Finding Chad
Cats are passionate about napping. Every feline devotes at least half her day to thinking deeply with her eyes closed. Unlike dogs, cats don’t waste naptime chasing dream bunnies or squirrels. Apart from the occasional repositioning to expose belly fur to the sunshine, a sleeping cat is pretty immobile.
But, as every cat-owner with a can opener knows, the transition from zonked out to alert and sniffing takes about a nanosecond. Young Archie was as interested in a newly opened can of tuna as the next kitty but that wasn’t the noise rousing her this sunny morning. She was napping on the back edge of the couch in the front living room of her Washington, D.C. brownstone, a perch that combined comfort with a clear view of the street. What woke her, as it would any cat, was a dog’s sustained barking right outside the open window.
Archie and her fellow housecat, Neera, didn’t wander freely around the neighborhood but spent enough time in their own walled backyard to be accustomed to dogs barking. Archie even understood some of the woofs that passed for conversation among her canine neighbors. She generally knew which houses they belonged to and whether they were likely to be on a leash when they were out and about. On her occasional trips to the park across the street with her man-person, Archie was obliged to wear a leash. Whether that was for her safety or that of the squirrels, Archie was never sure.
The barks and howls from the dog on the sidewalk became more strident. Even Neera was roused to investigate. Surely, lady-person would come to look out the window and reassure her kitties. She came, but offered no comfort. Instead, Mrs. Neilert let out a shriek and ran for the telephone. Maybe it had less to do with the dog than the guy lying on the sidewalk.
What followed was the most exciting morning since Archie and Neera solved their first big case together[i]. Noisy machines drove up, with lights as bright as their mechanical wails were loud. Mrs. Neilert had somehow summoned the man-person of the household because Mr. Neilert drove up and explained his presence to the blue-clothed individuals who were prodding the man on the sidewalk. At least someone had taken the panicked dog away. Funny, it was not a dog that either Archie or Neera knew by sight or sound, though they were familiar with many of the neighborhood pets.
Mr. Neilert came into the house by the front door, forgetting to deploy his foot to keep Archie from running out. She got far enough towards the street to glimpse the prone human’s face. It was Mr. Pickles (which was how Archie heard Mr. Piclovsky).
Oh no! Mr. Pickles lived just three doors down and was the owner-person to Chad, a rather solemn dog of a large breed. Poor Mr. Pickles was just lying there; too long for a nap, Archie feared. He had a leash in his hand with the collar still attached, which strongly suggested that the dog had slipped free of both.
That was all Archie was able to see as Mr. Neilert scooped her up to return to the safety of the brownstone. He was busy for a while petting and soothing Mrs. Neilert, so Archie ran off to discuss the situation with Neera.
“I guess I might as well get up. That noise outside isn’t going to end anytime soon,” groused Neera as she arched and stretched. “What did you see?”
Archie didn’t waste time wondering how Neera knew she had slipped outside for a first-hand look at Mr. Pickles. Instead, she excitedly shared her really big news.
“That wasn’t Chad out there! It wasn’t Chad barking next to Mr. Pickles. Where is Chad? Why wasn’t he there with his person? He might have been able to keep him from falling down!”
Neera padded to the front room to look for herself. She could see that the prone human wasn’t waking up and that the dog being led to an animal control van was indeed not Chad. Her observations stopped there since, at that moment, the doorbell rang and Mr. Neilert ushered one of the men from the noisy, flashing cars into the living room. Both cats slithered under the sofa to eavesdrop.
“Mr. Neilert, I want to assure you that we take security in this neighborhood very seriously. It is deeply concerning to have a foreign diplomat collapse on your doorstep. Do you personally know the man?”
Mr. Neilert named Piclovsky as a neighbor but couldn’t say more about him without clearing it with his superiors. He certainly wouldn’t admit to knowing that Piclovsky had met with President Eisenhower more than once.
Cats are not naturally subtle, nor are they able to whisper. Both men heard soft mewing from under the sofa but thought little of it until Archie leapt on the couch and started jumping up and down in a pretty convincing imitation of a small dog’s yapping.
“Can’t they see that I’m telling them to look for Chad? That the dog out there doesn’t belong to Mr. Pickles? I’m barking my little tail off here!”
