Off they went out the door, down the white steps to the car. Back door opened, Mungo hopped up to the seat and looked down at Morris lying placidly on the floor, paws tucked in.

All the work. All the work falls to me, thought Mungo. He sent a message to Morris:

When we get there, just repeat what you did in reverse-wait for us to get out of the car, ease yourself out the window, and follow.

No answer came from Morris.

Was the cat asleep?

The Old Wine Shades was in the City, but Harry treated it as his local, despite its being a bit of a drive. It took Harry less than fifteen minutes given the hairsbreadth distance he allowed between his car and the rest of the world: hairsbreadth from other cars, people, curbs, cats, and dogs. Mungo was glad just to get there alive. Harry wound between Embankment and the river as if the car were a zipper, then funneled off into King William Street and then into Arthur.

The Jaguar stopped in a no-parking area right beside the pub, Harry thinking it was his God-given right to park anywhere he chose.

Mungo sent Morris the message to wait, wait until they were out.

You already told me that.

The tone was truculent. Mungo could have done with some appreciation.

Inside, seated at the bar in his favorite place, Harry engaged in one of his winey talks with Trevor.

Mungo stared at the door, wondering where Morris was; Morris must have missed the opening of the door and was stuck outside. For heaven’s sakes.

Trevor had gone off somewhere and returned with a bottle, and the two men spent more valuable minutes talking about it.

O Boredom, I salute you!

Where was the Spotter? Mungo knew he was-There! Coming through the door, followed by Morris. The Spotter didn’t see her. My God! Couldn’t even detectives suss out they were being followed by a cat? Mungo hoped his faith wasn’t misplaced.

“Hullo, Harry. Mungo.” Jury tossed his coat on a stool and reached down to give Mungo’s head a rub. Then he saw Morris. “What the hell’s your cat doing here, Harry?” Jury laughed.

Harry looked down. Frowning deeply, he said, “Schrödinger? That’s not Schrödinger.”

Right! thought Mungo. Right! It’s not.

Harry turned and looked down, frowning. “At least I don’t think so.”

Wrong! Trust Harry not to know his own cat.

“Schrödinger,” Jury said with a laugh. “The cat’s dead; the cat’s alive.”

No! thought Mungo. NO no no no no no. Don’t go off on that quantum mechanics stuff!

Harry was nonplussed. “How the devil did you get in here, Shoe?”

No oh no oh no!

Morris stuck by Jury’s leg, staring up at him. Staring, sending him all sorts of messages, each tumbling over the one before, hoping by sheer volume to penetrate the dense mass of the human brain. I’m not Schrödinger, I’m not Shoe, I’m Morris, Morris, Morris, from the Black Cat in Chesham…

“What is this?” asked Jury, drinking the wine Trevor had just poured. “It’s good.”

Trevor, wine expert, rolled his eyes. “Surprise, surprise, Superintendent.”

Mungo sat hard by Morris and joined in: Look, look, this isn’t Schrödinger, this isn’t Shoe, no no, not Shoe, it’s Morris, Mor-risss, MORRIS, M-O-R-R-I-S…

Harry, cat completely forgotten, was winding up one of his interminable paeans to the good grape and saying, “So, are you getting anywhere with these two murders?”

Standing on his hind legs, Mungo placed his front paws on the edge of Jury’s chair. It’s not Shoe-Listen! The Black Cat, the Black Cat, the pub the Black Cat…

Morris joined in: Black Cat Black Cat Dora Dora’s cat…

Jury frowned. “What’s with Mungo? He seems distracted.” He rubbed the dog’s head.

A woman on the other side of Harry bent down to look at the cat and cooed, “What a pretty kitty. What’s his name?”

“Schrödinger. It’s a she.”

Not Schrödinger, she’s Morris. Morris. Mungo kept it up.

The woman frowned. “That’s a funny name. Whatever does it mean?”

Jury could hear Harry testing the point of each word before he flung them at her like a handful of darts.

“It means ‘cat’ in quantum physics,” he said this without looking at her.

“Well. We’re not very friendly, are we?” She sniffed and moved from the stool to a table.

Free of her, Harry went back to the subject. “Be careful, or you’ll have another Ripper on your hands. Was she, as they say, ‘interfered with’?”

“You think I’m going to give you the details?”

Mungo turned in circles at his feet, while Morris was close to clawing her way up his leg. Mungo thought in a minute he might even bark. Why couldn’t the Spotter sort it?

“I don’t see why not,” said Harry. “The tabloids will dish up details.”

Mungo wondered how to spell “Black Cat.” Morris was supposed to be staring, staring at the Spotter. It looked as if she were sleeping on her feet. That better hadn’t be so.

Jury was looking down at Morris, looking from Morris to Mungo. Mungo watched his face, his expression of real consternation. The dog could almost see the tumblers of the lock clicking: Something about this black cat-and Mungo, Mungo trying to tell me something?… Click. Wait. The Black Cat, that pub… Click. Dora. Dora’s cat… Click, click, click. My God! Could this be Dora’s-?

Yes yes yes yes. The Spotter was thinking hard, even if Mungo had to make up his thoughts. Mungo waited for the words that would get Morris back to Dora-

Jury said, “Is a dog a lot of trouble?”

Mungo crawled under the bar stool, went down with his paws over his eyes.

Is a dog a lot of trouble?

35

The bloody traffic light had decided its changing days were over. Jury sat behind the wheel, waiting.

I’ve ‘ad enough o’ you lot, thinking I’ll go red-yellow green at a moment’s notice just t’ please you. Well, see ’ow you like sittin’ ‘ere for several minutes…

Jury hit the steering wheel. Was he going insane? Imagining what was rattling through the head of a traffic light? Next it’d be British Telecom over there in that forlorn-looking telephone box, trying to get a message across to him-

Which made him think of Mungo and Schrödinger…

Finally the light changed (reluctantly?), and he turned onto Upper Street. No, there was no doubt in his mind that those two had been trying to tell him something. It didn’t surprise him that Mungo had done this, but the black cat?

The black cat.

That cat seemed to be getting along famously with Mungo. They were like conspirators.

Frowning, he pulled up in front of his building, got out and locked the car, and took the steps two at a time. He didn’t feel up to a conversation with Mrs. Wassermann tonight and hoped she wasn’t looking for him through the window of her basement flat.

He watched the moon through the window of his flat and thought about it.

The black cat wasn’t Schrödinger.

Schrödinger and Mungo didn’t get along, according to Harry, and that black cat and Mungo were getting along so well, they seemed to be on the same wavelength.

That cat wasn’t Harry’s cat.

All right, so the cat was a stray. Ridiculous. Harry Johnson taking in a stray cat? And pigs might fly.

Jury knew where he was going with this. Harry had been in Chesham; Harry had been in the Black Cat. And Harry would steal a blind beggar blinder, if it served his purpose.

What was his purpose? What in the world would Harry want with Dora’s cat?

His first impulse was to drive to Belgravia and make Harry turn over the cat. How could he-or why would he refuse to-let the cat go if it wasn’t his cat?

In the middle of this thought there was a knock. He said, “Come in,” and Carole-anne appeared in his doorway like a vision, red gold hair glowing as if the moon hung behind her. The light actually came from the wall sconce in the hallway. It was hard enough dealing with Carole-anne when the light was off, much less on.