Free Bones in High Places by Suzette Hill

lesser felines would have collapsed under the strain, but being of fine fortitude and not easily thwarted by the slights and blunders of human beings (even those of the vicar), I naturally persevered. Having made it my mission to protect F.O. from his own ineptitude I had no intention of failing. But I can tell you, the deprivations were considerable.
    Take that first night in the hostelry the Brighton Type had chosen … they forgot to feed me, if you please. Yes, so intent were they on their own food that they entirely overlooked my nutritional requirements – wasn’t even offered a pre-prandial saucer of milk. When F.O. and the Type later woke me from my nap on the car seat I fully expected to be offered some choice titbits – but all they did was shove me out to stretch my legs while they smoked and guzzled whisky. Not a word about my supper! And then the vicar whisked me off to his room assuming I would be content to sleep the night through. Well, I certainly wasn’t having that, oh no!
    The moment he was in bed and had started to snore, I quickly moved to the bedroom door which fortunately was only on the latch. After teasing it with a paw I was able to open it a crack and insinuate my way into the corridor. From thence I padded downstairs towards the kitchens – easily located by the lingering odours – and slipped into a pantry and commenced my midnight forage. Very productive it was too: I liberated a wealth of enticing scraps, threatened a mouse, harried a cockroach, and enjoyed what Bouncer would doubtless describe as ‘a right old feast’.
    Satiated but by now far from sleepy, I decided to take the air before retiring. No difficulties with this – the pantry window was gaping wide and I easily jumped on to the lawn below. Here I crouched by what seemed to be a ground-floor wing with a number of sash windows, some still lit. Being curious by nature I thought I would practise my skills of reconnaissance. So with a lithe leap to the sill I crept along, peering into the various rooms. Disappointingly there was nothing of note: people stumbling around in pyjamas, cleaning their teeth, arguing, reading books, clambering over each other – the usual nightly antics of human beings.
    But just as I was losing interest and about to seek diversion elsewhere I encountered a window that was open; and sitting at a nearby table were two men, still fully dressed, stooped over a large map. Nothing remarkable in that, you might think. Not normally. But when alongside the map there is a folded newspaper with a clear picture of your master squinting up from the page, it does tend to give you pause for thought … And that is exactly what I did: paused, thought, looked and listened.
    As soon as I caught their words I realized they must be the same pair I had heard muttering outside the car on the boat. It is not always easy to grasp what humans say – their vocal cords are defective and they enunciate poorly – but over the years I have developed a fair grasp, and the conversation was roughly as follows:
    ‘Apart from that cock-up earlier, so far so good. Just as well you spotted them when you did otherwise we wouldn’t have stood a chance. We’ll have to stick pretty close tomorrow … But my God, that was a stroke of luck bumping into him on the boat like that – obviously “meant”!’ There was a coarse guffaw which made me flinch and I backed into the shadows.
    ‘It’s only meant ,’ said the other voice, ‘if he can be used, i.e. if we can relieve him of that map of the Fotherington place you seem so sure he’s got – though I still think you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
    ‘Look,’ said the larger one slowly, ‘our friend Crumpelmeyer may be a blathering loon but there’s shrewd cunning there all the same … he was probably quite bright before he flipped and murdered his wife. If Oughterard is travelling to the Auvergne and looking for some property, as the sister let drop on the boat, ten to one