“Just about,” the dog said. “I have a story to tell you first. Shall we repair to the drawing room?”

He meant the living room, of course. I’d learned rather early on in my acquaintance with him that he would never use one word for a thing if he could use a grander, more important-sounding one.

Whenever Bones settles down on the floor, it’s always massively annoying. He either flops down wherever he’s standing, with no regard to where he is or what he might knock over with that great big tail of his, or he adopts a trial-and-error approach – this spot here, that spot there – as if it’s so hard to get it just right. He’s a regular Goldilocks like that. Me, I’m so much simpler. I just find whatever spot is in line with the sun coming through the window, so my fur will feel warm and cozy, and I’m all set.

As I curled up before the fireplace, preparing to listen, I did wonder. I’d heard of drawing-room mysteries, of course. Hasn’t everyone? But it had never occurred to me before that it could mean me in a drawing room listening to a dog tell me about a mystery.

“The story I am about to tell you,” he started, draping an elbow over the mantelpiece, “begins a few decades ago … ”

He had a way of speaking, drawing every word out, milking it for all the drama it was worth. I would have liked to walk away, show him I wasn’t really interested in his story. There was just one problem: I totally was. Then:

Knock.

Knock. Knock.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Who could it be?

For the first time it occurred to me. Despite Bones’s overconfidence that clients would just somehow find us, could this be about a new case?