Arsenic With Austen by Katherine Bolger Hyde

Author:Katherine Bolger Hyde [Hyde, Katherine Bolger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amateur Sleuths, Cozy, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9781504724807
Google: 4oA_CwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1504724801
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Published: 2016-07-11T23:00:00+00:00

nineteen

“There are two odious young men who have been staring at me this half hour.… They are not coming this way, are they? I hope they are not so impertinent as to follow us.… And which way are they gone? One was a very good-looking young man.”

—Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey

Katie was working in the kitchen, Lizzie asleep in a sling on her back. Bustopher still crouched under the table, paws invisible beneath him. He shot them a baleful glare from unblinking eyes. A slice of chicken and a mound of tuna lay untouched in his bowl.

“I’ve tried offering him treats, but he’s not interested,” Katie said. “He growls if I get close. I guess he needs some time to get used to me.”

“He would tolerate you better in any other room but this one,” Marguerite told her. “He associates this room with his old mistress. You are an interloper. He may even blame you for her absence.”

Seeing Katie’s stricken look, Emily put in hastily, “I doubt that. Katie didn’t show up until the day after Agnes died. Bustopher was already pretty much catatonic by then.”

Marguerite shrugged. “Well, no matter, we will soon put him right.” She knelt, poked her head under the table, and waggled her fingers. “Allo, Bustopher Jones. Moi, je suis Marguerite, l’amie de tous les chats. Voici ce que j’ais pour toi.” From her pocket she pulled a mouse toy complete with fur and a long leather tail. “C’est un souris de cataire. Tu aimes beaucoup la cataire, n’est-ce pas?”

Over her shoulder she said to Emily, “Les chats always respond best to le français. And to catnip.”

She dangled the mouse in front of Bustopher. His nose twitched, but he didn’t move. She moved the toy closer, and his whiskers went into a frantic dance. His agony was palpable, as his longing to pounce warred against his firm resolve to play dead with these Wrong Humans.

Marguerite crooned to him. “Tu sais que tu le veux, Bustopher. La cataire, c’est fraîche comme un souris nouveau-né.” She pulled the mouse back a few inches. “Saute-toi, Bustopher! Avant qu’il s’échappe!”

At last the catnip won. Bustopher pounced, all claws extended, and tore the mouse from Marguerite’s fingers, narrowly missing tearing her flesh as well. Emily watched, amazed and rather alarmed, while the cat fought the toy as though it were a living mouse. At one point the mouse shot across the floor toward the doorway. With all four paws, Bustopher leapt onto it and carried the battle into the hall, then into the dining room.

Marguerite brushed her hands together. “You see, he responds, he is out of the kitchen. He will go crazy for a while until the catnip loses its freshness, then he will be himself again.”

Emily quailed to think what that would mean for her own cats. “Maybe we’d better shut him in the dining room for the time being. I don’t want him meeting Levin and Kitty in this condition.”

* * *

Luke phoned as Emily was helping Marguerite get settled in the guest room.

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