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Dooley eyed her a little uncertainly, then gave me a questioning look. I shook my head. Cats usually don’t like to be reminded they don’t perform these feats of hanky panky in a vacuum. That there are other cats around who can hear everything that goes on in these unguarded moments.

“Um, that’s what Max said you were doing down there,” said Dooley, squarely dragging me into the thing. “So I just thought I’d ask…”

Brutus plastered a fake smile onto his face.“Yeah, um, the hanky panky. Well, it was a lot of fun, wasn’t it, Harriet?”

“Actually we were not engaged in hanky panky,” said Harriet.

“We weren’t?” asked Brutus. Harriet was giving him warning signals for some reason, so he quickly amended his statement to, “No, we weren’t.”

“We were looking for clues,” said Harriet. “Clues in connection to the case Odelia is working on. We figured if there’s one body buried inside the wall of the basement, it stands to reason there must be others, especially as these two houses were inhabited by the same family once upon a time. Two basements, so why not two bodies, you know?”

I’d explained the whole story to Harriet, but it did strike me as peculiar that she would have known to look for dead bodies before she was apprised of the state of affairs. Almost as if she was psychic. Odd.

“And? Did you find any?” asked Dooley, and Harriet gave him a dirty look that was entirely undeserving for such an obvious question.

“No, Dooley, we did not find more dead bodies. And it is my firm belief that the basement, at least this one, is entirely body-free.”

“Oh, that’s great,” said Dooley. “Odelia will be happy to hear that.”

“So what about the mouse?” I asked, and this time Harriet’s eyes flashed their anger at me. Why, I did not know.

“No, we didn’t find the mouse. It probably got scared and ran off.”

“Okay,” I said. “So why were those gangsters yammering on and on about mice when Chase led them out of the house?”

“Oh, just tell them,” said Brutus as he hunkered down on the couch, looking miserable.

“No, I will not tell them,” said Harriet. “Remember what we agreed, Brutus.”

“It’s no use, Harriet,” said Brutus. “They’re too smart. They’ll figure it out.” He directed a quick glance at Dooley, then amended his statement. “Max is too smart. He’ll figure it out.”

“Figure what out?” I asked, intrigued.

“See? He doesn’t have a clue,” said Harriet. “So you better keep that big mouth shut, Brutus, or else—”

“Harriet got her head stuck in the wall,” said Brutus. “One of the mice pretended to be our friend and lured her into its nest and then she got stuck. They’re very devious, and they have no intention of leaving. Her name is Molly, by the way, and her partner is called Rupert, and between them they are the proud parents of an offspring of four hundred.”

“Four hundred!” I cried. “That’s a lot of mice.”

“Tell me about it,” said Brutus, shaking a tired head.

“If that’s true Odelia will have to hire a professional. No way are we ever going to get four hundred mice out of the house.”

“You’re… not making fun of me, then?” asked Harriet after a pause which I used to think up ways and means to deal with these intruders.

“Make fun of you? Why would we make fun of you?” I asked, surprised.

She smiled.“I thought you’d have a big laugh at my expense when you heard I’d been fooled by Molly the Mouse and got my head stuck inside the wall.”

“That could have happened to any one of us,” I said, and I meant it. In fact it sounded like something that could very well have happened to me. “So are you going to tell Odelia? Give her the bad news?”

“Bad news about what?” asked Odelia as she joined us on the couch.

“Your basement is infested with mice,” said Harriet. “And even though we tried to reason with them, they decided to stay put.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” said Odelia with a wave of the hand. “They’ll eventually move on.”

“No, they won’t,” said Brutus. “There’s four hundred of them, Odelia, and they have absolutely no intention of moving on. In fact they’re going to stay where they are and try to drive us out of the house if they can manage.”

“Four hundred,” she said with an incredulous little laugh. “Phew. Are you sure?”

“We saw them,” said Harriet. “And they’re not nice mice either. They’re devious.”

Odelia held up her hands.“You know what? I can’t deal with this right now. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this burglary. Good thing you guys caught those crooks.”

“Good thing Chase was there to storm into that basement, guns blazing, saving you from financial ruin,” I said.

She smiled as she petted me.“I wouldn’t say he saved me from financial ruin, but he did save me from being burgled, which is a terrible feeling I never hope to experience again.”

“Being saved, you mean?” asked Dooley, confused.

“Being burgled. People crawling all over your private space, and picking through your private stuff. It feels horrible, let me tell you.”

“What’s going to happen to those crooks now?” I asked.