Chet Millerby And The Case Of The Missing Weevil: Chapter Two

Chet Millerby, the cat who was also a detective, narrowed his eyes.

Without taking them off the man in the lederhosen, he pulled open the top right drawer of the desk, slid out a packet of Sobranies, lit one with his heavy gold lighter (engraved “To Chet- Here’s To Madagascar! XXX Tabitha”), and took a long, cool drag on it.

Nobody spoke. The smoke made the man want to cough, but he suppressed it. Upstairs, they could faintly hear the sound of the painter/professor tripping over the dead potted bamboo on the landing, which he did every day, and cursing, which he also did every day.

Time passed. Chet took another drag on his cigarette, and looked at his claws.

“A weevil, you say?”

“I didn’t steal him!” The man began to bluster. “He found me of his own accord. I just came down to breakfast one morning, and there he was, bold as the new born day, tucking into some broiled eggs and Welsh coffee - right on my laptop, would you believe!”

“You know weevil smuggling was outlawed under the United Nations declaration 103a?”

“Yes, but, I didn’t-“

“You know that weevil smuggling carries the highest possible penalties?” Chet stood up. He really was a very big cat- for a Siamese. “You know, that as a licensed cat detective, I am obliged to report all illegal weevils found on the mainland to the authorities?”

“I know all this, but I swear to you- I know nothing. He just turned up. They never even heard of weevils in the village. I have never even met a wood demon. I don’t even know how to transport a weevil in the silk lining of a top hat. I swear!” He began to tap his leather clad thighs nervously with the feather from his loden, whistling a grim folk tune of Bavarian provenance for comfort. Chet let him hang. The man took out a stick of wild boar bratwurst from his satchel and began to chew chunks off like his life depended on it.

“You’re not from round here, are you?” said Chet.

“Damn, you’re good”, said the man, with his mouth full. “Is it that obvious?”

“To a trained cat detective, nothing is obvious”, said Chet. “Eliminate all the possible theories, and then start with the impossible. It’s always bound to be the answer.”

“Listen”, said the man in the lederhosen, with tears in the corners of his eyes. “Just find him. If you find him, then I promise to come clean, and file the necessary paperwork. Or do time, whichever is quicker. But you must find him!”

Chet put out the cigarette, and went to the window, yanking up the blind with a noisy flourish. It was the same view, as ever, an unlit concrete wall. But that was what you got with a secret underground office in someone’s cellar. That was just the way it was, and he knew that. He was, after all, a cat detective. And the best one.

He spun round. “Well, it looks like you’re in luck. It seems nobody wants to steal diamonds or stab heiresses this week, so I might just have an opening for a missing weevil investigation.” The man threw himself at his feet, but Chet shook him off.

“You’d better start by telling me your story.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter Five: A Bike Ride

Today a small parcel arrived in the post, with strangely familiar handwriting. I unwrapped the string and brown paper to find a small mother of pearl hearing trumpet, delicately engraved in amethyst with an Alpine scene. Under the horn was a card informing me that one of my second cousins by marriage in Bavaria had unexpectedly passed away, leaving strict instructions to forward me the enclosed.

"You know what this means, don't you?" I said to Alfonso, the small grey beetle (or weevil, to be precise) who has made his home on my desk.

"That they haven't left you any cash, again", he said, barely glancing up from his new Atari console Airwolf game.

"No, it means we can finally go for that bike ride I've been promising you."

Alfonso - it must be said - looked less than thrilled, but once I had carefully attached the hearing trumpet to the front of my helmet with an elastic band, and secured him in the trumpet with strips of masking tape, he looked positively furious.

But it was another beautiful spring day, and the city appeared bright and hard in the sun, like quartz. We sailed up to the top of a grassy hill, and took in the view, shielding our eyes from the glare with our hands. I produced a small picnic of pork pie and beer from my basket, and we sat under a tree wolfing it down in silence, feeling the warm light on our faces.

Later, we cruised back down into the old city, past the steps of the cathedral, and across the busy squares. We dawdled in the grand shopping streets, so Alfonso could press his nose against the windows of the golf sale shops, and snuck in and out of shady alleys. At some point there was a brief altercation involving a high-sided red van with blacked out windows at a junction, and voices may have been raised. (I wondered idly if it was the same van that I had heard backfiring the other day?)

We followed the large purple and green buses of our city, threading in and out of their elephantine convoy down to the river, where I belted hell for leather along the dusty paths, till the signs and railings of the city flew past, and began to disappear, blurring gradually into clumps of gorse and holly bushes.

As the sun faded, we suddenly found ourselves quite alone in the dusk, in a landscape I didn't recognise, with a distinctly unspring like chill creeping up on us. I turned around and steered us swiftly home, not pausing for breath until we reached the familiar broad avenues of the new town.

"Well," I said to Alfonso later, carefully unstrapping the conch, exhausted but happy, "what a city, eh? What a city we live in. What do you say to that, eh?"

He looked at me in that way which he has, and said

"I still think that van had right of way."

So, dear reader, I squashed him. But he will be back tomorrow.