“Of course, I didn’t lose it, detective. You can’t just suspect someone out of nowhere. But that damn cat…”
The man inside the door gritted his teeth as if the cat had devoured all his possessions, his expression twisted.
“Hurry and get rid of that cat. I will never help take care of any orange cats again.”
“Alright, where is the cat?”
Shard asked. He didn’t particularly like cats, but for the hefty commission fee, he wouldn’t mind carrying a cat through the streets and alleys.
“It’s on the roof.”
The man pointed upwards, his expression growing even more intense.
“Ever since the detective brought it here, the cat hasn’t let anyone near it. It scratched my wife and Miss Cindy at least twice. It doesn’t eat cheap cat food and constantly bullies the other pets here. I’ve run this place for years and have never seen such an aggressive six-month-old kitten. At this time, it must be sunbathing up there! Get it out of here, I can’t take it anymore.”
Shard pretended not to hear the man’s complaints, stepped back slightly from the doorway, and looked up at the small three-story building.
“How am I supposed to climb to the roof?”
“There’s a ladder in the yard that you can use. I’m not going up there. I don’t want to see that cat ever again!”
Shard didn’t want to climb that high either; he was very concerned about safety. Just as he was about to persuade the man, the latter shoved a 1-shilling note into his hands.
“Detective Hamilton gave me 1 shilling and 10 pence to take care of it for two months. Here, take this shilling and get rid of it! Never let that cat appear in this alley again!”
The voice was almost hysterical, drawing the attention of children playing on the street and a woman hanging laundry from a building across the way.
It was hard to imagine how much psychological damage that orange cat had caused him.
Following the middle-aged man through the house, they reached a backyard filled with empty pet cages. The man held the metal ladder, and Shard carefully climbed to the roof.
The rooftop was cluttered with all kinds of debris, making one wonder how these items were transported up when the only access was a ladder. In the southeastern corner of the roof, on the only clean patch of ground, Shard saw a cat lazily lying on a metal bar, basking in the summer morning sun.
It indeed looked like a young cat, its body flexible like a puddle of water collapsed on the pipe. It wasn’t very large, even looking somewhat small. Its fur glistened faintly in the sunlight filtering through the mist, a sign of health.
However, rather than an orange cat, it looked more like a white cat wrapped in a warm orange blanket. Only when the cat stood up did Shard realize that the layer of almost dazzling orange-yellow was indeed the color of its fur.
The cat was standing on a discarded metal pipe, one end of which was propped on a broken couch cushion, making the cat’s position slightly higher than the surrounding items.
It stood up against the morning sun, its amber eyes looking at Shard, warily examining this stranger. Shard, lacking experience with such animals, and influenced by the middle-aged man’s words, worried that the orange cat might pounce on him.
But this orange cat, like its owner, named “Mia,” didn’t appear very fierce. It observed Shard, and Shard, knowing he was being watched, tried hard to appear friendly, constantly reminding himself of the cat’s value.
“I’m taking you to see your owner, Miss Mia San Gold.”
Finding a foothold among the debris, he squatted slightly and clapped his hands with a forced smile, but, unsurprisingly, the cat didn’t respond to this suspicious look.
“Miss Mia Gold.”
Earlier, he had used the most standard “Northern Kingdoms Common Tongue,” or Delarion language. This time, using a phrase he had picked up in Tobesk City’s local accent over the past two days, he said,
“I’m taking you to find your owner, Miss Mia Gold.”
The orange cat’s small ears twitched, it lifted its right paw to lick it, then put it down and continued to stare intently at Shard.
Shard licked his lips, looked around to make sure there wasn’t a higher building nearby, and then extended his right index finger.
“Look.”
A silver light glowed on his finger, and the orange cat’s amber eyes immediately widened. Its mouth opened slightly, and standing on the rusted metal pipe, its whiskers twitched as it leaned towards the light.
“Miss Mia Gold.”
Shard continued speaking and slowly moved closer to the orange cat, cautiously reaching out with his left hand. Suppressing his concern for “wild animals,” he gently picked it up with one hand.
The orange cat wasn’t heavy, at least not yet.
The cat continued to stare at Shard’s glowing finger, but when the light faded, it didn’t try to escape from his arms. It leaned back against Shard’s chest, playing with both paws at his glowing finger, seemingly very interested in the “new toy.”
“Good.”
The detective let out a long breath, standing up to leave. The young orange cat, Mia, squirmed slightly but didn’t struggle excessively.
“Not fierce at all, even quite well-behaved. It seems I’m someone who can easily win other animals’ favor.”
Shard thought cheerfully as he noticed something lying under the pipe where the cat had been. Holding the cat in one hand, he bent down and picked it up with his right hand, revealing an old box of Rhodes cards.
Rhodes cards, when used, must be a complete set of 54 to work. If there are special cards, they can be substituted based on the suit and rank, as all Rhodes cards have the same back pattern.
The box in front of him wasn’t any special set of Rhodes cards. It looked quite simple, similar to the set used by three men he’d seen in a tavern, likely costing only a few dozen pence for a box.
Seeing it wasn’t anything important, he pocketed it. With the cat in one hand, he cautiously descended the ladder back to the yard.
The middle-aged man with the big nose nearly cried in front of Shard seeing that he was indeed taking the cat away.
Leaving Lavender Avenue, Shard didn’t wander around with someone else’s cat but headed straight to Miss Gold’s home. During the journey, the orange cat Mia made only a brief “purr” sound at the start and then merely pawed at Shard’s sleeve and chest but didn’t try to escape his arms.
Since Miss Gold was willing to pay such a high price to find her cat, she certainly wasn’t poor. She lived in a quiet residential area in the south of the city, “Sandrew Street,” where each household had its own small garden, and the gates marked each house’s nameplates.
