Act 5, Scene 5

Human voices rose from the hallway, and shoes clattered on the foyer floor. Harry and Kip watched people enter the opera house clad in black cloaks, bright feathers, top hats, and shiny shoes. Several humans puffed smoke from slender white sticks in their mouths, the odor making the two cats cough. The humans chatted excitedly, their attention on one another and the opera house, and nowhere near the two cats cowering under the shadow of a huge frond.

“Searching the foyer will be impossible,” Harry grumbled.

“I didn’t realize an opera was being performed tonight,” Kip meowed. Harry thought he sounded rather deflated.

Harry rolled his shoulders in an irritated shrug. “The humans’ schedule and the cats’ schedule are usually the same,” he said, “but once in a while, they differ. Of course that would have to happen tonight.” He watched the humans pass by, their loud voices thrumming in his ears. He nudged Kip. “Let’s go back to the basement. There has to be an entrance there.”

“I’ve searched that floor extensively!” Kip insisted. “Remember, I live there. If the entrance was in the basement, I would have found it long ago. It must exist elsewhere.”

“Then where should we look? You know Orpheus best.”

Kip raised an eyebrow. “He isn’t a friend, you know. He gives me occasional animals and orders me to keep the rats away. But I’ve always kept an eye on him—I know which floors he favors and which floors he avoids—”

“So figure out which floor we should search!”

“Let me think!” Kip flicked his tail. He bowed his head as if in deep thought. After several seconds, he suggested, “Let’s start in an unexpected place. Backstage. Not many cats go there, so perhaps he has his entrance hidden behind a prop or scenery piece.”

“But the humans—”

“Never mind them. They are too preoccupied in their own world,” Kip said. He sneaked out from under the frond and trotted toward the direction of the stage.

Harry groaned but forced his paws to follow his enigmatic guide. His insides twisted at the thought of what tortures Roxanne might be enduring at the moment, and what was he doing? Following some cat he just met on a fruitless search for a secret entrance that may or may not exist.

Kip flicked his tail, indicating for Harry to pick up his pace. The two cats darted under human shadows and wove between table legs, and when they reached the backstage entrance, they waited for a human to open the door. As Bellows swaggered down the foyer, they pricked their ears forward and intently watched him. Bellows swung the door open, and the cats darted in before the human noticed them.

“Perfect,” Kip meowed, sniffing the floor.

“What are you doing here?” a voice boomed.

Harry and Kip turned their attention to a large set piece for that night’s opera. In front of it, his long tail tapping the floor, sat Norb, his blue eyes narrowed.

“Searching for Roxanne, of course,” Harry snapped. He hadn’t meant to sound rude, but Norb’s brusqueness bothered him. Besides, hadn’t Norb been the cat to order Harry to locate Roxanne? “What do you think we’re doing?”

Norb sat up to his fullest height. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner?”

“Then leave us be,” Harry hissed. “You told me to find Roxanne, and I intend to do just that. It will be easier and faster without your interference.”

Kip nudged Harry with his shoulder. “I think it’s best if we search there.” He flicked his tail behind Norb, toward the gloom of backstage.

“I will discuss your impertinence later,” Norb snarled at Harry. He glared at Kip and asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“He’s helping me,” Harry interjected.

“I wasn’t asking you, Harry,” Norb growled.

Kip sidled closer to Norb. “I live in the opera. We are searching for the… er, the Ghost Cat’s entrance. We believe he has spirited Roxanne away.”

Norb’s eye twitched. “The Ghost Cat?” he repeated. Upon seeing Harry’s angry expression, Norb shook his head and grumbled, “Ghost Cat my tail! No such thing!” Out of the corner of his eye, he peeked at the shadows under a prop.

“And there was no such cat who murdered Stripe, was there?” Harry muttered. He couldn’t stop himself. Norb hadn’t listened to him then, and now Roxanne had vanished. The whole ordeal could have been avoided if Norb had listened to Harry in the first place.

“Don’t start that nonsense with me!” Norb snapped. “Clovis deduced Stripe’s death to be an accident. What was I supposed to do? Should I have told him to arrest a ghost? Tell me, can an apparition answer for its crimes? Can it be locked away? I think not!”

“The point I was trying to make then, and now, is that the Ghost Cat is not a ghost!” Harry yowled. “A real living cat is committing these crimes, and you have chosen to believe it to be a spook!”

“You are acting a fool!” Norb exclaimed.

Kip thrust his paws between the two cats. “We should keep searching for Roxanne,” he said. “This bickering isn’t helping her. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

Glaring at Kip, Norb growled, “Who do you think you are, sir, to speak to me that way?”

In response, Kip simply blinked. 

Harry tore his gaze away from Norb. Kip was right, and Harry hated himself for wasting time fighting with Norb. Nodding at Kip, Harry walked toward the area Kip had suggested to search.

“This conversation isn’t over, Harry!” Norb shouted.

