Читать книгу The Third Cat Story Megapack - Damien Broderick - Страница 7

ALL IN THE GOLDEN AFTERNOON, by Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen

He had only fallen asleep in the warm sun at the Oxford railroad station for a scant few minutes, but in that time, the manuscript, carefully packaged in brown paper and tightly bound with good string, had been stolen, along with a small brown hamper containing his lunch.

The food and wine were small loss compared to his printer’s copy of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. He had labored on the book for over a year, since he originally recited it as a series of sketches to the Liddell children as he rowed them along the Thames on an expedition upriver. He had promised Alice, ten years old and dear to his heart, that he would write the tales of the fictional Alice and, now having completed that promise, he was traveling to arrange its publication.

But the manuscript was gone, and he felt a frantic sinking in his heart and took several long breaths, trying to calm himself. Go about this logically, he told himself. You are, after all, a lecturer in mathematics. The bench he had earlier seated himself on, before nodding off, was partially secluded by a tree and some bushes, a short distance from the station house. He studied the platform. The same two young ladies and their parents still milled about, keeping a close watch on their ample luggage and on a boy around Alice’s age, who alternately stared at them sulkily or peered impatiently up the railroad tracks, trying to spot the train. It obliged him, appearing in the distance.

Beyond the waiting family, Charles noticed two new gentlemen, who hadn’t been there prior to his own arrival. Once carried a large portmanteau, which seemed filled to its seams with whatever it held. Still, Charles had no cause to confront them. He wondered what purpose he had now to even board the coming train without the manuscript and watched despondently as it pulled into the station.

A porter emerged first, then the carriage guard collecting the passengers’ tickets. He escorted the family of five into the first carriage, nearly filling it, then waived the two strange gentlemen over to the second. The porter began loading the family’s luggage into the baggage compartment.

Charles approached the station master, struggling to help the porter lift an oversized trunk. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” They looked up, poised to hoist the obviously heavy piece. “I seem to have misplaced a brown-paper parcel and a lunch hamper while dozing. The parcel is extremely important.” He hesitated. How could he accuse the late-arriving gentlemen of theft? Asking to search their belongings would be tantamount to that, wouldn’t it? It was quite possible that someone else, unnoticed by the others, had come to the platform, taken his parcel and hamper, then left.

Yet he had to recover the manuscript or hope, at least, that the thief considered it worthless and discarded it. It might be found by someone kind enough to return it, Charles’s name and address clearly printed on the wrapper, in case of such loss.

The station master answered him reluctantly. “Did you search thoroughly for them, sir?” The porter ignored him, saying “Now!” Both men heaved upward, swinging the trunk into the baggage area. The porter jumped up, pushed it further in, jumped down, pulled the sliding door closed and secured it.

“They were on the bench right beside me. The parcel contains a manuscript I’ve written. I was carrying it to my publisher, Macmillan, in London.”

“Well, I don’t like to say it, sir,” the station master began, only to be interrupted by a loud feminine scream, followed a high-pitched stream of hysterical complaints. “What now?” He rose stiffly.

One of the gentlemen emerged from the train, opening the compartment door and calling to the guard. “There’s a animal running loose in our carriage, sir. A large striped tomcat, from the looks of it.”

“Now, what the devil…,” the train man groused, and boarded the carriage. A commotion sounded within, and the cat, orange with large black stripes, bounded from it and onto the platform, its teeth firmly clamped on the string of a wrapped parcel. It dragged it along as it skittered away toward the bench, tree and bushes and disappeared beneath the shrubbery.

“My manuscript!” Charles raced after it, parting the leafy branches to forage in the undergrowth and triumphantly reclaim Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

The station master caught up with him, winded with exertion. “Would that be the missing parcel, sir?”

“It is, and I’m delighted to have it back!”

“Can’t say I understand how it got aboard the train, much less the cat.”

“The important thing is that it’s been returned.”

“Do you think the cat dragged it off the bench, sir, and then snuck on board with it?”

“I…I couldn’t really say, now could I? But if you find a small brown hamper under some foliage,” (he drew apart more shrubbery, which revealed only leaves and dirt), “it might support that theory. I doubt that the cat could have dragged both the parcel and hamper onto the train without being seen.”

“Unlikely,” the station master agreed. “In that case, sir, do you think a thief has boarded at my station?”

Charles hesitated. “I couldn’t say that either, sir. I slept through the theft and can’t vouch for whether teeth, claws, or fingers were employed.”

“Then you don’t want an investigation?”

He shook his head. “I’d rather not. The hamper wasn’t valuable. This was.” He held up the manuscript.

“Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Christ Church?” the station master read. “Well, sir, we’ll return the hamper to you, if it’s found. In the meanwhile, I’ll warn the carriage guard to keep an eye out for persons with a pilfering nature on the train. Will you be boarding, sir?”

“Yes, now that my reason for traveling has been restored.”

He handed the guard his ticket and took the remaining seat in the first carriage, introducing himself to the family sharing the compartment. As the train finally pulled out, Charles relaxed by the window, holding the parcel alertly and protectively against him and entertaining the young boy and his sisters with a story or two, while their parents listened, amused.

At the next station, the two men he had seen on the platform at Oxford disembarked. Shortly afterwards, in the compartment they had vacated, new passengers found an empty lunch hamper. They gave it to the carriage guard at the following station stop; he returned it to its rightful owner.

Charles, both manuscript and hamper in hand, dashed madly to the station eatery to purchase some refreshments and quickly back to reboard the train before it started up again. On the platform, the station master of that stop, an elderly man with immense white whiskers and a curious habit of wrinkling his nose, held a large, opened pocket watch in his hand, haranguing the carriage guard: “You’re four minutes late, sir! Whatever delayed you?”

Charles reentered his compartment swiftly and took his seat, gazing quietly out the window. It was then that he noticed another enormous orange-and-black-striped tomcat, sitting on that platform and preening itself. He pointed it out to the boy beside him. “There was another striped puss, nearly identical to this one, at the Oxford Station.”

“Was there? I hadn’t seen it, sir.”

The tom looked up, turned its head, and stared back at the mystified author.

The train wheels began to creak, and the cat continued to gaze at him, turning its head the other way as Charles, at the window, passed by it.

In the few seconds before the cat disappeared from Charles’s vantage point, it grinned at him.

After a moment of surprise, Charles grinned back.

“No matter,” he told the boy. “Cats like that have a tendency to appear unexpectedly. You might very well see it again someday soon.”

The train headed toward its final destination as the sun began setting, streaking colors across the sky.