For a moment, the man looked quite downcast, almost crumpled - as if he was about to implode in upon himself. But he drew in a sharp breath, and recovered with a fury.
“Well you clearly don’t think that I am the person who I think I am. I think that I am the person I think I am, and if you don’t think that, you clearly don’t know what you’re thinking.”
Chet, the cat who was also a detective said, “I can see what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong.”
“In that case, I need waste no more of my time or yours. Good day to you, sir”.
With that, the man tipped his loden at Chet, yanked open the door behind him, and as the little bell tinkled gaily, walked straight into a rusted garage door.
“Sorry”, said Chet, “you have to leave by the way you came in... through the kitchen...sorry about the mess.”
The man didn’t say anything, but pushed past the cat and his desk, bounded up the stairs, and was gone.
The basement office was at peace once more, and as the dust gently settled over his desk in the beam of the solid gold angle poise lamp (inscribed around the base with the note “To Chet- one helluva’ an adversary. Find me! Macavity”), the world’s greatest detective marvelled once more at the vanity of humans.
“And to think”, he said to himself, “that they actually believe time is theirs to waste.”
He curled up into the shape of a comfortable furry kidney, and was about to settle down for a hard day’s nap, when something caught his eye. In his fluster and hurry to leave, the man had not noticed something fall out of his pocket onto the floor. Something small and white ...a matchbox.
Chet picked the box up and examined it carefully.
“Hmm”, he said to himself, as he was wont to do when there were no other characters around to help him vocalise the narrative link formulating in his head, “Tony’s Bulgarian-French Brasserie Bistro, 112 The Street, The City Village.”
It could have been anything. It could have been unintentional advertising by his previous visitor in exchange for a commission. It could have been a red herring, or what cats preferred to call a blue chocolate, as red herrings invariably ended well for them. It could possibly have been a clue.
“But in the end”, he mused, “what it mainly is, is a good place to start”.
He grabbed his hat, his raincoat, and his can opener, placing it firmly in his holster. You see, cat detectives never need to carry crude armaments like guns, or coshes, or blades. But you will never see any self respecting cat private investigator without a can opener, for obvious reasons. And as shall become clear, Chet’s was no ordinary can opener.
Dressed and armed, he took one look around the office, opened and shut a filing cabinet drawer for effect, and in the flip of a flap, was gone.
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