over. The stoops and cornices of the town houses were a picture of quaint monotony, and as we passed by each residence we could see into the relatively low-standing parlors of the comfortable middle-class families who inhabited the neighborhood. Number 23 Bank Street was only a block and a half from Greenwich Avenue, but as we covered that distance Sara’s and my hopes had time to rise high nonetheless. When we reached the building, however, disappointment crashed down hard.
In one corner of the parlor window was a small, very tasteful sign: ROOM TO LET. Sara and I exchanged sobered looks, then made our way up the steps of the building to the narrow front door. There was a small brass bell handle on the right side of the frame, and I pulled it. Silently, Sara and I stood and waited for several minutes; then we finally heard shuffling footsteps and an old woman’s voice:
“No, no, no. Get away—go on, now.”
It was difficult to tell whether or not the order was being directed at us; but when several bolts on the door were noisily thrown, I began to suspect that it was not. The door finally opened, and we were faced by a small, white-haired crone in a faded blue dress of a style dating back to the seventies. She was missing several teeth, and there were wiry white hairs protruding from her jaw at several points. Her eyes were lively, though they did not bespeak a particularly clear mind. She was about to say something to us when a small orange cat appeared at her feet. She kicked the creature lightly back into the house.
“No, I said!” the old woman scolded. “These people have nothing to say to you—any of you!” At that point I became aware of some rather loud mewing coming from inside—by my reckoning, the work of at least half a dozen cats. The woman looked up at me brightly. “Yes? Did you want to inquire about the room?”
The question put me at a momentary loss; fortunately, Sara stepped into the breach by introducing first herself and then me. “The room, ma’am?” Sara continued, following the introductions. “Not precisely—rather, about its former occupant. Mr. Beecham has, I believe, moved?”
“Oh, yes,” the woman answered, as another cat appeared at the door. This one, a gray-striped thing, managed to get to the top of the stoop. “Here!” the woman said. “Peter! Oh, do catch him, will you, Mr. Moore?” I bent down, snatched the cat up, and then gave him a little scratch under the chin before returning him to the woman. “Cats!” she said. “You wouldn’t think that they’d be so anxious to disappear!”
Sara cleared her throat. “Yes, indeed, Mrs…. Mrs….?”
“Piedmont,” the woman answered. “And it’s only the eight that I actually let into the house—the other fifteen are required to stay in the yard, or I become very cross with them.”
“Of course, Mrs. Piedmont,” Sara said. “Only the eight—a perfectly reasonable number.” Mrs. Piedmont nodded in satisfaction, and Sara asked, “As for Mr. Beecham…?”
“Mr. Beecham?” the woman answered. “Yes. Very polite. Very prompt. And never drank. Not a favorite of the cats, of course—not much of a man for animals at all, really, but—”
“Did he leave a forwarding address, by any chance?” Sara cut in.
“He couldn’t,” Mrs. Piedmont answered. “He had no idea where he was going. He thought perhaps Mexico, or South America. He said there were opportunities for men of initiative there.” The woman caught herself, and then opened the door a bit wider. “I am sorry,” she said, “you must forgive me. Please do come in.”
With a slight roll of my eyes I followed Sara through the door, knowing that every nugget of hard information we might get out of the charming Mrs. Piedmont was likely to be accompanied by five or ten minutes of useless babbling. My enthusiasm was further dampened when she led us into her very primly furnished but aged and dusty parlor. Everything in the room, from chairs and settees to a large collection of Victorian knickknacks, seemed on the verge of disintegrating quietly into dust. In addition, the unmistakable odor of cat urine and feces permeated the entire house.
“Cats,” Mrs. Piedmont said merrily as she sat down in a high-armed chair. “Wonderful companions, but they will run off. Quite disappear, without so much as a word!”
