40b1ce81e27faee7f7dcd22da99b93e1

“Absolutely, Dooley,” said Odelia. She looked distracted, though.

Somehow I had a feeling it was going to be up to us to save Harriet from the clutches of her catnapper!

CHAPTER 24

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]

That night, we decided to enlist the assistance of the members of cat choir to organize a search and rescue operation the likes of which Hampton Cove has never seen. Of course when we told our friends what had happened they were all appalled, as they should have been, since this kind of thing can happen to anyone, Persian or no Persian.

“We have to save her from this madman,” said Kingman. “If they take Harriet today, they’ll come for the rest of us tomorrow, and then where will we be?”

“And as usual you can’t rely on the police,” said Buster, the hairdresser’s cat.

“I think it’s a sign of the dangerous times we live in,” said Tigger, the plumber’s cat.

“It’s all those violent video games,” was Misty’s opinion, the electrician’s cat.

“And those violent movies!” said Missy, the landscaper’s cat.

“I’m sure it’s hormones,” said Shadow. She belongs to Franklin Beaver, the man who runs the hardware store. “There are way too many hormones in human food.”

“And I think it’s typical that it’s a man,” said Shanille, cat choir’s conductor. “Only men take the trouble to kidnap a female for their own personal enjoyment.”

“I think he wants Harriet to feature in videos he’ll put up on his YouTube channel,” I said. “Painting and such. He says it’s very soothing.”

“Well, it may be soothing to him, but why should his personal enjoyment require a dear friend to be unlawfully imprisoned like this?” Shanille insisted.

“Oh, no,” I said. “You’re absolutely right.”

“And what I want to know,” Shanille continued, “is where Brutus was when all this happened. After all, he’s Harriet’s partner. He has a duty of care!”

“It all happened so fast that it was simply impossible to—”

“You should have been more alert, Max,” said Shanille, giving me a censorious look. “I blame it on your diet. It has made you lazy and slow. I mean, who has ever heard of a human that can outrun a cat! It’s a disgrace! No, the only reason you were hoodwinked like this is because you were asleep at the wheel.”

“Max wasn’t at the wheel,” Dooley commented, but Shanille ignored him.

“Personally I blame Odelia,” she now stated. “And Marge and Vesta. If they had warned Harriet never to talk to strangers, this would never have happened.”

“The thing is that the catnapper never actually talked to us,” I pointed out.

“It’s television,” said Missy. “The things they show on television these days. It’s all just blood and violence and gore. No wonder humans turn into animals.”

“Okay, so maybe we can start our search now?” I suggested, interrupting these academic discussions, interesting though they were, of course.

“Yes, for all we know, he could be murdering Harriet right now,” said Dooley.

That effectively shut everyone up, and so we finally set out for the house of Gallagher Davenport, in search of our dear friend.

We arrived at the spooky place, and the mere sight of that spiked fence did much to discourage the members of cat choir, but of course we’re all made of sterner stuff, and so we persisted, and soon were spreading out and covering the grounds, with a large contingent entering the house through the front door, which was still wide open, as the official police search hadn’t yet been concluded.

“I wonder where Brutus is,” said Dooley as we walked across a creaking wooden floor, sniffing here and there to pick up Harriet’s scent, still our best bet to find her.

“He’s around here somewhere,” I said, sniffing at a particularly old cupboard that must have been built by one of Davenport’s forebears.

“Max! Dooley!” suddenly Shanille shouted. “I think I found her!”

We all hurried to join our director, and found her standing in front of one of the stuffed Persians, which managed to look both sad and ominous.

“We’re too late,” Shanille said in a choked voice. “She’s already been stuffed!”

“This isn’t Harriet, though,” I told her.

“It isn’t?”

“No, this guy has plenty of Persians scattered about the place, all stuffed. But none of them are Harriet.”

“But if we wait too long, she might get stuffed soon!” Dooley added his two cents to the bargain.

It instilled in us a renewed sense of urgency, and so we spread out once more, poking around here and there.

Finally we found ourselves at the top of the stairs once more, the ones that led down into that wine cellar.

“We already searched down there,” Dooley reminded me.

“I know, but we searched every other place in this place, and came up empty-pawed.”

“Maybe we missed something?” Dooley suggested, and so we descended those rickety stairs for the second time in one evening, a testament to our persistence.

We found Buster down there, sniffing at a large stuffed Persian, which looked very angry indeed.