“Aren’t you a beauty!” said Giles, holding out his hand to the strange cat. “I’ll bet you’re a pedigreed animal, aren’t you, fella? Are you lost, boy?”
Much as it pained him to associate with a remorseless killer, Danby sidled over to the outstretched hand, and allowed his ears to be scratched. He reasoned that Giles’s interest in him was his one chance to gain entry to the house. It was obvious that Julie wasn’t a cat fancier. Who would have taken heartless old Giles for an animal lover? Probably similarity of temperament, Danby decided.
He allowed himself to be picked up and carried into the house, while Giles stroked his back and told him what a pretty fellow he was. This was an indignity, but still an improvement over Giles’s behavior toward him during their last encounter. Once inside Giles called out to Julie, “Look what I’ve got, honey!”
She came in from the kitchen, scowling. “That nasty cat!” she said. “Put him right back outside!”
At this point Danby concentrated all his energies toward making himself purr. It was something like snoring, he decided, but it had the desired effect on his intended victim, for at once Giles made for his den and plumped down in an armchair, arranging Danby in his lap, with more petting and praise. “He’s a wonderful cat, Julie,” Giles told his wife. “I’ll bet he’s a purebred Maine coon. Probably worth a couple of hundred bucks.”
“So are my wool carpets,” Mrs. Eskeridge replied. “So are my new sofas! And who’s going to clean up his messes?”
That was Danby’s cue. He had already thought out the piece de resistance in his campaign of endearment. With a trill that meant “This way, folks!,” Danby hopped off his ex-partner’s lap and trotted to the downstairs bathroom. He had used it often enough at dinner parties, and he knew that the door was left ajar. He had been saving up for this moment. With Giles and his missus watching from the doorway, Danby hopped up on the toilet seat, twitched his elegant plumed tail, and proceeded to use the toilet in the correct manner.
He felt a strange tingling in his paws, and he longed to scratch at something and cover it up, but he ignored these urges, and basked instead in the effusive praise from his self-appointed champion. Why couldn’t Giles have been that enthusiastic over his design for the Jenner building, Danby thought resentfully. Some people’s sense of values was so warped. Meanwhile, though, he might as well savor the Eskeridges’ transports of joy over his bowel control; there weren’t too many ways for cats to demonstrate superior intelligence. He couldn’t quote a little Shakespeare or identify the dinner wine. Fortunately, among felines toilet training passed for genius, and even Julie was impressed with his accomplishments. After that, there was no question of Giles turning him out into the cruel world. Instead, they carried him back to the kitchen and opened a can of tuna fish for his dining pleasure. He had to eat it in a bowl on the floor, but the bowl was Royal Doulton, which was some consolation. And while he ate, he could still hear Giles in the background, raving about what a wonderful cat he was. He was in.
“No collar, Julie. Someone must have abandoned him on the highway. What shall we call him?”
“Varmint,” his wife suggested. She was a hard sell.
Giles ignored her lack of enthusiasm for his newfound prodigy. “I think I’ll call him Merlin. He’s a wizard of a cat.”
After that, he quickly became a full-fledged member of the household, with a newly purchased plastic feeding bowl, a catnip mouse toy, and another little collar with another damned bell. Danby felt the urge to bite Giles’s thumb off while he was attaching this loathsome neckpiece over his ruff, but he restrained himself. By now he was accustomed to the accompaniment of a maniacal jingling with every step he took. What was it with human beings and bells?
Of course, that spoiled his plans for songbird hunting outdoors. He’d have to travel faster than the speed of sound to catch a sparrow now. Not that he got out much, anyhow. Giles seemed to think that he might wander off again, so he was generally careful to keep Danby housebound.
That was all right with Danby, though. It gave him an excellent opportunity to become familiar with the house, and with the routine of its inhabitants-all useful information for someone planning revenge. So far he (the old Danby, that is) had not been mentioned in the Eskeridge conversations. He wondered what story Giles was giving out about his disappearance. Apparently the body had not been found. It was up to him to punish the guilty, then.