Neera crawled out from under the sofa and tried a different form of communication with her man-person. She wagged her tail, raised one paw (as if to shake) and fixed him with an unblinking stare until he murmured the word “dog”.
The policeman said, “Excuse me? What about the dog?”
Mr. Neilert quickly got up. “Is the dog still here? Is Piclovsky still here?”
“No, and yes. The dog should be on its way to the pound. I can have it fetched, if need be. As for the man, the ambulance just arrived. He’s still breathing and the medics are optimistic.”
Mr. Neilert headed for the door, leaving the other man to follow. “I just want one quick look, detective,” he explained as he hustled towards the group about to lift Piclovsky onto a stretcher.
“Where is the dog leash he had?” One of the cops brought it over to Mr. Neilert after a nod from the detective.
Both Neera and Archie could see from the living room window that the leash and collar were the ones they were familiar with. Archie knew from one far-too-close-encounter that Chad’s name was on the collar tag.
With no further reason to delay the transport of the Soviet diplomat to a hospital, Mr. Neilert returned to the house and headed for the kitchen to reassure Mrs. Neilert. Comfort seemed to call for not just pets and hair smoothing, behaviors that made perfect sense to both cats, but also hot drinks into which extra vitamins were poured from a special bottle.
“I guess he was taking Chad for a walk and the poor mutt got spooked or something and slipped out of his collar,” said Mr. Neilert after slugging back a good deal of his hot drink. He reached for the bottle of liquid vitamins again.
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“But that wasn’t Chad,” answered Mrs. Neilert. “That was some other dog I’ve never seen before. I haven’t seen Chad today.”
Archie and Neera plopped down on the kitchen rug, emitting simultaneous sighs. At last, their persons had gotten the message. Someone would look for Chad and save him from neglect, starvation or dognapping.
Chad’s welfare was not the only concern motivating Mr. Neilert to resume his coat and look for Archie’s leash. Sadly, the walk wasn’t as entertaining as a trip to the park would have been. After 20 yards, a bored Archie demanded to be carried and was thus on Mr. Neilert’s shoulder when he rang the doorbell of the Piclovsky house. Fortunately, his grip was experienced and firm because frantic barking greeted the chimes. Chad was evidently inside.
“We’ll have to make some calls to have Chad rescued,” Mr. Neilert commented as he bent down to retrieve some litter from the doorsill of the Piclovsky brownstone. Back home, Mr. Neilert pulled the telephone from the hallway into the living room. His first call was evidently to the pound, because Archie could hear dogs barking in the background.
“Yes, can you describe the dog brought in this morning from the Woodley Park neighborhood? A young terrier? Does he have a collar? Oh, excuse me! Does she have a collar? She does? What does the tag say?”
Mr. Neilert ceased talking and started scribbling except for a few “uh-huhs” as the call progressed. He read from his notes as he wound up the conversation.
“So, the dog recovered this morning apparently belongs to a lady named Adamson in Laurel, Maryland. You’ll call the owner? Great. Hopefully, that will take the dog off your hands.”
“Elise? Elise! Guess what?” As Mrs. Neilert rushed in, the man-person told her that the dog found near Piclovsky wasn’t even a male dog and certainly not a Labrador, as Chad was known to be.
“Well, I knew that, Jack,” Mrs. Neilert sniffed as she whisked a dust cloth along the television set before turning it on to watch her daily program. Archie jumped on the sofa to keep her company, one of her regular chores, while Neera followed Mr. Neilert to his office.
After pouring out some more vitamin drink and taking a seat behind his desk, Mr. Neilert retrieved the bits of litter from his pocket. Neera jumped up to help him concentrate, her particular role in the family enterprise. From the desktop, she could hear and see everything. Mr. Neilert must appreciate this advantage because he narrated all of his actions, presumably for her benefit.
“Three scraps here…one is a business card for a pet-walking service in Maryland. Here’s a receipt for coffee, then there’s a torn page from a personal diary. Interesting! The writing on the diary page is in Cyrllic…don’t see a lot of that around here! My Russian is a bit rusty but it looks like a meeting time and date — for this morning. Now I know who to call!” As Mr. Neilert dialed the number of an official but highly secret office, Neera’s paw eased the business card towards him.
