I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” the dog demanded.

“It’s just that you – ” I could barely contain my mirth. OK, I couldn’t contain it. “You … you … you said the squirrel is a criminal mastermind – the squirrel! – and that he has … has … has a name and – ”

“I fail to see the humor.”

“I’ve never known a squirrel with a name before!”

“That’s because you’re prejudiced, Catson. If you weren’t, you would know that all living creatures have names, if only you pay attention and listen. It’s not just cats and dogs and humans and Castilian turtles that have names. Speaking of which … ”

The dog was off again, one paw in the air. He trotted over to a horse idling in the traces of a cab on the street in front of our home, traces being the leather reins and such keeping the horse tethered to the cab, shouting “Fred!” like another might shout “Eureka!”

Huh. I hadn’t even noticed the horse and cab there when I’d first raced outside, and from the looks of the horse, he’d been there for some time. I could tell that because he wore the bored-with-it-all look horses tend to get when waiting in traces for too long.

I caught up with the dog before he had the chance to engage with the horse, this so-called “Fred.”

“How many times have I told you?” I said. “There’s no point in talking to horses.” In the short time we’d lived together, I’d told him at least twice. “All you ever get out of a horse is ‘Blah, blah, blah’ and ‘Oats, oats, oats’ and possibly ‘Dude, where’s my carrot?’ They’re useless!”

The horse turned to me, giving me an offended look from between his blinders. “You don’t need to be so insulting about it,” he said. “Some of us have to work for a living.”

I sat back on my haunches, placed my front paws on my hips. “I resent that! I’ll have you know, I’m a board-certified surgeon. I’d still be working at the Cat Hospital had I not been injured in the Cat Wars.”

“Ooh, lah-di-dah. He says he’s a surgeon.” The horse didn’t bother to stifle his yawn. “Well, aren’t I impressed.”

“Not he, you stupid beast. She. Can’t you see I’m a girl?”

“Frankly, no.” Another yawn from the horse, who turned to the dog with much more alertness than he’d shown me. “What can I do for you today, Mr. Bones? Can I be of some service?”

Mr. Bones? Mr. Bones? That seemed like an unnaturally high level of respect to show the dog.

“Yes, please, Fred,” Bones said, his voice filled with an equal level of respect. “I know how alert you always are and I wondered if you could tell me: Have you seen which way Moriarty went?”

“You mean the nefarious Professor Moriarty?” the horse said. As he spoke the name, the horse’s giant black nose quivered and his ears shot back so they were almost flat against his head.

Wait. The horse knew this Moriarty squirrel?

“The very same,” the dog said with an earnest nod.

“Oh, I wish I could help you out, Mr. Bones,” the horse said ruefully. Huh. I didn’t know horses could be rueful. “I do know what a thorn that villain has been in your side all these years. He’s been such an enemy to the city, the country – the whole world, even! – but most especially to you, sir.”

“That he has, Fred.”

All of this “Fred” this and “Mr. Bones” that – it was enough to make one sick. Not to mention …

“Time out!” I cried, raising one front paw straight up and than laying the other front paw flat on top of it to make a T.

“Yes, my dear Catson?” That, of course, would be Bones. I most definitely was not the horse’s dear.

“How is it possible,” I said, “that there is a squirrel at large who goes by the improbable name of Professor Moriarty; a squirrel that not just you, Bones, have knowledge of; and yet I have never heard of him before this very day?”

“I don’t know, Catson,” the dog said. “Perhaps, as I’ve been trying to tell you, you need to get out more? Or perhaps, as I’ve suggested often enough, you might try reading a newspaper from time to time?”

“Pah.” I waved a dismissive paw at this last. “I would if they ever printed anything worth reading.”

“I rest my case,” Bones said, although I failed to see his point. He turned back to the horse. “So,” he said sadly, “nothing?”

“’Fraid not,” the horse said. “I’d tell you which way Professor Moriarty went if I could, sir. But I never saw him, did I? I was too busy wondering where my next oats might be coming from.”

HA! Like I said, there’s no point in talking to horses.

“That’s all right,” the dog soothed the horse with more gentleness than I’d have suspected the dog capable of; certainly more than I’d have offered the beast. “You do your best.”

“I do that, sir.”

“And it’s possible,” the dog said, “that the squirrel isn’t at all involved in the case at hand. It’s possible that Moriarty is just a mere distraction today. Of course, if not this case, he’ll figure into another before long.”

I was about to laugh at them again, the very idea of the dog and the horse seriously discussing this Moriarty as though he might really be some criminal mastermind, when everything I know about squirrels hit me:

Devious. Highly intelligent. Incredibly organized. Deceptively adorable to humans. And you never quite know what nefarious things they might be hiding under their bushy tails.

Was it possible … ?

But also:

“Wait!” I made my time-out sign again. “What just happened here?”

The dog and horse turned and stared at me.

“How do you mean?” the dog asked.

“You said ‘the case at hand,’ not long after followed by ‘this case’. Since when was there a case?”

The dog laughed at this. “My dear Catson,” he said with a roar, “there is always a case!”

Worse, the horse was roaring with laughter too.

“Bones,” I said testily, “what specific case?”

The dog turned to the horse. “Have you heard anything lately, Fred?”

The horse cast his eyes heavenward, considering. Finally:

“Well, I did hear someone say Utah … ”