The Salmon of Doubt

Dirk looked at her expressionlessly. Apart from being extremely good-looking in a blondish, willowyish kind of way, she was dressed well in an “I don’t care what I wear, just any old thing that’s lying around”

kind of way that relies on extremely careful about what you leave lying around. She was obviously pretty bright, probably had a pretty good job, like running some sort of major textile or telecommunications company despite being clearly only thirty-two. In other words, she was exactly the sort of person who didn’t mislay cats, and certainly didn’t go running off to poky little private detective agencies if she did.

He felt ill at ease.

“Talk sense, please,” he said sharply. “My time is valuable.”

“Oh yes? How valuable?”

She looked scornfully around his office. He had to admit to himself that it was grim, but he was damned if he was just going to sit there and take it. Just because he needed the work, needed the money, had nothing better to do with his time, there was no reason for anybody to think that he was at the beck and call of every good-looking woman who walked into his office offering to pay for his services. He felt humiliated.

“I’m not talking about my scale of fees, though it is, I promise you, awesome. I was merely thinking of time passing. Time that won’t pass this way again.” He leaned forward in a pointed manner.

“Time is a finite entity, you know. Only about four billion years to go till the sun explodes. I know it seems like a lot now, but it will soon go if we just squander it on frivolous nonsense and small talk.”

“Small talk! This is half of my cat we’re talking about!”

“Madam, I don’t know who this ‘we’ is that you are referring to, but ...” “Listen. You may choose, when you’ve heard the details of this case, not to accept it because it is, I admit, a little odd. But I made an appointment to see you on the basis of what it said in your advertisement, to whit, that you find lost cats, and if you turn me down solely on the basis that you do not find lost cats, then I must remind you that there is such a thing as the Trades Descriptions Act. I can’t remember exactly what it says, but I bet you five pounds it says you can’t do that.”

“All right,” he said, “I’ll take down the details of the case.”

“Thank you.”

“And then I’ll turn it down.”

“That’s your business.”

“The point I’m trying to make,” said Dirk, “is that it isn’t. So. What is this cat’s name?”

“Gusty.”

“Gusty.”

“Yes. Short for Gusty Winds.”

Dirk looked at her. “I won’t ask,” he said.

“You’ll wish you had.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She shrugged.

“Male?” said Dirk. “Female?”

“Male.”

“Age?”

“Four years.”

“Description?”

“Well, um. That’s a bit tricky.”

“How hard can a question be? What is he, black? White? Ginger? Tabby?”

“Oh. Siamese.”

“Good,” said Dirk, writing down “Siamese.” “And when did you last see him?”

“About three minutes ago.”

Dirk laid his pencil down and looked at her.

“Maybe four, in fact,” she added.

“Let me see if I understand you,” said Dirk. “You say you lost your cat, er, ‘Gusty,’ while you’ve been standing here talking to me?” “No. I lost him—or sort of half-lost him—two weeks ago. But I last saw him, which is what you asked, just before I came into your office. I just checked to see he was okay.

Which he was. Well, sort of okay. If you can call it okay.” “And ... er, where was he, exactly, when you checked to see that he was okay?”

She went out of the room and returned with a medium-sized wickerwork cat box. She put it down on Dirk’s desk. Its contents mewed slightly. She closed the door behind her.

Dirk frowned.

“Excuse me if I’m being a little obtuse,” he said, looking round the basket at her. “Tell me which bit of this I’ve got wrong. It seems to me that you are asking me if I will exercise my professional skills to search for and if possible find and return to you a cat ...”

“Yes.”

“... which you already have with you in a cat basket?”

“Well, that’s right up to a point.”

“And which point is that?”

“Have a look for yourself.”

She slid out the metal rod that held the lid in place, reached into the basket, lifted out the cat, and put him down on Dirk’s desk, next to the basket. Dirk looked at him.

He—Gusty—looked at him.

There is a particular disdain with which Siamese cats regard you. Anyone who has accidentally walked in on the Queen cleaning her teeth will be familiar with this feeling.

Gusty looked at Dirk and clearly found him reprehensible in some way. He turned away, yawned, stretched, groomed his whiskers briefly, licked down a small patch of ruffled fur, then leapt lightly off the table and started carefully to examine a splinter of floorboard, which he found to be far more interesting than Dirk.

Dirk stared wordlessly at Gusty.

Up to a point, Gusty looked exactly like a normal Siamese cat. Up to a point. The point up to which Gusty looked like a normal Siamese cat was his waist, which was marked by a narrrow, cloudy grey band.