Murder on Show Read Online Free PDF

jury is still out, but it will probably be something equally nauseating,’ he admitted.
    â€˜You say it very well.’
    â€˜Actually, there’s a trick to it,’ he said. ‘One simply stands in front of a mirror and repeats the words over and over again, until they lose all meaning. It becomes a mere collection of syllables.’
    I had been right, what’s-his-name, here, would bear watching. ‘Are you on duty for the whole Show?’
    â€˜Every bloody day of it. Three entire days telling cat owners all they want to know about our glorious product. And you?’
    â€˜I was thinking of signing on for the night shift right now, as a matter of fact.’ I decided it was time to throw him a clue. ‘Perkins & Tate are ever on the job.’
    â€˜Especially Perkins,’ he grinned, catching it neatly. ‘At least Rutherland Advertising doesn’t demand the last full measure of devotion from its minions,’ he reciprocated. ‘So, it’s home to a comfy bed for Dave Prendergast.’
    â€˜I was on my way up to the Press Gallery to check the situation. It seems to me I noticed a couch up there the other day.’
    â€˜Right you are. Come and have a drink first.’
    It seemed like a good idea. A much better idea than going upstairs and trying to sleep. The more I thought that one over, the more insane it sounded. But I reminded myself of the fees a nice human-interest article about cat-lovers might bring from an American magazine and, by the third drink, it seemed like a good idea again.
    We said good night after the barmaid called ‘Time,’ and Dave hopped on a bus back to his flat, while I returned to the Exhibition Hall.
    I sauntered along, in no hurry, enjoying the evening, and my eye was caught by a slogan scrawled in chalk on the side of the building, ‘CHAMP IS OURS.’ I regarded it with mild interest. I could swear that it hadn’t been there earlier. As graffiti, I had seen wittier; but there was the ring of genuine protest about it. I wondered if Champ was a colony – like so many, of whose existence I had been unaware – or whether it was the initials of some new Protest Group.
    Musing over the possibilities of the initials, I entered the Hall, skirting around the aisles of empty pens the other cats would occupy when the Exhibition got under way.
    I found the stairs to the Press Gallery and climbed them quietly. Perhaps, if I had been less lulled by the past pleasant hour in the pub, and the peacefulness of the scene below, I might have been more on guard. But who would have expected that sort of thing amongst a group of respectable animal lovers?
    So, I did what I had been brought up never to do, and entered a room without knocking. Fortunately, I didn’t snap on the light. Something warned me just in time – perhaps the fresh smell of pipe tobacco in a dark room which should have been empty for hours.
    I heard the couch creak and saw the faint glow of a pipe and a cigarette in cosy proximity. It struck me as definitely a moment when discretion was the better part of valour. Certainly, it was no time to stand there in the doorway and blurt out an apology.
    I backed out of the room hastily and closed the door behind me, then bolted down the stairs three at a time. I stood at the foot of the stairs, uncertain of my next move. If I walked out into the hall, I would be visible from above, and they would know who had stood in the doorway. The situation was embarrassing enough without that. Perhaps they would prefer to know who it had been, rather than look at every person they met and wonder if that was the one; but I would prefer not to be pinpointed as the intruder.
    A muffled growl made me leap nearly out of my skin, until I realized it must be Pyramus, or perhaps Thisbe. I was standing next to their cage, which was beneath the overhanging Press Gallery. There, at least, was a move I could make without being observed from