I first noticed something was wrong with Mr. Whiskers on a Saturday morning while I was drinking coffee in the living room. The apartment was quiet except for the occasional hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic outside. John Mercer was still asleep, which wasn’t unusual on a weekend, and I had been enjoying several uninterrupted minutes of peace when I realized the orange tabby hadn’t moved since I’d sat down. He was perched on the back of the couch, staring toward the hallway that led to John’s room with an intensity that seemed completely out of proportion to anything that could reasonably be happening there.
Normally I wouldn’t have paid much attention to it. Cats stare at things all the time. They stare at walls, dust particles, electrical outlets, and occasionally empty corners that make you question whether you’ve accidentally become the supporting character in a horror movie. Mr. Whiskers, however, wasn’t displaying his usual random cat behavior. He looked focused. Deliberate. Every few minutes I glanced away and then looked back, expecting him to have moved on to a new obsession, but he remained locked onto the hallway like a security guard monitoring a suspicious individual.
After nearly twenty minutes I finally gave in and investigated. I walked down the hallway, checked the bathroom, peeked into John’s room, and even looked inside the hall closet. There was nothing there. No intruders. No mice. No hidden treasure. Certainly nothing worthy of the attention Mr. Whiskers was giving it. When I returned to the living room, he briefly looked at me before returning his attention to the hallway. It wasn’t an ordinary look, either. It was the sort of look that seemed to communicate disappointment. The cat appeared genuinely frustrated that I hadn’t figured something out.
The problem with situations like this is that once an idea gets into my head, it tends to spread. At first I wondered whether Mr. Whiskers had heard something. Then I wondered whether he’d seen something. Within another ten minutes I found myself considering the possibility that he knew something. That was admittedly less likely, but it explained his behavior far better than any of the alternatives I had come up with.
About an hour later there was a knock at the door. Mr. Whiskers reacted immediately. His ears perked up, his posture changed, and for the first time all morning he abandoned his watch over the hallway. That alone would have been enough to catch my attention, but what happened next was what truly set my mind racing. When I opened the door, Pandora was standing there carrying a canvas tote bag and smiling as though she’d arrived in the middle of a perfectly normal day. The instant she stepped inside, Mr. Whiskers sat upright and fixed his gaze directly on her.
Now, I should explain that Pandora visits fairly often. She has her own apartment, her own life, and her own cat, Lady Beatrice Wellington III, but she stops by enough that Mr. Whiskers is accustomed to seeing her. Under normal circumstances he’d greet her, demand attention, and then lose interest within thirty seconds. Instead, he watched her carefully as she walked into the living room and sat down.
“Why is he looking at me like that?” Pandora asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”
“Maybe he wants treats.”
“Or maybe he’s trying to warn me.”
Pandora stared at me for several seconds.
“Warn you about what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The look she gave me suggested she was already regretting her decision to visit.
While Pandora and I talked, Mr. Whiskers continued behaving strangely. Several times he walked down the hallway toward John’s room, stopped, looked back toward us, and then continued on his way. The first time I ignored it. The second time I paid attention. By the fourth time I was convinced he was attempting to lead me somewhere.
Pandora disagreed.
“He’s a cat, Hal.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t think that supports your theory.”
“It supports all of my theories.”
Eventually curiosity overcame common sense. I followed Mr. Whiskers into John’s room and discovered him sitting beside a bookshelf. He wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t looking at the doorway. He was staring upward at something on one of the shelves. I followed his gaze and immediately froze.
A framed photograph sat near the edge of the shelf.
The photograph contained Lady Beatrice Wellington III.
Slowly, I turned toward Pandora.
Slowly, Pandora folded her arms.
Slowly, Mr. Whiskers blinked.
For several moments nobody said anything.
Then I pointed at the photograph.
“Interesting.”
“It’s a picture of my cat.”
“I know.”
“What’s interesting about it?”
I looked at Mr. Whiskers.
Then I looked at the photograph again.
“I’m still working on that part.”
The more I thought about it, the more suspicious the situation became. Mr. Whiskers had spent the entire morning trying to get my attention. Pandora had arrived unexpectedly. The cat had then led me directly to a photograph of Lady Beatrice Wellington III. Individually, none of those facts meant very much. Together, however, they felt connected. I couldn’t explain how they were connected, but that had never stopped me before.
Over the next hour I developed several possible theories. One involved a disagreement between the two cats. Another involved some sort of long-distance feline communication network. A third suggested that Mr. Whiskers had discovered information he considered important and was attempting to pass it along using the only tools available to him. Admittedly, the details were still a little fuzzy, but every major breakthrough starts somewhere.
My investigation was interrupted by the arrival of John Mercer, who wandered into the room carrying an empty plastic bag and looking mildly confused.
“Why are you all standing around my bookshelf?”
“Mr. Whiskers brought us here.”
John looked at the cat.
Then at the photograph.
Then at the empty bag in his hand.
A smile slowly appeared on his face.
“Oh. That’s what he’s doing.”
“What?”
John held up the bag.
“I moved his treats yesterday.”
I stared at him.
“The treats?”
“Yeah. They used to sit right next to that photograph.”
The room became very quiet.
Pandora looked at me.
John looked at me.
Even Mr. Whiskers seemed to look at me.
The explanation was annoyingly reasonable. Every strange thing the cat had done suddenly made perfect sense. He wasn’t issuing warnings. He wasn’t uncovering secrets. He wasn’t attempting to expose an underground network of feline intrigue. He simply remembered where the treats used to be and kept checking to see if they had returned.
I considered the evidence carefully.
Then I considered Mr. Whiskers.
Then I considered the possibility that a highly intelligent cat would create exactly this sort of believable cover story if he wanted to conceal the truth.
John fed him lunch a few minutes later, and Mr. Whiskers immediately abandoned the entire affair in favor of food. Pandora declared the mystery solved. John agreed. Both of them seemed satisfied that the case had been closed.
Personally, I remain unconvinced.
You don’t stare at a hallway for three hours because you’re thinking about treats.
At least, that’s what Mr. Whiskers wants us to believe.