“Mrs. Piedmont,” Sara said indulgently, “we really are most anxious to find Mr. Beecham. We’re—old friends of his, you see—”
“Oh, but you can’t be,” Mrs. Piedmont said, her face scowling a bit. “Mr. Beecham had no friends. He said so. He always said so. ‘He travels swiftest who travels alone, Mrs. Piedmont,’ he would tell me in the morning, and then it was off to the shipping office.”
“Shipping office?” I said. “But surely—”
Sara touched my hand to silence me, then smiled as several cats wandered into the room from the hallway. “Of course,” she said. “The shipping office. A very enterprising man.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Piedmont answered. “Oh, and there’s Lysander,” she went on, pointing to one of the cats, who was mewing profusely. “I haven’t seen him since Saturday. Cats! They do disappear…”
“Mrs. Piedmont,” Sara said, still showing remarkable patience, “how long did Mr. Beecham live with you?”
“How long?” The old girl began to chew at a finger as she cogitated. “Why, nearly three years, all in all. Never a complaint, always on time with his rent.” She frowned. “But a somber sort of a man, really. And he never ate! Never ate that I saw, that is. Always working, day and night—though I suppose he must’ve eaten
Sara smiled again and nodded. “And do you know why he left?”
“Well,” Mrs. Piedmont said simply. “The
“Failure?” I said, hoping for a clue.
“His shipping line,” came the reply. “The great tempest off the China coast. Oh, those poor seamen. Mr. Beecham gave all the money he had left to their families, you know.” A bony hand went up confidentially. “If you see a small calico lady come through, Miss Howard, do tell me. She didn’t come down for breakfast, and they
Mean as it may sound, I was about ready to wring Mrs. Piedmont’s neck, along with those of her blasted cats; but Sara stayed the course, inquiring congenially, “Did you ask Mr. Beecham to leave, then?”
“I should say not,” Mrs. Piedmont answered. “He went of his own accord. He told me he had no money to pay his rent, and he didn’t intend to stay where he couldn’t pay his way. I offered to give him a few weeks’ grace, but he wouldn’t have it. I remember that day very well—a week before Christmas. It was about the time that little Jib disappeared.”
I groaned quietly as Sara asked, “Jib? A cat?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Piedmont answered dreamily. “Just—disappeared. Never a word. They have their own affairs to attend to, cats.”
As my eyes wandered to the floor, I noticed that several more of Mrs. Piedmont’s charges had noiselessly entered the room, and that one of them was attending to its own affairs in a shadowy corner. I nudged Sara, indicating the upstairs impatiently.
“Do you think we might have a look at the room?” Sara asked.
Mrs. Piedmont came back from her daydream with a smile, and looked at us as though we’d only just entered. “Then it’s the room you’re interested in?”
“We may be.”
That set off a new round of chatter as we headed out of the parlor and up the staircase, the ancient green wallpaper of which was peeling and torn. The room that Beecham had rented was on the third floor, which, climbing at Mrs. Piedmont’s pace, seemed to take an eternity to reach. By the time we finally did, all eight of the house cats had already collected around the door, and were mewing away. Mrs. Piedmont unlocked the room and then we entered.
The first thing that struck me was that the cats didn’t follow us in. As soon as the door opened their mewing stopped, and then they sat at the threshold, looking momentarily concerned before they shot off down the stairs. With their departure I turned to survey the chamber, and quickly caught a trace of something in the air: the smell of decay. It was nothing like the stench of feline waste, nor did it match the familiar aromas of old age and antiques that marked the parlor. This was more pungent. A dead mouse, or some such, I finally decided, and when Sara wrinkled her nose sourly I knew that she’d caught it, too. Thinking nothing more of it for the moment, I finally fixed my attention on the room.
I needn’t have bothered. It was a spare, empty chamber, with a window that looked out over Bank Street. There were no furnishings other than an old four-poster bed, an equally aged wardrobe, and a plain set of drawers. A washbasin sat on a large doily atop the drawers, along with a matching pitcher; other than that, the room was
