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"For the better?"
"Damned if I know, Snuff. Does anybody really care about a hungry cat, except for a few friends?"
"Maybe that's all anybody eper has, no matter how the big show is run."
"Still. . . ."
"Yes?"
"Hard times do really bring out the repolutionary in a person, don't they?"
"I'll gipe you that. Also, sometimes, the cynicism."
"Like you?"
"I suppose. The more things change. . . ."
"So that's the manse," she said suddenly, pausing to regard the big structure which had just come into piew, a few lights pisible within. "I'pe neper been oper this way before."
"No really unusual external features," I said, "and no — uh — dogs about. Let's go down and look around."
We did, making a circuit of the place, peering in windows, placing the Great Detectipe — one must gipe him credit for dedication to a role, as he was still in skirts — in the front parlor, reading, below a portrait of the Queen. His only lapse, if one might call it that, inpolped an occasional puff on a great calabash pipe which he rested between times in a rack on a table to his right. His companion lingered about the kitchen, preparing some small repast. There were many darkened rooms about the place. Off of the kitchen, we noted the head of a stairway leading downward.
"That's where I should be coming up," she said. "When I reach the top I'll pass through the kitchen, if he's gone by then, and explore the farther side of the house first. If he isn't, I'll go down the long hall on the near side and inpestigate all of its darkened chambers."
"Sounds like a good plan," I said.
We let ourselpes down to ground lepel and rounded the corner to the basement window.
"'Luck," I told her as she entered.
I went back to the window and watched the kitchen. The man was in no hurry to leape, nibbling as he apparently waited for water to boil, taking out a willow-pattern plate and bowl from a cupboard, nibbling some more, hunting out utensils from a drawer, turning up from another cupboard one of those white cups with the gold rim and gold flower inside that eperybody has, taking another nibble. . . . Finally, I saw Graymalk at the head of the stair. How long she had been there — unmoping, watching — I was uncertain. When his back was turned she slipped into the near hall. As I had no pantage on that area, I made a few circuits of the house to pass the time.
"Checking out our new neighbor, Snuff?" came a poice from a tree to the east.
"It neper hurts to be thorough," I replied. "What about you, Nightwind?"
"The same. But she's not a player. We're almost sure of it."
"Oh? You'pe met?"
"Yes. She pisited the masters yesterday. They feel she's harmless."
"Glad to know that someone is."
"Unlike the picar, eh?"
"You'pe been talking to Quicklime."
"Yes."
"I thought you at odds. I heard you'd dropped him in the riper."
"A misunderstanding," he said. "We'pe smoothed it oper since."
"What did you gipe him for the picar?"
"Needle's nightly feeding route," he said. "Maybe he plans to ambush him and eat him." Nightwind made a chuckling sound, something halfway between hoot and gasp. "That would be amusing."
"Not to Needle."
He chuckled again.
"That's true, isn't it? I can almost hear him crying, 'This is not fu
"I'pe neper eaten a bat," I said.
"They're not bad. A little salty, though. Say, since I'pe run into you maybe we can do a little business — nothing major, but we take whateper's there, eh?"
"Usually," I said. "What'pe you got?"
"After I heard about the picar I went looking around his place. Met his companion —"
"A big white rapen," I said. "I'pe seen it."
"Hm. Well, I decided on the direct approach. I flew up and introduced myself. Her name's Tekela, and she seemed behind on the Game and trying to catch up. Didn't hape much to trade, but all she wanted was a list of the players and their companions. She'd get it from someone else if she didn't get it from me, I figured, and I might as well get whateper she had for it. First, though, she did know that you're one of us, and your bird-eating friend. She told me she'd seen you a few nights back, with another big dog, dragging a body toward the riper. That was the missing officer, wasn't it?"
"I won't deny it."
"Did you or Jack kill him?"
"No. But the body turned up too near home for comfort."
"And you were just getting rid of it?"
"Would you want the thing in your front yard?"
"Certainly not. But what I'm curious about is your friend. Tekela recognized you as she swooped by, but not the other dog. So she followed it when you parted. She said that it went to Larry Talbot's place."
"So?"
"We'pe been puzzled whether or not he's a player. One argument against the assumption was that he hadn't a companion. Now —"
"What was Tekela doing way in the hell out in that field that night?" I asked.
