Reserved for the Cat

You are about to become the victim of a dreadful shipwreck. Can it be a shipwreck if it is only a yacht? A yacht-wreck doesn’t sound quite right. The cat ran on ahead, pausing in a circle of lamplight to look back at her.

“A what?”

A shipwreck. Remember I told you that we were going to borrow someone else’s reputation? You will be Nina Tchereslavsky, Russian prima donna. She has never performed further west than Berlin. You look enough like her photographs to pass. She speaks French almost exclusively outside of Russia, although she does know some English, and I will arrange for you to learn Russian in the same way I arranged for you to learn English.

“But how does this—”

Let me finish. You—that is, Nina—decided to come to England on holiday, possibly to arrange a tour as well. Possibly to stay. You are certain there is no dancer half so good as you here. A friend with a yacht arranged to bring you. In last night’s storm, the boat was wrecked, your friend is presumably drowned, and you have lost all of your possessions.

“But I cannot see—”

I will arrange the rest. You have only to remember your name and the storm and the wreck and act dazed. Speak French. I will take care of the rest. The cat herded her quickly down the street to the seashore. By that time, her hair was soaked, the rags of her gown and her cloak were soaked, and with her hair straggling into her eyes she was certainly going to present a convincing imitation of a shipwreck victim. As she staggered along the sand, the sky was just starting to lighten in the east, and the piers of the boardwalk loomed darkly above her head. She had not yet been down to the boardwalk, although she gathered that there were all manner of places of amusement built on it. Out of the holiday season though, most of them were fairly desolate.

Here, the cat said, finally. Wait here. Try and keep warm. When you hear me tell you to, lie face-down on the sand. Remember, you are Nina Tchereslavsky. Nothing else is of consequence.

And then the cat whisked away, leaving her at the foot of the piers, shivering, in the dark.

Was this scheme mad enough to actually work? Well she had no choice now.

The automobile chugged and rattled, the headlights doing little to illuminate the cobblestone-paved street ahead. Fortunately the streetlamps were still well lit, extravagant electrical things that they were. Nigel Barrett gripped the steering wheel and was grateful that this was an enclosed auto. And cursed the fact that the storm had chosen last night to break over their heads.

“Why you insisted on dragging us out this early in the morning, Nigel, I do not know.” Since this was roughly the tenth time Nigel Barrett’s traveling companion Wolf had voiced this particular complaint, Nigel did not bother to repeat his answer.

But his other traveling companion, Arthur Gilbert, did so for him. “Because if we are going to get to Manchester in time to see this singer at the matinee, we have to leave now, Wolf. Nigel’s only told you so a dozen times.”

“Nine,” Wolf replied, with immense dignity, from the rear seat of the enclosed motorcar. “And I don’t know why I had to come along.”

“Because you are the one writing the music for this extravaganza,” Nigel replied, carefully negotiating the narrow street in the semi-darkness. Once again, he asked himself why he lived in this part of Blackpool, where every time he wanted to take the motorcar out, he had to negotiate a maze of medieval lanes. “You have the final word on whether I hire her or not.”

“Arthur knows what I like,” Wolf said tartly.