Free Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin by Nancy Atherton Page A

dismissal.
    “I believe I shall,” said Mr. Moss, and hung up.
    I placed the cell phone on the desk and pursed my lips.
    “A pretty conundrum?” I repeated, incredulous. “If you ask me, Hamish, it’s a sickening mess. What do they intend to do? Keep Miss Beacham in a hatbox until her brother decides to appear ? I hope she left the auction proceeds to you, Hamish. You were more loyal to her than—” I broke off midtirade and took a step toward the settee.
    Hamish wasn’t there.
    “Hamish?” I looked around the room, but the black cat was nowhere to be seen. “Hamish, where are you?”
    I went to the kitchen to check the litter box, but it was unoccupied. Once I’d confirmed that the window over the sink was shut tight, and that Hamish wasn’t hiding in one of the under-counter cabinets, I returned to the hallway and debated where to look next.
    “Stupid cat,” I muttered irritably, and nearly jumped out of my skin when the stupid cat butted my ankle.
    “Where were you?” I cried.
    Hamish wreathed himself around my legs, purring affectionately, then trotted into the one room I hadn’t yet explored. Its door, unlike the other doors in the flat, had been left slightly ajar.
    I pushed it wide, felt for a wall switch, and flipped it up. A pink-shaded lamp atop a Queen Anne dresser shed a rosy glow on the walnut sleigh bed, where Hamish lounged, propped snugly against the pillows. He mewed softly, as if to reassure me, then turned his attention to the ongoing task of grooming his shiny black coat.
    I looked at the bedroom. It was as sweet and dainty as the office had been austere. The walls were pale peach, lace curtains hung at the window, and an embroidered ivory spread covered the bed. Three hand-colored botanical prints hung above the bed head; at its foot rested a fringed and velvet-covered Victorian fainting couch. A porcelain bowl filled with dried rose petals sat beneath the rose-shaded lamp, and an elegant Adam tea table stood beside a chintz-covered armchair in the corner nearest the window.
    It comforted me to picture Miss Beacham sitting in the armchair, lit by sunlight streaming through the bedroom window, with a paisley shawl around her shoulders, a volume of Disraeli’s memoirs in her hands, and a cup of tea resting within reach on the Adam table. She may have led a lonely life in Oxford, I told myself, but it had been a life filled with beauty. I looked from the dried rose petals to the embroidered bedcover and sensed her serene presence for the first time since I’d entered the apartment.
    Hamish finished his ablutions, rose, and moved from the bed to the fainting couch. He stretched luxuriously, rump raised and tail flicking, then curled his nose to his bottom and closed his eyes for sleep.
    What would happen to him? I wondered. Where would he go, without Miss Beacham to open the kitchen window for him?
    I was reaching out to stroke Hamish when he raised his head and pricked his ears alertly toward the hallway. I followed his gaze and felt a shiver of apprehension when I heard a faint sound coming from the foyer.
    Someone was knocking on Miss Beacham’s door.

Seven
    My first thought was that a neighbor had noticed lights in Miss Beacham’s windows and sent the police to investigate. My second thought was that Mr. Moss had come to see for himself what kind of nutcase would want to spend a night in his dead client’s apartment.
    My third and most distressing thought was of what the prim and proper attorney would do if he discovered Hamish on the premises. Hamish would, no doubt, end up in an animal shelter, and I’d end up in prison, convicted of contributing to the destruction of historic furniture.
    “Stay put,” I said to Hamish, shaking an admonitory index finger at him. “And no yowling. ”
    Hamish rolled on his back and batted playfully at my pointing finger before resuming his curled position. He didn’t go to sleep, though. I could feel his bright yellow eyes follow me until I