The Philosophical Strangler(93)

The Cat was still glaring at him. Quite a glare, too—the combination of those incredibly blue eyes magnified by the inch-thick lenses on her spectacles. Then she snorted.

“Didn’t have a chance. He was already dead when I got here. It was the girls did him in.”

“The girls?” I demanded. “But they wouldn’t—oh, no! He must’ve struggled!” I was frantic with worry. “Are Jenny and Angela okay? Are they hurt?”

I started my own charge for the stairs.

“Relax, Ignace!” came the Cat’s voice. A penetrating voice, I believe I’ve mentioned. Stopped me dead in my tracks. I turned around. The Cat was bestowing a look on me that did not indicate any great favor.

“You’re just like him!” she snapped, indicating Greyboar with her thumb. “Another swell-headed male, thinks women are lambs.” Definitely an unfavorable look. “Men!” she growled.

She took a deep breath. And then, like a sunburst, she smiled. Nobody in the world had a smile like the Cat, when she put herself into it. It was blinding, really.

And now she was laughing her heart out. She had some kind of laugh, too, the Cat. Great to hear, sort of, if it weren’t for that maniacal tinge. Like a she-wolf mocking the world.

When she stopped, still chuckling, she nodded toward the stairs. “Go on up and see for yourselves,” she said. “You’ll love it. But be quiet. The girls are asleep. All tuckered out, the poor things.”

So we tiptoed up the stairs and went into the bedroom. I was the first one through the door. As soon as I saw the scene, I insisted everybody else had to wait outside until I had the chance to cover up Jenny and Angela. Naked they were, sprawled on the bed in each other’s arms, exhausted contentment on their sleeping faces. I wasn’t about to let leering slobs like the Trio get a look at them!

Then everybody came in, and we all circled the bed, gazing on the most-definitely-deceased corpse of the Cardinal. He was still in his robes, tied to the bedpost at the foot of the bed. His complexion was bright purple, his eyes were bugged out like veined eggplants, his gray tongue was hanging out about eight inches. He looked like the aftermath of one of Greyboar’s chokes—except there wasn’t anything wrong with his throat and neck.

And, besides, the cause of death was obvious.

We woke the girls up, then. Didn’t mean to, but the howling laughter which filled the room would have awakened the dead. They were startled at first, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, but soon enough they were joining in the gaiety.

“Isn’t it perfect?” giggled Angela.

“We didn’t mean to do it, really we didn’t,” protested Jenny. Her grin did not, let me say here, indicate deep remorse.

And it really was the perfect way to do in the Cardinal. Even Greyboar and the Cat, itching as they’d been to do the job themselves, admitted as to how it had all worked out for the best.

The Plan had gone perfectly. Too perfectly, in fact. As soon as the Cardinal had come into the house, the girls had overpowered and tied him up. That hadn’t taken but two minutes. Truth is, the girls were right—a shriveled-up old lecher had been no match for them. Then, they decided the best place to keep him was in the bedroom. One of them could watch him at all times, while the other one got some rest.

So they hauled him up into the bedroom. They tied him to the bedpost because it was the handiest place available. And then—

Well, then it started getting boring. They hadn’t counted on that, a boring adventure. But the truth of it was that after doing their part—to perfection, too!—they really didn’t have anything to do for the next two days or so except keep the Cardinal tied up.

Jenny and Angela didn’t take well to tedium. Much, much, much too full of vim and vigor and youthful energy.

“And besides,” said Angela, “he was such a pain in the ass, cursing and threatening us the way he was doing.”

So, partly because they were bored, and partly to get the old goat’s goat, they started doing what the two of them did often and very, very well whenever they had the time (they always had the energy). Later, they swore they’d only intended to tease the Cardinal a little, but—but, the truth of it is, Jenny and Angela were crazy about each other and either of them alone had enough pep to keep a whole factory going for a week if you could bottle it up somehow, and both of them together, when they were in the mood—which they usually were, and certainly were that day—could—how shall I put this? Well, let’s just say they violated several of the Commandments for hours and hours and hours, naked as the day they were born, and in their usual freewheeling style.