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“Your uncle is here,” said Chase as he glanced down the attic ladder.

The shuffling of feet could be heard, and the next moment the head of her uncle Alec cleared the attic opening. He was panting slightly from the exertion.“So what’s the verdict?” he asked as he took a breather.

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a burglar who dabbles in animal cruelty,” said Chase, and told the chief in a few words what had transpired.

“If we hadn’t shown up when we did, my cats would have died,” said Odelia.

She tried to hide her distress, but it mustn’t have worked well, for Uncle Alec walked over and gave her a comforting pat on the back. “We’ll get the bastard, honey. Just you wait and see. And then we’ll throw the book at him.”

“How did you get here?” asked Max now. “I thought you were both at work?”

“We were,” said Odelia. “But Mom called and said she thought she’d left the stove on and asked me to come and check.”

“Happens to me all the time,” said Uncle Alec. “Sometimes I have to go back twice, just to be sure. Must be old age.”

“Or just having a lot of things on your mind,” said Odelia.

“I was passing Odelia’s office when I saw her walking out,” said Chase. “And since criminals have been taking it easy lately, I just figured I’d join her and have an early lunch at the house. Beats the police station canteen.”

“So it’s actually Marge we have to thank for saving our lives,” said Harriet.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” said Odelia with a smile. “If she hadn’t called…” She didn’t want to finish the sentence, or the thought, as it was too horrible to contemplate.

“Harriet had a solution,” said Max. “So I like to think we would have made it out safe and sound, even if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”

It didn’t look to Odelia as if Harriet’s solution would have done much to alleviate the danger that flaming chest had posed, but this time she decided to keep her tongue.

“The important thing is that you made it out alive,” she said. “And maybe,” she added with a glance at her boyfriend, “we should keep an eye on you guys from now on. At least until this maniac is caught.”

Chase nodded, though she could tell that arranging a bodyguard for her cats wasn’t exactly the solution he’d had in mind for this new situation.

“I’ll see if I can’t install some kind of an alarm system,” said the cop now. “Cameras and stuff, so that if this guy comes back, God forbid, we can catch him in the act.”

“I really thought I was going to die,” said Dooley now. “And so I said some things that maybe I shouldn’t have said.”

“What kind of things?” asked Odelia as she crouched down next to the Ragamuffin.

“Like… that I accidentally did wee-wee in Brutus’s litter box, and doo-doo in Harriet’s litter box, and that I even did wee-wee in Max’s water bowl.”

She had to suppress a grin, but patted the cat on the head instead.“I don’t think your friends will hold it against you, Dooley,” she said. “If I had to count the number of times I used Mom and Dad’s bathroom instead of my own, I would need more than ten fingers.”

“Yes, but for humans it’s different,” he said. “You only have one bathroom in the house and you all use it. We like to use our own bathroom, and not share it with others.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’m sure Harriet and Brutus don’t mind if you use their litter box from time to time.”

“And Max?” He darted a surreptitious glance at his friend. “Won’t he be mad at me?”

“Why don’t we ask him? Max!” she called out. “Come over here a minute, will you?”

Dooley gave his friend a worried look.

“What is it?” asked Max.

“Dooley is worried that you’re angry with him now that he confessed his little… accident.”

Max smiled.“I’d completely forgotten about that already.”

“So you aren’t mad at me, Max?” asked Dooley.

Max shrugged.“It can happen to the best of us, Dooley. You’re sleepy, stumbling around in the dark, and so you do your business… elsewhere. It’s totally fine.”

“But… it’s not hygienic, Max,” Dooley insisted, apparently a glutton for punishment.

Max winced a little at the thought that he’d actually drunk water with a little… extra. “It’s okay. I’m still here, aren’t I? So clearly drinking that water didn’t have any adverse effect on me.”

Dooley nodded, but didn’t look totally convinced. “I won’t do it again, Max, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m just thinking that I’d like to know who locked us up in that chest.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” said Dooley softly. Oddly enough the peeing incident seemed to be troubling him more than the being-set-on-fire incident. Then again, every cat has his or her hang-ups, and clearly Dooley’s hang-up was losing the respect and affection of his peers, and Odelia could absolutely relate with that.

Suddenly there was a loud rumbling on the attic ladder, an anguished cry, and then Mom appeared, followed by Dad and Gran, in that order, and even… Charlene Butterwick, Mayor of Hampton Cove and Uncle Alec’s girlfriend.