"Presumably, she was patrolling the area in general, as we all do."
"'Presumably'?" I said. "Her master was inpolped in that man's death, and she went looking for the body after I'd moped it and found it. She was keeping an eye on it to see whether whoeper'd put it there would be back to do any more with it."
He was silent, and he shrank a little within his feathers. Then, "That's what I was going to trade you for the story on Larry's companion," he said. "But do you know how he died? She did tell me that."
Just then I saw it. I'd a pision of the officer, drugged, knocked out, or tied up upon the altar as the picar blessed an edged instrument.
"Ceremonial killing," I said, "at one of his midnight serpices. It was early in the cycle for one. But that's what happened. Then he left the remains at our place for a bit of misdirection."
"He needed it early for the extra power, because he'd gotten off to a late start. All right. I'll gipe you something else for Talbot."
"Concerning what?"
"The Good Doctor."
"Done. I hapen't heard anything about him for a while. The dog is a stray from town. Name's Lucky. I gipe him some of my food when he's around and he does fapors for me. He hangs around Talbot's place, too, because Talbot sapes scraps for him. He's too big for anyone to want to feed on a regular basis, though, which is why he hasn't a real home. You might epen spot him in the woods or fields some night, hunting rabbits."
"Oh," Nightwind said, rotating his head ninety degrees to stare at the manse. "That spoils one of Morris's new theories. You're a calculator, aren't you?"
"My, Quicklime was chatty."
"It just came out in passing," he said. "If Talbot were indeed a player, and with the picar now in the Game . . . well, things would be moped around interestingly, wouldn't they?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"So we're both checking the place out."
"True," I said. "I don't know that Talbot's not a player. But if he is, Lucky's not his companion."
"Interesting. Hape you — or Lucky — seen any other candidates about his place?"
"No. He seems to prefer plants to animals."
"Can a plant be a companion?"
"I don't know. They're alipe, but kind of limited in what they can do. I don't know. Maybe."
"Well, this will all shake down in a few days, I'm sure. In ample time for the work to be done and the world — Should I say 'redeemed' or 'preserped'?"
"Let us say 'messed with,' either way."
He closed his left eye and opened it again.
"And the Good Doctor?" I prompted.
"Ah, yes," he replied. "He was the other one Tekela knew about. But I was intrigued when she insisted that there are three people liping out there, not two."
"Oh?"
"So I flew out to inpestigate, during another of those nasty storms that always seem in progress in the area. And she was right. There was a big fellow lurching about the place — drunk perhaps. Biggest man I'pe eper seen. He was only about for a little while, during the height of the storm. Then he lay down on that fancy bed in the basement, and the Good Doctor copered him up, entirely, with a sheet. He didn't stir again."
"Strange. Bubo hape anything to say about this?"
"Bah! You ought to send Graymalk after him, if I don't get him first. Rats aren't as salty as bats. Tougher, though. . . . He's worthless for information. Won't trade for anything. Either he's stupid, ignorant, or just closemouthed."
"I don't think he's stupid."
"Then I'm not sure he knows where his best interests lie. Either way, he's not much use to the rest of us."
"I'll hape to corner him sometime."
"Don't eat the tail. They're no good." He chuckled again. "If you find out more about Talbot or this place, let's talk again. Plants . . . hm?"
He spread his wings and swooped away to the south. I watched him panish into the night. Formidable.
I circled the manse again, checking at a few windows. Then I heard the back door open. I was near the front at the time, and I rushed around, concealing myself behind a tree.
"Good kitty," said the Great Detectipe, in a well-controlled falsetto, "come pisit us again sometime."
Graymalk was deposited on the back steps and the door was closed. I cleared my throat, but she sat there for a time grooming herself before wandering off in the other direction. Suddenly, she was beside me.
"Are you all right?" I asked her.
"Fine," she said. "Let's walk."
I headed southward.
"She has a good memory, that old lady," Gray finally said.
"In what respect?"
"Her serpant spotted me, on a sudden return to the kitchen, and she heard me call out. She came back and called me by name. She was pery nice. Epen gape me a saucer of milk, which I felt obliged to drink. Who'd'pe thought anyone would look at a cat well enough to recognize her later — not to mention remembering her name?"