“Yes, we should check out the dog-walking business, but I’m more concerned about where the phony dog-walker is now. He set up a meeting with Piclovsky, intending to use the
dog as cover but somehow it went bad.” Neilert listened for a moment before proposing an answer to a question that must have been “how?”
“I can’t be sure. Maybe Piclovsky had some sort of seizure, spooking both dogs, or maybe our phony dog-walker attacked Piclovsky then followed his dog back to the house. Before I call animal control to rescue the dog in the Russian’s house, should we figure out whether this so-called dog-walker is still there?”
After another telephone call or two, Mr. Neilert returned to the living room with Archie’s leash and collar. “Archie, can you tear yourself away for another walk down the block?” Archie hesitated, since Mrs. Neilert was sniffling and clearly upset by what she was watching. Comforting her was Archie’s duty, but a summons for a walk was not to be ignored.
They repeated the short walk and again rang the doorbell. Chad’s response was even more frantic. No wonder, if he’d been cooped up in the house for hours! Mr. Neilert sympathized with the doggy desperation and tried the doorknob. Apparently, Mr. Piclovsky had expected to be out of the house with Chad only briefly, and had left it unlocked.
The house had a fenced-in yard so the first job was to let Chad out to preserve his health and dignity. In the dog-free house, Archie jumped down and wandered around. The living room was a mess! Papers everywhere and furniture upended. Mr. Neilert cautiously opened doors and inspected overturned drawers, going through the house for the next several minutes.
As Archie wandered down the hallway leading to bedrooms, she heard a faint sneeze. Did her man-person hear it, too? She crept into the bathroom and stood with her front paws on the edge of the curtained tub. The sneezing became violent!
What followed next was a blur of feet and fur as the intruder raced past his allergenic nemesis into the main hallway. There was a bit of yowling to accompany the sneezing, so Mr. Neilert was well prepared to trip up–literally–the fleeing culprit. Archie wasn’t sure whether to avoid the sneezing, cursing man on the floor, or to snuggle up and drive him crazy. She settled for jumping on Mr. Neilert’s shoulder as he subdued the phony dog-walker.
Reinforcements arrived to escort Mr. Neilert and Mr. Sneezer down the block to the Neilert brownstone. Not only was the Piclovsky house a potential crime scene, animal control would soon arrive to deal with Chad.
Archie was banned from the subsequent interrogation since that might constitute cruel and unusual something or other to have the man sneezing out his confession. Neera overheard enough of the interrogation to provide a summary later for Archie.
In the end, there wasn’t much to confess. The sneezer (let’s give him his proper name now, Mr. Black) had arranged to meet Piclovsky hoping to sell some secret information.
“Things went south for Mr. Black pretty quickly,” Neera continued. “Mr. Pickles suffered an attack of some sort as they left the park walking their respective dogs. Seeing Mr. Pickles collapse on our sidewalk, Black panicked which spooked both dogs. Black followed Chad home and stayed in the house to hide and to look for stuff worth stealing.”
“You mean there’s no dark, dastardly deed? No grievous bodily harm?” asked Archie, a touch disappointed that the criminal she had nabbed was looking more and more two-bit.
“Don’t forget,” said Neera smugly, “that Mr. Black was planning to sell state secrets to a foreign diplomat. Mr. Black stole from our government and will go to jail, but not for attacking anybody. Mr. Pickles got sick, as humans and cats do from time to time. He should be fine in a week or two.”
Neera considered the conversation at an end and was heading towards her favorite napping perch in Mrs. Neilert’s laundry room. “Wait, I have one more question? Is Chad OK?” asked Archie as Neera padded down the hallway. Neera was spared the need to reply, since Mr. Neilert burst through the front door with Chad at that very moment.
“Elise, look who’s coming to stay with us! Isn’t it great?”
Written as an affectionate homage to Rex Stout’s inimitable detectives, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
[i] Archie and Neera’s first big case is described in “Little Leela Lost,
”https://medium.com/@bjatwarog/little-leela-lost-68403bcdb935