Harry flicked his tail, not sparing a glance back at Norb. As far as he was concerned, their conversation was over. Soon Harry and Kip were making their way through the backstage area side by side, their ears pricked for any strange sound, their eyes wide in anticipation to see either cat they were searching for. Harry kept hoping Roxanne would appear behind a mirror or jump out from behind a pile of clothes, but such a miracle never happened.

Several props for different operas were stored behind the stage, items that could be utilized for more than one opera, such as fake plants, forest scenery, silverware, and chairs, among other objects. Harry sniffed a fake bush, sneezed from the dust wafting from the cloth leaves, then resumed his search, irritated at their slow progress. He turned to tell Kip that he believed this part of the theater didn’t offer them what they sought when Kip hissed and jumped several feet in the air.

“What happened?” Harry asked, trotting to the shivering cat.

Kip, his eyes shut, swallowed. His breathing steadied, and he opened his eyes again, this time a mischievous shimmer reflecting in them. “I have found the very thing we’ve been searching for!” he exclaimed. He nodded his head as an invitation for Harry to look for himself.

When Harry did so, he saw what had excited Kip. He sucked in a deep breath and held it for several seconds.

Behind a large mirror made to look broken, a small square passage led into the wall. A cool draft of air sifted from the open ventilation duct, an eerie whistling sound accompanying it. The strange noise brought images of a cat in pain to Harry's mind. Was it the sound or the coldness from the dank passage that chilled Harry to his bones? Either way, he shuddered.

“Why isn’t there a door?” Harry asked in a quiet voice. “Surely there’d be a vent cover or something else to conceal it.”

Kip stepped inside the passage. “Orpheus must have forgotten to replace it,” he answered, his voice as calm as it had been before they discovered the passage.

Harry snagged Kip’s tail with his claws, stopping the cat. With his ears pinned down, Harry hissed, “How do you know this passage belongs to him? It could be a simple vent and not lead anywhere near Orpheus and Roxanne!”

“Can’t you smell it?” Kip asked. 

Harry sniffed the passage. A strong odor of rancid fish and decaying flowers wafted to him, making him gag. “Ulp—yes, I smell it—probably leads to the garbage bins—gah!”

“That’s Orpheus,” Kip said. He didn’t gag like Harry; in fact, he seemed used to the rancid smell. “That odor! I'd thought for a second that he stood back here..." Kip shuddered. Turning to Harry, he said, "This is his passage, I assure you. I doubt any Opera Cat knows of it. Come.” He flicked his tail out of Harry’s claws and continued deeper into the ventilation duct.

Harry took a deep breath, gagged more, and then dove into the dark passage after Kip. He could barely make out Kip’s slim form ahead of him, and he scurried after the cat, making sure his nose touched the other cat’s tail for fear of losing him. Spider webs brushed against his fur, and the cold metal of the passage’s floors and walls made Harry’s stomach turn inward. Kip’s and Harry’s paw steps reverberated throughout the passage. It made Harry nervous, although he couldn’t figure out why. The dead fish and rotted flower stench grew stronger. Harry wondered how Kip tolerated the odor and figured it had something to do with Kip’s occupation as a rat catcher. Rats possessed a foul stench. Such smells must have toughened Kip’s nose or killed whatever sense of smell he had left. Whatever the reason, the stink didn’t affect Kip as it affected Harry.

“Why did Roxanne go with Orpheus?” Kip asked, his voice booming in Harry’s ears due to the confined space.

Harry blinked. He hadn’t expected Kip to talk while they traveled through the passage, but he welcomed the conversation to get his mind off his growing anxiety.  

“Well,” Harry began uncertainly, “Roxanne is a very trusting cat. And music is the most important thing to her, probably as important as her human. Singing also meant a great deal to her parents, and since they are both dead, I suppose singing has been a great comfort to Roxanne. So when Orpheus told her he’d teach her and help her become an even greater singer, she became enamored with him. At least, that’s the way the situation appears to me. She’d do anything to achieve her dreams.”

“Hmm,” Kip mumbled. He remained silent for a few seconds before asking, “She never suspected the Ghost Cat and her teacher were the same cat?”

Harry sighed. “No. She thought a ghost cat wouldn’t be preoccupied with the living. If she’d been more wary of him from the start, she wouldn’t be in this mess. If I had befriended her before Orpheus ensnared her with promises of becoming a great singer, she would have been safe!”

“You can’t know that for certain. Besides, timing is everything, is it not?” Kip said nonchalantly.

Harry raised an eyebrow, wondering how the cat could be calm while they crawled through such a dark and frightening passage. He decided it was his turn to ask a question. “Do you think Orpheus had anything to do with Stripe’s murder?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Kip replied. “Orpheus has been known to murder cats now and again. Sometimes they are honest accidents, but even those are caused by some contraption Orpheus put in place to protect himself.”

“For only catching rats around his lair and sometimes receiving food from him, you know him quite well.”

“To know the enemy is to know your chances for survival,” Kip said. “It is important to be knowledgeable, wouldn’t you agree?”

Harry couldn’t disagree with that sentiment, so he decided to keep silent. He needed to save his energy, and he discovered that talking didn’t alleviate his anxiety as he’d first hoped.