Danby welcomed the days when both Giles and Julie left the house. Then he would forgo his morning, mid- morning, and early afternoon naps in order to investigate each room of his domain, looking for lethal opportunities: medicine bottles or perhaps a small appliance that he could push into the bathtub.
So far, though, he had not attempted to stage any accidents, for fear that the wrong Eskeridge would fall victim to his snare. He didn’t like Julie any more than she liked him, but he had no reason to kill her. The whole business needed careful study. He could afford to take his time analyzing the opportunities for revenge. The food was good, the job of house cat was undemanding, and he rather enjoyed the irony of being doted on by his intended victim. Giles was certainly better as an owner than he was as a partner.
An evening conversation between Giles and Julie convinced him that he must accelerate his efforts. They were sitting in the den, after a meal of baked chicken. They wouldn’t give him the bones, though. Giles kept insisting that they’d splinter in his stomach and kill him. Danby was lying on the hearth rug, pretending to be asleep until they forgot about him, at which time he would sneak back into the kitchen and raid the garbage. He’d given up smoking, hadn’t he? And although he’d lapped up a bit of Giles’s scotch one night, he seemed to have lost the taste for it. How much prudence could he stand?
“If you’re absolutely set on keeping this cat, Giles,” said Julie Eskeridge, examining her newly polished talons, “I suppose I’ll have to be the one to take him to the vet.”
“The vet. I hadn’t thought about it. Of course, he’ll have to have shots, won’t he?” murmured Giles, still studying the newspaper. “Rabies, and so on.”
“And while we’re at it, we might as well have him neutered,” said Julie. “Otherwise, he’ll start spraying the drapes and all.”
Danby rocketed to full alert. To keep them from suspecting his comprehension, he centered his attention on the cleaning of a perfectly tidy front paw. It was time to step up the pace on his plans for revenge, or he’d be meowing in soprano. And forget the scruples about innocent bystanders: now it was a matter of self-defense.
That night he waited until the house was dark and quiet. Giles and Julie usually went to bed about eleven- thirty, turning off all the lights, which didn’t faze him in the least. He rather enjoyed skulking about the silent house using his infrared vision, although he rather missed late night television. He had once considered turning the set on with his paw, but that seemed too precocious, even for a cat named Merlin. Danby didn’t want to end up in somebody’s behavior lab with wires coming out of his head.
He examined his collection of cat toys, stowed by Julie in his cat basket because she hated clutter. He had a mouse-shaped catnip toy, a rubber fish, and a little red ball. Giles had bought the ball under the ludicrous impression that Danby could be induced to play catch. When he’d rolled it across the floor, Danby lay down and gave him an insolent stare. He had enjoyed the next quarter of an hour, watching Giles on his hands and knees, batting the ball and trying to teach Danby to fetch. But finally Giles gave up, and the ball had been tucked in the cat basket ever since. Danby picked it up with his teeth, and carried it upstairs. Giles and Julie came down the right side of the staircase, didn’t they? That’s where the bannister was. He set the ball carefully on the third step, in the approximate place that a human foot would touch the stair. A trip wire would be more reliable, but Danby couldn’t manage the technology involved.
What else could he devise for the Eskeridges’ peril? He couldn’t poison their food, and since they’d provided him with a flea collar, he couldn’t even hope to get bubonic plague started in the household. Attacking them with tooth and claw seemed foolhardy, even if they were sleeping. The one he wasn’t biting could always fight him off, and a fifteen-pound cat can be killed with relative ease by any human determined to do it. Even if they didn’t kill him on the spot, they’d get rid of him immediately, and then he’d lose his chance forever. It was too risky.
It had to be stealth, then. Danby inspected the house, looking for lethal opportunities. There weren’t any electrical appliances close to the bathtub, and besides, Giles took showers. In another life Danby might have been able to rewire the electric razor to shock its user, but such a feat was well beyond his present level of dexterity. No wonder human beings had taken over the earth; they were so damned hard to kill.
Even his efforts to enlist help in the task had proved fruitless. On one of his rare excursions out of the house (Giles had gone golfing, and Danby slipped out without Julie’s noticing), Danby had roamed the neighborhood, looking for… well… pussy. Instead he’d found dim-witted tomcats, and a Doberman pinscher, who was definitely
