THE CAT OR THE CAPTAIN
When I awoke the sun was shining in the windows on both sides of the
study where I had gone to bed, the neighbor’s chickens were clucking
through my back-yard, and the boats on the bay were putting up their
sails. The past night seemed unreal.
The door at the foot of the kitchen companionway was not only wide
open, but fastened back with a brick. I had forgotten that. Then how
could I have heard some one trying the latch? And upstairs the little
room was just as I had left it, not a thing disturbed. No one could
have thrown himself against the small eaves-closet door from this side,
because the bed was still in front of it, and no one could have been
shut in on the other side and at the same time be pacing up and down
steps. I went into the upper hall and looked at the big main stairs.
Had any one been climbing them? But if any one had, I should have
hardly been able to hear him, away off in the wing behind the kitchen.
Perhaps I could persuade the judge to come to the house and practise
going up and down the flight of stairs, while I listened from the study.
I had been reading too much last night in the old vellum-bound books of
occult sciences. Without understanding the manner of doing so, I had
evidently hypnotized myself into the condition in which the thing that
I thought probable seemed to be true. I had made up my mind that Mattie
was a clairvoyant and could materialize spirits and that those spirits
might still linger in the house; thereupon I myself had materialized
one, unconsciously. The first night I had half-expected to hear or see
something uncanny, and it had followed that I had. These manifestations
were due to the influence upon me of what I had heard about the House
of the Five Pines, and to nothing else. Jasper had not known all the
harrowing stories that were in circulation, and so he had not seen
the moving headboard. If he had been with me on the second night he
doubtless would not have heard footsteps. It was all perfectly simple
when you understand psychology; that was it, to keep a firm hold on
yourself, not to be carried away by imaginings.
And then I defended myself that any one left alone in a big house
like that would be hearing things at night and that I was no more
weak-minded than the rest.
After breakfast I began again upon the settling.
One of the features of the House of the Five Pines was that everything
in it was included in the sale. Perhaps because there were no heirs,
or because Judge Bell, as the trustee, was not grasping; perhaps, and
most probable of all, because the townspeople had such a dread of it
that they would take nothing from it. The family linen still was packed
away in the big sea-chest--homespun sheets and thin yellow blankets,
pillow-cases with crocheted lace. The family china remained in the
cupboard behind the front hall--firestone pitchers and teapots, in
pink and faded purple, luster bowls, and white plates as heavy as dumb
bells, each with a gold leaf in the center; and in a corner cupboard
in the dining-room was almost a full set of willow-ware, with all
the lids unbroken on the little rice-cups. The big mahogany bureaus,
and there were at least two in each room, four drawers below and
three little ones above, contained the clothing of two generations of
Haweses. This meant more in the Old Captain’s family than the usual
sixty years; it meant a hundred, for two more generations could easily
have been born in the old homestead if “Mis’ Hawes” had not been so set
against the New Captain’s marriage. Her brass-handled high-boy held
calico dresses and muslin underwear, yellow and stiff with starch, that
Mattie had neither disposed of nor used. Upstairs there was apparel
that must have dated back past the era of the New Captain into that of
his father, Jeremiah. In Mattie’s room was less than in the others. She
had found herself at the end of her life with barely a change of linen.
In the study two doors at either side of the finely carved mantel
opened into closets. One was filled with shelves on which were papers
and magazines that had been stored for twenty years. The other was
filled with the out-of-door clothes of the New Captain--a worn cardigan
jacket, and a thick blue coat with brass buttons, two felt hats, and a
yellow oilskin. A red shawl hung on a hook at the end of the closet.
I took it down to see if there were moths in it, then dropped it and
backed away. The hook that I had lifted the shawl from was an old iron
latch. The whole end of the closet was a wall-paper covered door.
I was afraid. The flat sealed door might open on the latch, or it might
not. It might be fastened on the other side. I could not tell. But I
did not want to know what was on the other side. I did not want to stay
here any longer.
I fled out to the sunlight and around to the back of the house. There
was nothing visible; I had known that all the time. The wall-paper
covered door inside must lead either up or down. Down, there was
nothing but space beneath the house, the “under,” filled with rubbish.
Up--?
I remembered the footsteps of the night before and knew now why the
kitchen door and the little one in the upper room had looked so
unmolested. Those steps that I had heard had been traveling not the
kitchen companionway nor the main front stairway, but secret stairs
built in this wall behind the chimney, connecting with the room above.
That was where the restless spirit had been promenading, just as it had
been the first night, and that was where it still must be.
I could not wait for Jasper to return from New York to solve this
mystery. Neither did I dare to face it alone nor put it off longer. I
would go and get Judge Bell, and together we would hurry back and find
out who or what was living in my house.
But the Judge was not at home. Dropping down on his front porch I
thought of what Ruth had said to me last summer, that the first three
times you attempted to call on any one that person was always out!
Well, I could wait. I was in no rush to return to the House of the Five
Pines. I could stay here all day, if necessary.
At noon Judge Bell’s Portuguese cook came out and looked me over.
