The Mysteries of Max: Books 31-33 by Nic Saint (interesting novels in english txt) 📕

“So why is it wet?” I insisted.

“Max,” said Harriet with an indulgent grin. “How do you think we moved it? With our paws?”

She and Brutus waited a moment until the penny dropped, and when finally it did, I made a face. “Yuck,” I said.

“We took it into our mouths,” Harriet explained for Dooley’s sake, for he was still clueless. “That’s how we carried it over there. Just a few kernels at a time.”

“It took us at least half an hour,” said Brutus.

“You guys!” said Dooley. “Funny!”

I didn’t think it was all that funny. In fact I thought it was disgusting. I don’t like it when people touch my food, you see. I like it fresh and crisp and straight out of the bag, not chewed up by other cats. I mean, how would you feel if McDonald’s served you a Big Mac but the guy behind the counter put it into his mouth first and gave it a good nibble?

Shaking my head, I walked off.

“Max?” Brutus called after me. “Aren’t you going to eat that?”

“I just lost my appetite!” I called back.

“But I thought you said you were hungry?” Dooley said.

“Not anymore!”

“Great,” said Brutus. “So we did all of that moving his kibble around for nothing.”

“Might as well eat it,” said Harriet, and soon I heard the telltale sounds of cats chewing on kibble. My kibble!

Ugh.

I decided to remove myself from the source of this awful sound and walked out of the house and into the backyard. I even walked all the way to the back, so I wouldn’t have to hear Dooley, Brutus and Harriet eating, and as I lay down in the shade of the rose bush, a voice tootled into my ear, “Max! Have you caught Bob’s killer yet!”

I jumped in surprise, and when I glanced down at the mulch that Odelia likes to spread on top of the rose bush’s roots, I saw that once more I was in the presence of Mr. Ed.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ed,” I said. “But the men who were caught and have been accused of the abduction and murder of Bob Rector have denied their involvement.” And in a few short words I explained to the snail what had happened last night at the Star hotel.

“I didn’t even know Bob had two cousins,” said Mr. Ed when at length I’d finished recounting my tale. “What did you say their names were?”

“Wim Bojanowsky and Suppo Bonikowski. They were staying at the Hampton Cove Star, in the room adjacent to Lord Hilbourne’s suite.”

“Oh, yeah. The keys to the city guy. He’s some kind of prince or king, right?”

“He’s a British blue blood, though I don’t think he’s a prince exactly, or a king. Merely a lord. Apparently they’ve got a lot of those over in England.”

“They probably create them in a factory outside London,” said Mr. Ed. For a moment he didn’t speak, and judging from the thought wrinkles that appeared on his sticky green brow, he was thinking hard. “What if Bojanowksy and Bonikowski were in on the whole thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if they set this whole thing up, along with Bob? I mean, what are the chances of Bob’s cousins being in town the same time he is? Or do they always travel in packs?”

“They mentioned they were here on holiday, along with their cousin. Though I also saw them at Town Hall, where they were working as waiters handing out finger food.”

“So they claim to be tourists, and yet they’re waitering. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they needed to make some extra money. Vacationing in the Hamptons can be expensive.”

“Mh,” said Mr. Ed. “Don’t they have jobs at home? What do they do?”

“Bojanowsky is a customer success manager at a furniture store. And his cousin is between jobs at the moment and has been paying the bills by temping as a manny.”

“Not exactly high-powered careers,” Mr. Ed mused. “Or high-paying ones.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re criminals,” I pointed out.

“It doesn’t,” he conceded. “So… tell me again what they said happened?”

“The cousins say they’re the victims of an attack carried out by Johnny and Jerry, while the latter claim the cousins were attacking Hilbourne and they saved his life.”

“I’m inclined to believe your Johnny and Jerry, Max. Call me prejudiced but any cousin of Bob Rector is a bad egg in my view. So there was blood on the carpet, and the cousins were caught… doing what exactly to this Lord Hilbourne?”

“Holding him upright, as he appeared to be on the verge of collapse. Which caused our two homegrown crooks to conclude the cousins had been beating the guy to a pulp. Which they hadn’t, as there wasn’t a mark on him. Not a scratch or a dent or even a single tiny bruise. But he did suffer an aneurysm. And he did lose a lot of blood and is now in a coma.”

“Mh…”

Mr. Ed’s tentacles were gently waving. Did you know that snails possess no less than four tentacles? Two on top of their head that contain their eyes, and two smaller ones they use to smell stuff on the ground. Mr. Ed’s big tentacles were now pointing at the sky, as he was momentarily locked in silent contemplation, while the smaller ones were idly sniffing at the mulch under our feet. I could tell he was thinking hard. I was thinking hard, too. So there you have it—cat and snail, both thinking hard, pooling resources.

“So what do you think?” I said finally.

“I’m suddenly reminded of the fact that Bob was an engineer.”

“He was?”

“Mh. He once told Evelina he used to work for some big tech startup.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Do you think it’s relevant now?”

He gave me a keen look. “Don’t you?”

I nodded slowly, putting together all the pieces of the puzzle.

We shared a long look. “I wonder,” he said, “what happened to the other watch.”

Chapter 37

We’d all gathered in Odelia’s cozy little home, which incidentally is also my home.