Miss Marple and Mystery (72 page)

And then a very curious thing happened. The cat came straight on and passed through the midst of the birds, its fur almost brushing against them – and the birds did not fly away. I could not understand it – the thing seemed incomprehensible.

So vividly did it impress me that I could not refrain from mentioning it at breakfast.

‘Do you know?’ I said to Lady Carmichael, ‘that you have a very unusual cat?’

I heard the quick rattle of a cup on a saucer, and I saw Phyllis Patterson, her lips parted and her breath coming quickly, gazing earnestly at me.

There was a moment’s silence, and then Lady Carmichael said in a distinctly disagreeable manner: ‘I think you must have made a mistake. There is no cat here. I have never had a cat.’

It was evident that I had managed to put my foot in it badly, so I hastily changed the subject.

But the matter puzzled me. Why had Lady Carmichael declared there was no cat in the house? Was it perhaps Miss Patterson’s, and its presence concealed from the mistress of the house? Lady Carmichael might have one of those strange antipathies to cats which are so often met with nowadays. It hardly seemed a plausible explanation, but I was forced to rest content with it for the moment.

Our patient was still in the same condition. This time I made a thorough examination and was able to study him more closely than the night before. At my suggestion it was arranged that he should spend as much time with the family as possible. I hoped not only to have a better opportunity of observing him when he was off his guard, but the ordinary everyday routine might awaken some gleam of intelligence. His demeanour, however, remained unchanged. He was quiet and docile, seemed vacant, but was in point of fact, intensely and rather slyly watchful. One thing certainly came as a surprise to me, the intense affection he displayed towards his stepmother. Miss Patterson he ignored completely, but he always managed to sit as near Lady Carmichael as possible, and once I saw him rub his head against her shoulder in a dumb expression of love.

I was worried about the case. I could not but feel that there was some clue to the whole matter which had so far escaped me.

‘This is a very strange case,’ I said to Settle. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘it’s very – suggestive.’

He looked at me rather furtively, I thought. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t – remind you of anything?’

The words struck me disagreeably, reminding me of my impression of the day before.

‘Remind me of what?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Perhaps it’s my fancy,’ he muttered. ‘Just my fancy.’

And he would say no more on the matter.

Altogether there was mystery shrouding the affair. I was still obsessed with that baffling feeling of having missed the clue that should elucidate it to me. And concerning a lesser matter there was also mystery. I mean that trifling affair of the grey cat. For some reason or other the thing was getting on my nerves. I dreamed of cats – I continually fancied I heard him. Now and then in the distance I caught a glimpse of the beautiful animal. And the fact that there was some mystery connected with it fretted me unbearably. On a sudden impulse I applied one afternoon to the footman for information.

‘Can you tell me anything,’ I said, ‘about the cat I see?’

‘The cat, sir?’ He appeared politely surprised. ‘Wasn’t there – isn’t there – a cat?’

‘Her ladyship
had
a cat, sir. A great pet. Had to be put away though. A great pity, as it was a beautiful animal.’

‘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 throw 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.’

He detached the little scrap of paper with care. It was not more than an inch square – but on it were printed two significant words: ‘The cat . . .’

‘This thing gives me the creeps,’ said Settle. ‘It’s simply horribly uncanny.’

‘I’d give anything to know,’ I said, ‘what book it is that is missing from here. Do you think there is any way of finding out?’

‘May be a catalogue somewhere. Perhaps Lady Carmichael –’

I shook my head. ‘Lady Carmichael will tell you nothing.’

‘You think so?’

‘I am sure of it. While we are guessing and feeling about in the dark Lady Carmichael
knows
. And for reasons of her own she will say nothing. She prefers to run a most horrible risk sooner than break silence.’

The day passed with an uneventfulness that reminded me of the calm before a storm. And I had a strange feeling that the problem was near solution. I was groping about in the dark, but soon I should see. The facts were all there, ready, waiting for the little flash of illumination that should weld them together and show out their significance.

And come it did! In the strangest way!

It was when we were all sitting together in the green drawing-room as usual after dinner. We had been very silent. So noiseless indeed was the room that a little mouse ran across the floor – and in an instant the thing happened.

With one long spring Arthur Carmichael leapt from his chair. His quivering body was swift as an arrow on the mouse’s track. It had disappeared behind the wainscoting, and there he crouched – watchful – his body still trembling with eagerness.

It was horrible! I have never known such a paralysing moment. I was no longer puzzled as to that something that Arthur Carmichael reminded me of with his stealthy feet and watching eyes. And in a flash an explanation, wild, incredible, unbelievable, swept into my mind. I rejected it as impossible – unthinkable! But I could not dismiss it from my thoughts.

I hardly remember what happened next. The whole thing seemed blurred and unreal. I know that somehow we got upstairs and said our good nights briefly, almost with a dread of meeting each other’s eyes, lest we should see there some confirmation of our own fears.

Settle established himself outside Lady Carmichael’s door to take the first watch, arranging to call me at 3 a.m. I had no special fears for Lady Carmichael; I was too taken up with my fantastic impossible theory. I told myself it was impossible – but my mind returned to it, fascinated.

And then suddenly the stillness of the night was disturbed. Settle’s voice rose in a shout, calling me. I rushed out to the corridor.

He was hammering and pounding with all his might on Lady Carmichael’s door.

‘Devil take the woman!’ he cried. ‘She’s locked it!’

‘But –’

‘It’s in there, man! In with her! Can’t you hear it?’

From behind the locked door a long-drawn cat yowl sounded fiercely. And then following it a horrible scream – and another . . . I recognized Lady Carmichael’s voice.

‘The door!’ I yelled. ‘We must break it in. In another minute we shall be too late.’