War and Peas

few letters of faded writing on it.
    “What?“ Shelley asked.
    “It’s a little door,“ Jane said. “An opening. And listen.”
    She shook the cat gently. There was a faint, muffled rattling sound.
    “Ick. Its stuffing has lumped up,“ Shelley said. Then her eyes widened and she said, “Or—“
    “Or it’s hollow and stuffed with something that rattles,“ Jane said. “Can you read what’s on the paper?”
    Shelley leaned over and looked closely. “A pea formula. Just like on the bins in the basement.”
    They stared at each other for a minute. Jane said, “The cat’s name is Heidi.“
    “Heidi,“ Shelley said. “Or ‘hidey’?“
    “Exactly. And somebody told us Auguste Snellen was a secretive man about his pea crosses.“
    “Jane, do you think the Little Beauty peas are inside this cat?“
    “I don’t know, but it could be. Jot down the numbers on the paper and we’ll check them against that ledger.“
    “When did Auguste die?“ Shelley asked.
    “Babs told us, but I don’t remember exactly what she said. Sometime in the nineteen-thirties.“
    “Possibly just after receiving the letter from Arkansas about the way Little Beauty helped the other crops grow,“ Shelley whispered. “Maybe he saw the potential, intended to pursue it, and hid the peas in the stuffed cat. But maybe he died before he could start a new batch of them for experimentation. Shake it again.”
    Jane did so. “It sounds like it could be peas.”
    They heard footsteps. Shelley hurriedly placed her forms on the upside-down base of the stuffed cat as if it were a temporary desk surface and said in a normal tone of voice, “Okay, I’ll do that room next. I’ve already got a few items listed here, you see, but I’ll wait to give them to you until I have the whole room inventoried.”
    The lady who ran the gift shop poked her head around the display board they were lurking behind. “You gave me a start. I didn’t know anyone was in here. You haven’t seen a pair of sunglasses, have you? I put them down somewhere yesterday and can’t remember where.”
    Jane smiled. “I haven’t noticed them. I’ll keep an eye out, though.“
    “Thanks, dear,“ the gift-shop lady said, wandering away.
    “What do we do now?“ Shelley whispered.
    “I think we better just put the cat back on the shelf in the boardroom for now,“ Jane said. “I’m the only one who has any interest in it. We’ll sneak it out later and see what’s really inside. Meanwhile, I’ll check out this number in the ledger.“
    “If it’s the same number as the Little Beauty, I guess we ought to give it to the police to safeguard until the murders are solved. Then the museum and Caspar can sort out who the peas actually belong to.“ Shelley stopped speaking and smiled wickedly. “Please, Jane, oh, please, please let me be there when you hand a stuffed cat over to Mel. It’ll be the highlight of my life.”
    Jane set the cat back upright and started giggling. “I don’t know if our relationship can withstand my turning in a stuffed cat for custody.”
    Jane went back to the boardroom, trying to carry the cat as if she were mildly perplexed to find it in her possession. She put it back on the shelf, gave it a friendly pat, and pretended to fix her attention on the computer while actually looking around to see where she’d put the old pea ledger. She spotted it under a stack of inventory forms, but didn’t risk looking into it.
    Sharlene had finished her collating and was setting out tidy piles of paperwork around the board table. Eli Bascomb had put most of his file folders back in his briefcase and was writing on a notepad. Jane would have loved to tell Sharlene what she and Shelley had discovered, but Eli was an unknown factor and she knew better than to say anything until the cat was safely hidden away. Besides, she and Shelley might be jumping to a very silly conclusion and could discover that Heidi was only hiding some clumped-up cotton batting or sawdust. Better that no one else know.
    Lisa came into the room just then. Speaking to Sharlene, she said, “I’ve gotten word from the police that we can bury Regina tomorrow. I’m running her things over to the funeral home now. If you’d call the paper for me to see that a notice is placed, and let her aunt and uncle know, we can both be done in time for the board meeting.”
    Eli Bascomb followed Lisa out, telling her how shocked he’d been at the news of Regina’s death. Sharlene