Little Leela Lost
Written as an affectionate homage to Rex Stout’s inimitable detectives, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
Tap tap. Step, step, step, a few more taps. Archie the kitten raced from one window to another to follow the noise outside her Washington, D. C. home. Speed was of the essence, since the noisemaker was moving from one telephone pole to the next to tack up signs in their Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Archie jumped down from the window sill and tore off to find the senior cat of the house, Neera. Archie tore around everywhere, while Neera seldom shifted out of her lowest gear. To be fair, Neera was no spring kitten anymore.
Archie skidded to a stop just short of the patch of sunlight Neera was napping in. “Neera, Neera, come quick!” Neera had already been urgently summoned twice this morning so she took her time lifting herself up and stretching out her back.
“Why?” Meant to curb the kitten’s enthusiasm, this response failed to do so. Archie launched into an explanation as they moved together to a window with a street view.
“When I lived on the street, these signs always meant something to big people. I just never knew what they meant! Look, this one has a picture of a cat on it. Isn’t that Leela?”
Neera peered at the sign ten feet away. It did indeed look like Leela, the hard-of-hearing cat who lived next door. Neera grunted, “I presume she’s lost. Calling her won’t do a lot of good.”
Archie sat back on her little haunches, lost in admiration. “Wow, can you read the sign?”
Neera grunted again, this time as she hopped off the sill. “No, because that’s the only reason people put up a sign like that. Do you know Leela?”
Archie did know Leela, more by hearsay than sight since she, like most neighborhood cats, didn’t get outside her small walled garden very much. Once in a great while, she was taken on a leash to the park across the street. That was when she learned the furry faces to go with the voices she could listen to outside.
“Leela lives with Mrs. Simpson next door.” Archie was very proud of her memory for people facts like numbers and names. She knew Neera was MUCH better at retaining such facts; it’s just that Neera wasn’t very energetic about getting out and digging up facts or anything else. The older cat didn’t even visit the garden behind their brownstone very often.
“What’s that?!!” (Several exclamation points really should go at the end of every one of Archie’s pronouncements). The sound was made by people entering the house by the kitchen door.
Neera heard the noise too, but she was less inclined to run off and investigate every little sound. Archie sprang up and shot off at the sound of the kitchen door. People in the kitchen usually meant that a meal was being prepared, or a snack, so she liked to be on hand.
Before her lady-person had hung up her coat and offered the guest a cup of tea, Archie was alertly placed on a kitchen stool from which she could see and hear everything in two rooms. She had learned that it was frowned upon to jump on the counters or table, at least while her people were around.
Lady-person was how Archie mentally named her owner, Mrs. Elise Neilert. In both cats’ minds, lady-person was tagged by memories of voice or scent and treats. Man-person was less useful for treats but was superb for scratching or lap-sitting. He was around the house less; Archie supposed that he spent a lot of time outside, hunting or something similar.
Archie had been out to the walled garden nearly every day since her arrival at the Neilert’s home. Neera seldom felt motivated to go out and play, never to run or chase or hunt. Archie supposed that something was broken or worn out in the older cat.
Lady-person was using one of her machines to make a hot, fragrant drink for her neighbor, Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Simpson had been wailing a little bit since she arrived; Archie caught Leela’s name now and again. Lady-person opened a cupboard, reached down a special bottle and added a little of the golden liquid to Mrs. Simpson’s coffee.
“We did find a hole in our garden fence,” continued Mrs. Simpson. “That must be how Leela got out to the street. I can’t bear to think what happened to her next. If she ran down the street, she could be anywhere! Do you think we put up enough ‘Lost Cat’ posters? Should I cover a larger area?”
Lady-person made soothing noises and gestures. Archie didn’t think that any food would be coming along so she hopped down and scooted off to report to Neera.
“Do you think Leela ran off and Mrs. Simpson will never find her? That’s terrible!” Archie had lived on the street for a month or so, her shudder of concern was genuine.
Get Barbara J. Twarog’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
“Pfui,” said Neera, part exclamation of disgust, part hair. “If something bad happened to her, we’d know soon enough. If we’re going to find her, we have to figure out how Leela could have left the block.”
Archie’s eyes widened. “We? You mean like a team? Like detectives?”
Neera harrumphed just a little bit more, then went to a window facing the street to sit and watch. This was her usual activity for mornings. Archie could see, though, the extra attention Neera was paying to the street activity.
After a few hours, Neera hopped down. “I know how Leela could have gotten away without going out in traffic. I need to think of a way to get man-person to go and find her.” Neera’s eyes closed and Archie left her to think really hard.
