Well, here we are, Lena and I are actually married, and there were no problems or disruptions of any kind. Mr. Cat and Muffin are also married now, at long last. They have been very impatiently waiting for this moment. We are at our chateau and have hired a woman to help out around the place, it is rather large for us to look after by ourselves. The woman’s name is Martha, she’s in her early 50s and an excellent cook. I think Baldwin has his eyes on her already. I’m not sure how that would work, they are both the same, but maybe that’s what Baldwin needs to settle him down a bit. “Is that old coot staying for dinner again?”, asked Martha. “Who are you calling an old coot, old woman?!,” said Baldwin. “You, you old coot, doing nothing every day except eat my food!”, she said.

“Now, now, you two,” said Lena, “no more fighting okay?” “Is that old coot going to be around while you’re away too?”, asked Martha. “Yes, he will be here now and then to make sure there are no problems,” said Lena. “There would be no problems if he would stay away,” mumbled Martha. “Now listen here old woman…”, Baldwin began to say and I interrupted. “How many men will be out here while we’re gone?”, I asked, “Martha will need to know.” “I have to feed that army too?”, she asked, “then I quit right now!” “Don’t be hasty Martha,” said Lena, “we’ll give you a bonus for that.” “Oh, that’s different,” she said, “but I will need more food.”

“Just make a list,” said Baldwin, “and I will go to town and buy what you need.” “Like I’m going to trust an old coot like you to buy food,” she said, “I go along and buy it, you pay.” And off she went to the kitchen. “Crazy woman,” Baldwin mumbled. The cats enjoyed all this. Giggle, giggle. Meow,meow=It fun with human Martha and human Baldwin. One day they get married, you see. Meow.=Yep, I agree with Muffin, they going to get married. And they make good comedy show. I’m glad they meowed quietly so Baldwin didn’t hear that.

Baldwin has men around our chateau, he doesn’t want anything happening to us before our honeymoon. He even wanted to send a couple men with us, but Lena said no to that in a hurry. The next morning we were on our way. We had each written on a piece of paper where we wanted to go for our honeymoon. There were 4 different destinations. We put them in a basket and Martha picked out one of them. So we are off to a tropical island, a very small island with just one hotel. That was Muffin’s pick. We finally arrived at the island after several delays and we were finally in our room.

It was very spacious and nicely furnished. I admit, I really wasn’t expecting something so nice. There was a huge, nearly white, sand beach in front of the hotel, which was completely deserted. Maybe it’s the wrong time of day. It was an older couple that owned and operated the hotel, which also had a fantastic restaurant. There were two older couples staying at the hotel, another young couple, this was their first anniversary. There was also a family, with two young children, a boy and a girl. And a single man who kept to himself, he would barely say hi. Considering the size of this hotel, they were not very busy.

That seemed odd since the place was so nice, maybe they need better advertising. The owners son worked there with them, and the son’s daughter was also there for the summer, she was attending university in Australia. It was easy to tell she didn’t want to be there. There were bike and walking trails around the island and two caves that could be explored, they were not very big so people couldn’t get lost and apparently the rock was very colorful inside. Meow.=Can’t wait to explore caves. Meow,meow!=Not want to be in caves, they like castles, could have ghosts, I say no to caves and no to ghosts!

“Don’t forget this was your choice to come here,” I said to Muffin, “so we explore the caves.” Meow,meow.=Rats, I win, I lose. Okay, we explore quick. Sigh. “Wow,” said Lena, “that’s the biggest sigh I have heard for a long time.” We all laughed. After dinner we sat on this beautiful huge porch at the front of the hotel, overlooking the ocean. The cats were running around. The son of the owners came by while we were enjoying the view, and brought some iced tea for us. He introduced himself as Jimmy Barlow, “my parents said you were a private investigator, maybe you could help us…”

To Be Continued.

Pictures of Mr. Cat are kindly supplied by his human, Nina.

This story and other stories can be found on my home page under “The Investigators, Inc.” and “20/20 Investigations, Inc.”

©2021 Steve McLeod.