Sentence the Thirtysecond
Meanwhile, Roxy Davidova and her cousin Jinty Moncrief had been parlaying with Old Bob, the famous Edinburgh City Chambers Cat; luxurious treats from M&S bought for Jinty's own moggie, Leonardo, in exchange for his cooperation, seemed to do the trick – for his part, Old Bob had proved keen to help them; he led them along an abandoned close, they passed by empty rooms which had in times gone by housed families and small trades, down flights of dusty stairs, through long-forgotten stores which seemed to contain nothing more recent than cases of muskets dating from the Napoleonic Wars, past a stack of rough-hewn coffins (no doubt left over from one of the plagues which – being much of a muchness everywhere people huddled together in unhygienic conditions – had raged through the city in the long-ago) and a pile of water-damaged Catholic Bibles, probably confiscated by followers of John Knox during the schism of the Reformation; after squeezing through a kind of fissure in the rock, they found themselves in the passage which Roxy recognised from the day she had encountered her Aunt Maude and they had rescued Aunt Daphne from the oubliette where she had been trapped with its evidence of the dastardly torture and murder of Sister Evadne Eglantine; “this is it,” cried Roxy, dropping to her knees and scrabbling around on the rubbish strewn floor – she found the bolts, which she had safely secured after Daphne emerged from the cell, lest anyone (who on earth would come here voluntarily? she wondered) fall down the hole; sliding the bolts back, Roxy let the trap-door fall open and Jinty directed the beam of her Council-issue Torch into the black pit below; what a shock! what a horror! what a dreadful sight met their eyes, and both girls – crying aloud and shrieking at the tops of their voices, fell backward on the dusty floor, fair giving poor old Bob such a fright that with a shriek of his own he raced away pell-mell along the passage to some secret hiding place, where he remained, trembling in a state of post-traumatic shock, until one of his wee moosie freens brought him a piece of stale cheese to nibble; for, his reputation as a ferocious mouser and ratter notwithstanding, Old Bob had struck up a rapport with the denizens of the nether regions of the City Chambers – any of them to die of natural causes and, given the size of their population, that was a fair number per annum, were delivered up by Bob at one of five designated sites, and regarded by Janitorial Staff on the payroll as evidence of his prowess – indeed a meticulous record was kept and reported quarterly to the Committee charged with supervising his performance and remuneration; so pleased with his performance was the Committee that extra food supplies were regularly distributed about the extensive premises and Bob (and his co-conspirators – with the treachery of but one quisling, a deceitful rat, who had introduced a virulent form of cat flu in the hope of putting an end to Bob's underworld empire, but expired of a mutation before he was able to put his plan into operation) gleefully enjoyed the bounty; oh, yes, Old Bob was a wonderful cat and so said his employers and his beneficiaries, with a Hey, and a Ho, and a Hey Nonny No!
Meanwhile, Roxy Davidova and her cousin Jinty Moncrief had been parlaying with Old Bob, the famous Edinburgh City Chambers Cat; luxurious treats from M&S bought for Jinty's own moggie, Leonardo, in exchange for his cooperation, seemed to do the trick – for his part, Old Bob had proved keen to help them; he led them along an abandoned close, they passed by empty rooms which had in times gone by housed families and small trades, down flights of dusty stairs, through long-forgotten stores which seemed to contain nothing more recent than cases of muskets dating from the Napoleonic Wars, past a stack of rough-hewn coffins (no doubt left over from one of the plagues which – being much of a muchness everywhere people huddled together in unhygienic conditions – had raged through the city in the long-ago) and a pile of water-damaged Catholic Bibles, probably confiscated by followers of John Knox during the schism of the Reformation; after squeezing through a kind of fissure in the rock, they found themselves in the passage which Roxy recognised from the day she had encountered her Aunt Maude and they had rescued Aunt Daphne from the oubliette where she had been trapped with its evidence of the dastardly torture and murder of Sister Evadne Eglantine; “this is it,” cried Roxy, dropping to her knees and scrabbling around on the rubbish strewn floor – she found the bolts, which she had safely secured after Daphne emerged from the cell, lest anyone (who on earth would come here voluntarily? she wondered) fall down the hole; sliding the bolts back, Roxy let the trap-door fall open and Jinty directed the beam of her Council-issue Torch into the black pit below; what a shock! what a horror! what a dreadful sight met their eyes, and both girls – crying aloud and shrieking at the tops of their voices, fell backward on the dusty floor, fair giving poor old Bob such a fright that with a shriek of his own he raced away pell-mell along the passage to some secret hiding place, where he remained, trembling in a state of post-traumatic shock, until one of his wee moosie freens brought him a piece of stale cheese to nibble; for, his reputation as a ferocious mouser and ratter notwithstanding, Old Bob had struck up a rapport with the denizens of the nether regions of the City Chambers – any of them to die of natural causes and, given the size of their population, that was a fair number per annum, were delivered up by Bob at one of five designated sites, and regarded by Janitorial Staff on the payroll as evidence of his prowess – indeed a meticulous record was kept and reported quarterly to the Committee charged with supervising his performance and remuneration; so pleased with his performance was the Committee that extra food supplies were regularly distributed about the extensive premises and Bob (and his co-conspirators – with the treachery of but one quisling, a deceitful rat, who had introduced a virulent form of cat flu in the hope of putting an end to Bob's underworld empire, but expired of a mutation before he was able to put his plan into operation) gleefully enjoyed the bounty; oh, yes, Old Bob was a wonderful cat and so said his employers and his beneficiaries, with a Hey, and a Ho, and a Hey Nonny No!
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