Giuseppe was sitting on the floor, legs straight out, back against the wall.  Was he asleep?  Muffin gets ready just in case as I go over and check Giuseppe.  I couldn’t believe it, he’s dead!  I check him and there is not a mark on him anywhere.  But how?  Could it be poison?  In that case all of us are in trouble.  Just a little at a time wouldn’t be noticed, until…  We need to be very careful now Muffin.  It wouldn’t take much poison to kill her.  From now on Muffin, you will only eat the food I brought.  Meow.=Good idea.  For now we have work to do and then we will call the police.  Meow, meow?=What if the killer is in the room below?  That’s possible, but we will be ready this time, right?  Meow.=Right, let’s leave.  That’s not what I meant Muffin.  And don’t sigh so much.

I fix up Muffin so she will be ready, just in case.  Okay Muffin, let’s go.  Meow.=Off to die. Hey, stop saying that Muffin.  We get to the room, but there is no one there, just that same broken furniture.  The window was still open.  Does that mean no one has been here?  Wait, that door that led to the lower level is now open, I know I had closed it.  As we looked around we heard that same scraping noise, like before.  Muffin ran to the door, meow!  I ran over too, but, too late.  Another of those big wood doors had closed and trapped us in the room.  Well Muffin, looks like the only way out is to go down.  We’re finished in here anyway, so I guess we go down and see what’s at the bottom of the stairs.  Meow.=I don’t like this, someone is watching us.

Yes Muffin, I agree, so let’s be extra careful, up on my shoulder so you can look back and make sure no one is following us.  Meow.=Good idea.  At least we know it’s not Rossana and Olivia.  Meow, meow.  Yes, you’re right, it could be someone working with them, or they could have come back after they thought we were in bed.  You just had to bring that up didn’t you?  Anyway, down we go on these old stone stairs.  This is really quite a fascinating place, just look how it’s built Muffin.  Meow, meow.=We’re going to die and all you think about is how this palace is built.  Sigh.  Stop sighing so much Muffin.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was nearly empty except for some dusty wood boxes on one end.  Doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a long time.  Hmm, two doors here and…there’s that scraping noise again and we’re trapped by another wood door at the bottom of the stairs.  There’s no window in this room so we must go through one of these doors.  I find the key for the one door and open it quickly and…a man standing there with a shotgun!  I’m standing just to the side of the door, suddenly…thwock!  The man falls to the floor nicely dazed.  I quickly grab the shotgun, nice shot Muffin, right on his forehead!  Muffin’s weapon works great.  It’s a type of slingshot I made to fit Muffin which she holds with her hind feet and pulls with her front foot.  She lays on her back to do this.  She shoots a very hard, though small, rubber muffin, the eating kind of muffin. I had them specially made for her.

I try to get some answers from this guy but he claims he can’t speak English, so we will have to wait for Rossana in the morning.  I find the key to the other door and open it.  I just barely get out of the way as a pile of rocks come crashing down completely blocking the door.  During this commotion the guy ran off down the hallway out the other door.  I didn’t really want to go that way in case he had some friends waiting down there.  Guess we will have to go that way after all Muffin.  I’ll take this shotgun along for added protection.  Meow.=Good idea.  As we enter the hallway one of those wood doors closed quickly ahead of us.  Hmm, this is not good, that only leaves one door for us to try.  It’s not locked and opens easily to some stairs…going down!

To be continued.

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.