Free The Whiskered Spy by Nic Saint Page A

want to blow Stevie’s bubble, I refrained from saying so.
    “Great scheme!” he said.
    And it was as we sat congratulating one another on a fine piece of espionage work, that the door suddenly opened and Sam walked in.

17

Sam the Night Crawler
    I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed how cats have these soft pads under their paws? You have? Then you probably also know what they’re there for. Not to hurt ourselves when we land? Whoever gave you that idea? No, the reason we have those nifty little pink cushions is so we can quickly and quietly sneak out of the room whenever a human catches us doing something we’re not supposed to. That’s why, when Sam suddenly surprised us by bursting into his study, we were safely behind the gas stove before he so much as had an inkling we were ever there.
    “What is he doing here?” I hissed, as I darted a quick glance from behind the stove.
    “He lives here,” hissed back Stevie reasonably, and I saw his point.
    From our hiding place we could see how Sam was staring at the love letters I’d smoothed out and laid side by side on the carpet.
    “Dammit,” I groaned, for I’d completely forgotten the cardinal rule of espionage: never leave a trace behind.
    “Too late now,” said Stevie, as he eyed every move of his master in tense concentration.
    Father Sam Malone was a handsome fellow, as men go, or at least that’s what I keep hearing from my female associates. He’s tall, lean and muscular, with the kind of chiseled features and full head of hair most commonly found on the covers on display in the supermarket romance novel section. The fact that Brookridge is one of those small towns where the church still fills up nicely every Sunday morning attests to the man’s powers of attraction. That the force is strong in this one, is attested to by the fact that it’s mostly women occupying the pews and hanging on every word that rolls from this wonder man’s sensual lips—don’t blame me for this last adjective. Blame Dana, for she’s the one nauseating me with that description of the man’s chops. She also told me the padre’s got a nice singing voice, though that’s probably neither here nor there. He was now looking slightly disheveled, as if he’d just rolled out of bed, which he probably had.
    Sam was now collecting the fruits of his penmanship with trembling hands and laid them carefully on his desk. He stood staring at them for a space, probably wondering what had induced him to destroy them in the first place, when it was so obvious fate wanted them preserved for posterity, then he heaved a deep sigh and uttered the single word both me and Stevie had come to dread: “Bluebell.”
    “Oh, my God,” moaned Stevie.
    “You can say that again,” I muttered.
    Something of our verbal utterances must have reached the good father’s ears, for he turned to stare in our direction. Then Stevie, the mutt, couldn’t resist the temptation of a cuddle, and walked over to his master to stroke himself against the latter’s leg.
    I groaned at the sight of an agent giving free rein to his baser impulses. And I was just making a mental note of this utterly unprofessional behavior on the part of my new partner, when the telephone rang. The sound seemed to startle Sam—a clear sign of a bad conscience—and it was with marked nervousness that he picked up the receiver. Then again, since the night was now well advanced, he was probably simply wondering who the hell was phoning him at this hour.
    “Hello?” he said tentatively, as if expecting someone to jump from the earpiece and snap his head off. Then he visibly relaxed and took a seat at the desk. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? Yeah? Well, you’re not going to get it.”
    Very mysterious, all this, don’t you think? At least I thought so, and so did Stevie, for he threw questioning glances in my direction. I merely shrugged, indicating I, too, had no idea what was going on.
    Meanwhile Sam had risen, and so had