‘The name on the bottle isn’t Pumphrey she advised Albert as she read. ‘It’s Fluffikins.’
Albert told her, ‘That’s Brian’s cat.’
‘Okay. Well, it was prescribed by Orson’s Veterinary Surgery two days ago and is something called Syrup of Ipecac. Any idea what that is?’
Albert shook his head. ‘None at all.’
Rex barked. ‘It’s to make you sick when you’ve eaten something you ought not to.’
Rosie glanced at Rex, letting go of Albert’s arm and shuffling Teddy from one hand to the other so she could get her phone out. The task of operating her phone still proved too difficult because her other hand was injured.
‘Here,’ offered Albert, holding out his hands to take the baby. Teddy stared up at his face with a blank, unreadable expression. From his look of concentration, he could have been attempting to decipher the purpose of the cosmos or, more likely in Albert’s opinion, filling his nappy.
With both hands free, Rosie found Syrup of Ipecac in about two seconds. ‘It’s an emetic,’ she read from the screen of her phone. Her expression showed that she didn’t know what an emetic was, which Albert thought was about right because he had no idea either. ‘It says here an emetic is used to induce vomiting and that its use is limited to animals. It was found to cause long term stomach irritation in humans and ceased to be administered as a drug for human consumption in the sixties.’
Albert felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. Now he had about as many pieces of the puzzle – sticking with that analogy – in place as he still had to locate. In his experience, once he got the first few things worked out, the rest quickly became obvious.
A flurry of movement brought Albert’s eyes up to see several firefighters converging on him. They saw Rex in the next second and all showed relief.
‘He got away from us,’ said one.
‘He was chasing the frisbee and just kept on running,’ claimed another.
They all looked embarrassed and guilty at letting the old man’s dog escape them, but Albert waved them into silence. ‘This morning you had to rescue him from a tree for me. I know what a pickle he can be. Does someone have his lead?’
Yet another firefighter stepped forward with Rex’s lead. Albert handed Teddy back to his mother, who took one sniff of him and declared him ripe. Albert was glad he didn’t have to deal with it - it was bad enough picking up after Rex. With his hands free again, he took the offered lead and clipped it to his dog’s collar. He gave the clever German Shepherd an ear scratch and a pat on his meaty shoulders. ‘Rex, I think you found a very useful clue.’
Rex tilted his head to one side as he listened and repeated something he’d said earlier. ‘This is what the human regurgitated everywhere yesterday. I think the cat’s human gave it to him.’
‘There he goes again,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s so strange how he does that and never breaks eye contact until after he’s finished speaking. What do you think he said that time?’
Albert shrugged. ‘Probably saying that he knows who did what to whom and I would too if I would just use my nose.’
Rex almost fell over in shock. However, as he thought about hamming it up and mockingly falling down to play dead from a heart attack, his nose caught another familiar smell. It made his head whip around to the side and he jumped up to an alert stance facing down the length of the marquee.
Sniffer Dog
Seeing Rex sniff the air, Albert slapped his hand to his forehead – why hadn’t he thought of it before? The cops are off looking for Alan Crystal but standing not two feet away was a trained police dog capable of following a scent on command. All he needed was a piece of clothing the missing man had worn recently. Albert was ready to bet money Rex would find him.
It was time to stop dilly-dallying and get to it. ‘Rosie,’ he addressed her as he swung his body around to face her, ‘I need to attend to some matters. I’ll be back in a short while with a muffin pan to use. Is that okay?’
She had Teddy under one arm and her changing bag of accessories and spare nappies over her shoulder. She was leaving to find somewhere away from the food preparation areas to deal with his stinkiness. ‘Of course. I’ll be around for hours yet and it’s best to let the batter sit.’
‘Good. I think it’s high time Rex and I found Alan Crystal and got the truth from him.’ He didn’t add how uncertain he felt that Alan was still alive.
Setting off with Rex, Albert thanked the firefighters and left them to return to their duties. He was heading for the museum, where he believed he would find what he sought.
That wasn’t where Rex was heading though. He’d caught a trace of the moped scent, a smell which he associated with two failed games of chase and bite. He also pegged the human with the moped scent as the one responsible for stabbing the other human last night. The smell was elusive, there one second but gone the next which made it impossible to track. He kept pausing to concentrate but his own human wanted to get to somewhere.
‘Come along, Rex. There’s a good boy,’ urged Albert. ‘We need to find Gary and the police officers. We have questions for them. Then we need to see if Mr Crystal got changed here, which I think he did.’
Rex heard what his human said, but he was still trying to catch the smell again. ‘I don’t have questions for the humans,’ he replied