Archie fell asleep before Neera hoisted herself up from her cushion and stretched out. It was time to go and look for dinner. As they tackled their respective food dishes (crunchy kibble for Archie, gourmet soft food for Neera), Neera indicated that she had a plan to carry out in the morning if man-person was at home.
Fortunately, it worked out that way. He had a little sniffle and a backlog of sick leave to take or lose, so the man of the household was home that next morning. Neera suspected that Mr. Neilert’s job at the State Department was occasionally more exciting than shuffling papers around from desk to briefcase. How right she was! But Archie had no concept of an exciting, daring life led by Mr. Neilert, so Neera let it go. Explaining the Cold War would take up too much time.
“You need to convince man-person to take you outside for a walk precisely when I tell you to,” ordered Neera to Archie. Before the younger cat could object, Neera held up a paw and continued. “Just pick up the leash and jump on his lap. He’ll either go along, or this doesn’t work. Be convincing.”
So, Archie stood by until Neera gave the signal, then raced off to fetch her walking harness and leash. Just half a minute later, Mr. Neilert found an eager fur-ball jumping up and down on his lap. The day was fine, he wasn’t all that sniffly, so he put on a jacket and took Archie out, heading for the park across the street.
Though small, she was mighty–Archie made a sudden dive as they walked across the sidewalk heading for the curb, and jumped into a service panel van parked at the Simpson’s house. Mr. Neilert yipped a little bit as his shoulder was yanked towards the open door of the water bottle delivery truck. He was just about to climb up and scoop Archie up in his hands rather than coax her down and out on her own, when the delivery man came out of the Simpson house with the day’s empty bottle on his shoulder.
“Gee, I don’t know why cats are so in love with jumping up in my van!” said the delivery driver, whose uniform announced that his name was Ted.
“Because they can, Ted,” responded Mr. Neilert. As he was stepping down with Archie in his arms, Mr. Neilert had a thought. “Say, Ted,” he continued, “do you mind my asking what your next stop is? Do you make the same route every day?”
“Pretty much,” Ted said. “And my next stop is on Embassy Row, at some diplomat’s house, but you didn’t hear me say that.”
“Would it be too much trouble for Archie and me to ride with you to your next stop, Ted?” asked Mr. Neilert. “We’ll be careful and will get out and walk home from there.”
Ted groused about company rules but responded favorably to something Mr. Neilert passed to his hand. A cheese or salmon treat, maybe, Archie thought. So Mr. Neilert sat in the front seat with Archie in his arms as they circled around the park and turned to drive down Massachusetts Avenue, so-called Embassy Row.
“Here we are,” said Ted as they pulled up in front of a large, gated house. “I can’t ask you to come in with me, of course, that wouldn’t be…um…diplomatic.”
“Sure, thanks for the lift,” said Mr. Neilert as he climbed down from the front seat with Archie still in his arms. Immediately, she began to pull him towards the gate.
“It’s Leela, can’t you hear her calling?!!!” she meowed frantically but Mr. Neilert wasn’t able to understand her. He DID, though, hear another cat yowling just inside the gate. He walked up to the guard box and knocked on the glass door.
“Hello, I’m looking for a white cat named Leela. I think she might be inside your gate, can we come in and look for her? My cat knows her.”
The guard looked very skeptical, and pushed a button on his phone to call a superior. After a few rapid sentences in some foreign language, the guard motioned Mr. Neilert into the garden. Remembering that Leela didn’t hear very well, Mr. Neilert told Archie that it was up to her to find Leela, so he let her off her leash and followed as well as he could. Poor Leela was stuck between a loose downspout and the wall of the house, wet and miserable. Mr. Neilert gently pulled Leela free and tucked her inside his jacket. After scooping up Archie, he walked out through the gate and hailed a cab to go back to the Neilert brownstone.
It was a happy afternoon on the block, after he rang the Simpson’s doorbell and handed Leela back to her happy owner. Back at home, Archie ran to report to Neera. “How did you know?” she asked, full of admiration for her older house-partner-cat.
“I didn’t know, but I was pretty sure Leela hadn’t gotten hurt outside, because other animals in the neighborhood would have heard about it and let us know. That meant that she ran into some house or vehicle. If she ran into a house, the people would have seen Mrs. Simpson’s signs. I saw the water truck and knew that it was here almost every day. I could just imagine Leela running on, then running off again at the first stop. The driver might not ever see her get on or off, but my guess was that she would have been scared and stayed at that house.”
And so it proved. Mr. Neilert was happy to take credit for finding Leela, Archie was pleased to be part of a detective team, and Neera was happy to get back to her nap.
