Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd by Alan Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

flimsy piece of evidence?
    A German researcher named Mueller had, more than twenty years ago, suggested such a test: one in which the presence of an enzyme called alpha-amylase could indicate the presence of saliva. But to the best of my knowledge, Mueller’s test could not distinguish the alpha-amylase found in human saliva from that found in certain bacteria and fungi, or, for that matter, in the saliva of certain apes.
    A possible defense, if I were accused, might be that the ticket had come into contact with fungus, or some kind of earthy bacteria: that it might, for instance, have fallen out of Mr. Sambridge’s pocket during a walk in the woods and landed in a mushroom ring.
    Or been licked by a playful chimp at the zoo.
    I smiled at the thought—smiled for the first time in many months.
    It was the chemistry that caused this lifting of the spirits. Chemistry lifted you up out of the mud and flung you up among the stars.
    Except, of course, when it didn’t.
    Things could so easily go wrong. Even the alchemists of the Middle Ages, deluded as they were, recognized that the Devil often inserted himself into chemical operations.
    One had to be careful.
    It would never do to second-guess the members of the detective police force.
    Nevertheless, one didn’t often hear of murder victims—if indeed Mr. Sambridge were one—being spread-eagled in a vertical position.
    Could I have stumbled upon some bizarre act of human sacrifice?
    A quick sniff of the air told me there was no lingering odor of smoke or candles; no stink of burning baby fat or anything like that, which was just as well. I don’t think I could have dealt with it. While I’m blessed with an extraordinarily strong stomach, there are some things that are beyond bearing.
    No, there was just that little whiff of sulfur, which might have just as well come from a lighted match.
    I gave a sigh of relief as I confirmed that there were no traces in the room of soot or ash, no chalked pentagrams on the floor, or any of the other beastly things that Daffy delighted in reading aloud to me after dark from the spine-curdling novels of Dennis Wheatley.
    But just as I was congratulating myself on my levelheadedness, there came a scratching sound from the direction of the corpse. I whipped quickly round and saw that it was moving.

· THREE ·
    I PRACTICALLY SHED MY skin.
    The corpse’s hands were moving slowly towards me. In fact, the whole dead body was in motion.
    It swung slowly into the room as the door came open with a groan.
    There was a breathless pause and then something began to ooze through the crack and into the room.
    It was a cat. Not, as you would expect, a black cat, but rather a tortoiseshell. Still, you never knew, and I was taking no chances.
    “Hello,” I said. “What’s
your
name? Grimalkin? Grissel? Greedigut?”
    The cat replied with a noncommittal “Meow.”
    It makes no sense, I know, to be chatting to a cat while its probable former owner is dangling dead on the door, but that’s the way things are in real life. We have a tendency to prattle away in the face of fear, as if pretending that things are normal will make them so.
    Some people have gone to the chopping block saying, “I hope we’re not too late?”
    In any case, it didn’t really matter. The cat wrote me off with a single glance, sniffed hopefully at the hair of its late master, then stalked across the room, jumped up onto the bed, and began to wash itself.
    “Nice kitty,” I said, as one does.
    Without the cat, I might not have thought to examine the bed. I dropped down onto all fours and had a look underneath.
    Nothing. Not even dust balls. For a man, and an apparent bachelor, Mr. Sambridge was a remarkably good housekeeper.
    Back on my feet, I ran my hands beneath the pillows. Nothing there. Not even pajamas.
    At the head of the bed, and off to one side, was a hand-carved bookcase.
    Life with my sister Daffy had taught me that you could tell as much about people by their