lady of last night. Mrs Montfort carried on her overdressed lap a Pekinese, which, after a single contemptuous look, turned its back on Mr Whipplestone’s cat who stared through it.

He was acutely conscious that he presented a farcical appearance. The only container that could be found by the Chubbs was a disused birdcage, the home of their parrot, lately deceased. The little cat looked outraged sitting in it, and Mr Whipplestone looked silly nursing it and wearing his eye-glass. Several of the ladies exchanged amused glances.

‘What,’ asked the ultra-smart surgery attendant, notebook in hand, ‘is pussy’s name?’

He felt that if he said ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘It hasn’t got one,’ he would put himself at a disadvantage with these women. ‘Lucy,’ he said loudly and added as an afterthought: ‘Lockett.’

‘I see!’ she said brightly and noted it down. ‘You haven’t an appointment, have you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Lucy won’t have long to wait,’ she smiled, and passed on.

A woman with a huge, angry, short-haired tabby in her arms came through from the surgery.

The newly-named Lucy’s fur rose. She made a noise that suggested she had come to the boil. The tabby suddenly let out a yell. Dogs made ambiguous comments in their throats.

‘Oh lor!’ said the newcomer. She grinned at Mr Whipplestone. ‘Better make ourselves scarce,’ she said, and to her indignant cat: ‘Shut up, Bardolph, don’t be an ass.’

When they had gone Lucy went to sleep and Mrs Montfort said: ‘Is your cat very ill?’

‘No!’ Mr Whipplestone quite shouted and then explained that Lucy was a stray starveling.

‘Sweet of you,’ she said, ‘to care. People are so awful about animals. It makes me quite ill. I’m like that.’ She turned her gaze upon him. ‘Kitty Montfort. My husband’s the warrior with the purple face. He’s called Colonel Montfort.’

Cornered, Mr Whipplestone murmured his own name.

Mrs Montfort smelt of very heavy scent and gin.

‘I know,’ she said archly, ‘you’re our new boy, aren’t you? At No. 1, The Walk? We have a piece of your Chubb on Fridays.’

Mr Whipplestone, whose manners were impeccable, bowed as far as the birdcage would permit.

Mrs Montfort was smiling into his face. She had laid her gloved hand on the cage. The door behind him had opened. Her smile became fixed as if pinned up at the corners. She withdrew her hand, and looked straight in front of her.

From the street there had entered a totally black man in livery with a white Afghan hound on a scarlet leash. The man paused and glanced round. There was an empty place on the other side of Mrs Montfort. Still looking straight in front of her, she moved far enough along the seat to leave insufficient room on either side of her. Mr Whipplestone instantly widened the distance between them and with a gesture, invited the man to sit down. The man said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and remained where he was, not looking at Mrs Montfort. The hound advanced his nose towards the cage. Lucy did not wake.

‘I wouldn’t come too close if I were you, old boy,’ Mr Whipplestone said. The Afghan wagged his tail and Mr Whipplestone patted him. ‘I know you,’ he said, ‘you’re the Embassy dog, aren’t you? You’re Ahman.’ He gave the man a pleasant look and the man made a slight bow.

‘Lucy Lockett:?’ said the attendant, brightly emerging. ‘We’re all ready for her.’

The consultation was brief but conclusive. Lucy Lockett was about seven months old and her temperature was normal, she was innocent of mange, ringworm or parasites, she was extremely undernourished and therefore in shocking condition. Here the vet hesitated. ‘There are scars,’ he said, ‘and there’s been a fractured rib that has looked after itself. She’s been badly neglected – I think she may have been actively ill-treated.’ And catching sight of Mr Whipplestone’s horrified face he added cheerfully: ‘Nothing that pills and good food won’t put right.’ He said she had been spayed. She was half-Siamese and half God knew what, the vet said, turning back her fur and handling her this way and that. He laughed at the white end to her tail and gave her an injection.

She submitted to these indignities with utter detachment, but when at liberty, leapt into her protector’s embrace and performed her now familiar act of jamming her head under his jacket and lying next his heart.

‘Taken to you,’ said the vet. ‘They’ve got a sense of gratitude, cats have. Especially the females.’

‘I don’t know anything about them,’ said Mr Whipplestone in a hurry.

Motivated by sales-talk and embarrassment, he bought on his way out a cat bed-basket, a china dish labelled ‘Kit-bits’, a comb and brush and a collar for which he ordered a metal tab with a legend: ‘Lucy Lockett. 1 Capricorn Walk’ and his telephone number. The shop assistant showed him a little red cat-harness for walking out and told him that with patience, cats could be induced to co-operate. She put Lucy into it and the result was fetching enough for Mr Whipplestone to keep it.

He left the parrot cage behind to be called for and heavily laden, with Lucy again in retreat under his coat, walked quickly home to deploy his diplomatic resources upon the Chubbs, little knowing that he carried his destiny under his jacket.

III

‘This is perfectly delightful,’ said Mr Whipplestone, turning from his host to his hostess with the slight inclinations of his head and shoulders that had long been occupational mannerisms. ‘I am so enjoying myself.’

‘Fill up your glass,’ Alleyn said. ‘I did warn you that it was an invitation with an ulterior motive, didn’t I?’

‘I am fully prepared: charmingly so. A superb port.’

‘I’ll leave you with it,’ Troy suggested.

‘No, don’t,’ Alleyn said. ‘We’ll send you packing if anything v.s. and c crops up. Otherwise it’s nice to have you. Isn’t it, Whipplestone?’

Mr Whipplestone embarked upon a speech about his good fortune in being able to contemplate a ‘Troy’ above his fireplace every evening and now having the pleasure of contemplating the artist herself at her own fireside. He got a little bogged down but fetched up bravely.

‘And when,’ he asked, coming to his own rescue, ‘are we to embark upon the ulterior motive?’

Alleyn said, ‘Let’s make a move. This is liable to take time.’

At Troy’s suggestion they carried their port from the house into her detached studio and settled themselves in front of long windows overlooking a twilit London garden.

‘I want,’ Alleyn said, ‘to pick your brains a little. Aren’t you by way of being an expert on Ng’ombwana?’

‘Ng’ombwana? I! That’s putting it much too high, my dear man. I was there for three years in my youth.’

‘I thought that quite recently when it was getting its independence –?’

‘They sent me out there, yes. During the exploratory period: mainly because I speak the language, I suppose. Having rather made it my thing in a mild way.’

‘And you have kept it up?’

‘Again, in a mild way: oh, yes. Yes.’ He looked across the top of his glass at Alleyn. ‘You haven’t gone over to the Special Branch, surely?’

‘That’s a very crisp bit of instant deduction. No, I haven’t. But you may say they’ve unofficially roped me in for the occasion.’