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‘A grey cat?’ I asked slowly. ‘Yes, sir. A Persian.’
‘And you say it was destroyed?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’re quite sure it was destroyed?’
‘Oh! quite sure, sir. Her ladyship wouldn’t have him sent to the vet – but did it herself. A little less than a week ago now. He’s buried out there under the copper beech, sir.’ And he went out of the room, leaving me to my meditations.
Why had Lady Carmichael affirmed so positively that she had never had a cat?
I felt an intuition that this trifling affair of the cat was in some way significant. I found Settle and took him aside.
‘Settle,’ I said. ‘I want to ask you a question. Have you, or have you not, both seen and heard a cat in this house?’
He did not seem surprised at the question. Rather did he seem to have been expecting it.
‘I’ve heard it,’ he said. ‘I’ve not seen it.’
‘But the first day,’ I cried. ‘On the lawn with Miss Patterson!’
He looked at me very steadily. ‘I saw Miss Patterson walking across the lawn. Nothing else.’
I began to understand. ‘Then,’ I said, ‘the cat –?’
He nodded. ‘I wanted to see if you – unprejudiced – would hear what we all hear . . . ?
‘You all hear it then?’
He nodded again.
‘It’s strange,’ I murmured thoughtfully. ‘I never heard of a cat haunting a place before.’
I told him what I had learnt from the footman, and he expressed surprise.
‘That’s news to me. I didn’t know that.’
‘But what does it mean?’ I asked helplessly.
He shook his head. ‘Heaven only knows! But I’ll tell you, Carstairs – I’m afraid. The – thing’s voice sounds – menacing.’
‘Menacing?’ I said sharply. ‘To whom?’
He spread out his hands. ‘I can’t say.’
It was not till that evening after dinner that I realized the meaning of his words. We were sitting in the green drawing-room, as on the night of my arrival, when it came – the loud insistent miaowing of a cat outside the door. But this time it was unmistakably angry in its tone – a fierce cat yowl, long-drawn and menacing. And then as it ceased the brass hook outside the door was rattled violently as by a cat’s paw.
Settle started up.
‘I swear that’s real,’ he cried.
He rushed to the door and flung it open.
There was nothing there.
He came back mopping his brow. Phyllis was pale and trembling, Lady Carmichael deathly white. Only Arthur, squatting contentedly like a child, his head against his stepmother’s knee, was calm and undisturbed.
Miss Patterson laid her hand on my arm and we went upstairs. ‘Oh! Dr Carstairs,’ she cried. ‘What is it? What does it all mean?’
‘We don’t know yet, my dear young lady,’ I said. ‘But I mean to find out. But you mustn’t be afraid. I am convinced there is no danger to you personally.’
She looked at me doubtfully. ‘You think that?’
‘I am sure of it,’ I answered firmly. I remembered the loving way the grey cat had twined itself round her feet, and I had no misgivings. The menace was not for her.
I was some time dropping off to sleep, but at length I fell into an uneasy slumber from which I awoke with a sense of shock. I heard a scratching sputtering noise as of something being violently ripped or torn. I sprang out of bed and rushed out into the passage. At the same moment Settle burst out of his room opposite. The sound came from our left.
‘You hear it, Carstairs?’ he cried. ‘You hear it?’
We came swiftly up to Lady Carmichael’s door. Nothing had passed us, but the noise had ceased. Our candles glittered blankly on the shiny panels of Lady Carmichael’s door. We stared at one another.
‘You know what it was?’ he half whispered.
I nodded. ‘A cat’s claws ripping and tearing something.’ I shivered a little. Suddenly I gave an exclamation and lowered the candle I held.
‘Look here, Settle.’
‘Here’ was a chair that rested against the wall – and the seat of it was ripped and torn in long strips . . .
We examined it closely. He looked at me and I nodded. ‘Cat’s claws,’ he said, drawing in his breath sharply. ‘Unmistakable.’ His eyes went from the chair to the closed door. ‘That’s the person who is menaced. Lady Carmichael!’
I slept no more that night. Things had come to a pass where something must be done. As far as I knew there was only one person who had the key to the situation. I suspected Lady Carmichael of knowing more than she chose to tell.
She was deathly pale when she came down the next morning, and only toyed with the food on her plate. I was sure that only an iron determination kept her from breaking down. After breakfast I requested a few words with her. I went straight to the point.
‘Lady Carmichael,’ I said. ‘I have reason to believe that you are in very grave danger.’
‘Indeed?’ She braved it out with wonderful unconcern. ‘There is in this house,’ I continued, ‘A Thing – a Presence – that is obviously hostile to you.’
‘What nonsense,’ she murmured scornfully. ‘As if I believed in any rubbish of that kind.’
‘The chair outside your door,’ I remarked drily, ‘was ripped to ribbons last night.’
‘Indeed?’ With raised eyebrows she pretended surprise, but I saw that I had told her nothing she did not know. ‘Some stupid practical joke, I suppose.’
‘It was not that,’ I replied with some feeling. ‘And I want you to tell me – for your own sake –’ I paused.
‘Tell you what?’ she queried. ‘Anything that can thro
w light on the matter,’ I said gravely.
She laughed. ‘I know nothing,’ she said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
And no warnings of danger could induce her to relax the statement. Yet I was convinced that she did know a great deal more than any of us, and held some clue to the affair of which we were absolutely ignorant. But I saw that it was quite impossible to make her speak.
I determined, however, to take every precaution that I could, convinced as I was that she was menaced by a very real and immediate danger. Before she went to her room the following night Settle and I made a thorough examination of it. We had agreed that we would take it in turns to watch the passage.
I took the first watch, which passed without incident, and at three o’clock Settle relieved me. I was tired after my sleepless night the day before, and dropped off at once. And I had a very curious dream.
I dreamed that the grey cat was sitting at the foot of my bed and that its eyes were fixed on mine with a curious pleading. Then, with the ease of dreams, I knew that the creature wanted me to follow it. I did so, and it led me down the great staircase and right to the opposite wing of the house to a room which was obviously the library. It paused there at one side of the room and raised its front paws till they rested on one of the lower shelves of books, while it gazed at me once more with that same moving look of appeal.
Then – cat and library faded, and I awoke to find that morning had come.
Settle’s watch had passed without incident, but he was keenly interested to hear of my dream. At my request he took me to the library, which coincided in every particular with my vision of it. I could even point out the exact spot where the animal had given me that last sad look.
We both stood there in silent perplexity. Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and I stooped to read the title of the book in that exact place. I noticed that there was a gap in the line.
‘Some book has been taken out of here,’ I said to Settle.
He stooped also to the shelf. ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘There’s a nail at the back here that has torn off a fragment of the missing volume.’