“The judge he won’t be back,” she volunteered.
“Why not?”
She only smirked without replying.
“Why not? Doesn’t he come for lunch?”
She stuck her second finger in the roof of her mouth and looked away.
“Not always, he don’t. Not to-day, anyhow.”
“Where is he?” I intended to follow him to his lair, wherever it was,
but Isabella seemed to think I was prying.
“I ain’t to say where he went,” she answered, twisting one bare foot
over the other. “He says if anybody asts me I don’ know.”
“And don’t you?” I could not resist.
But she only stuck her finger further into her mouth until I was afraid
that she would choke. I saw that I was tempting her to be unfaithful to
a trust, and dropped the matter. The judge must have gone off down the
cape to a séance, leaving orders with Isabella to uphold the majesty of
the law.
My next stop was the Sailor’s Rest.
I hoped to find Alf there. He would not be so stanch an ally as the
judge in this emergency, because he believed in ghosts himself and
could scarcely be convincing in his reassurances. But he might be
persuaded to break open those doors for me, and I would repay him by
promising to look over all the antique correspondence tucked away in
the pigeonholes of the desk for stamps. There might well be some rare
ones left at the House of the Five Pines. I opened the office door
carefully this time, remembering not to raise a draft that would blow
his collection away.
Behind the ledger sat a strange girl in a georgette waist, dressed to
take tickets at a motion-picture window, who informed me firmly that
“Mr. Alfred had gone to Boston.”
To Boston! It was then that I realized how dear Alf was to me.
I turned sadly into the dining-room and tried to eat the beef-hash.
One could follow the developments of the hotel’s cuisine by lunching
there daily. First the roast and then the stew, then the hash, and then
the soup--just like home. And fresh clams every day,--unless they were
the same clams! After lunch I loitered around the lobby for an hour,
trying to pick out some one among the strangers who came in and out at
infrequent intervals who would be likely to go back to the House of the
Five Pines with me willingly, as a matter of course, without asking too
many pertinent questions. I planned what I would say and what the man
thus addressed would answer.
I would say, “There is a door at my house that is locked on the further
side of a secret closet behind the bed that I want to open, and
another one downstairs, in--” How absurd! If it were only one door it
might not sound so preposterous.
I might begin: “My husband is in New York, and I want you to come up to
my house and open a door of a secret room--” No, that was worse yet. To
a beginning like that a man would only say, “Indeed?” and walk off; or
he might reply, “Thanks awfully!”
There was no use in accosting any one. They all looked as if they
would turn and run. If only some summer people were here--adventurous
artists, or intrepid college boys, or those Herculean chauffeurs that
haunt the soda-fountains while their grande dames take a siesta! But
there was no one.
Finally I remembered the Winkle-Man, and hurried up there.
I was surprised to find outside that the wind had turned, the sun had
gone, and a storm was coming up--a “hurricane,” as they call it on
the cape. A fisherman knocked into me, hurrying down to the beach to
drag his dory up beyond the rising. Outside of the point, where the
lighthouse stood, one could see a procession of ships coming in, a
whole line of them. I counted seven sweeping up the tip of the cape,
like toys drawn by children along the nursery floor. They seemed to
ride the sand rather than the sea, their sails appearing above that
treacherous neck which lay between them and me. Their barometers must
have registered this storm hours ago, for they were converging from all
the far-off fishing-banks. The bay was black. Near shore the sailors
were stripping their canvas, letting out their anchors, or tying up
to the wharves. There was a bustle and a stir in the harbor like the
confusion of a house whose occupants run wildly into one another while
they slam the windows. I ought to go up to the House of the Five Pines
and shut mine.
The tide was far out. Beyond the half-mile of yellow beach it beat a
frothy, impatient tattoo upon the water-line. When it came in it would
sweep up with a rush, covering the green seaweed and the little rills
with white-capped waves, pounding far up against the breakwaters,
setting the ships rocking and straining at their ropes, carrying away
everything that it could pry loose. Now it was waiting, getting ready,
lashing itself into a fury of anticipation. There was a feeling of
suspense to the air itself, cold in an under-stratum that came across
the sea, hot above where it hung over the torpid land. It seemed as if
you could feel the wind on your face, but not a leaf stirred. People
were hastening into their homes, even as the boats were scurrying into
the harbor. No one wanted to be abroad when the storm struck.
The Winkle-Man’s loft was deserted. I saw him far out upon the flats,
still picking up his winkles with his pronged fork, hurrying to get
all he could before the tide covered them, knowing with the accuracy
of an alarm-clock when that would be. Should I wait for him? He might
not come back, for he did not live in this shack and where his home was
I did not know. I stood wondering what to do, when suddenly down the
street came a horse and wagon, the boy beating the beast to make it go
even faster, although it was galloping up and down in the shafts and
the stones were rattling out of the road. The dust flew into my face
when they flashed by. Then, as quickly, the whole fantastic equipage
stopped.
“Whoa!” yelled the boy. You could hear him up and down the street.
He jumped over the back of the seat and threw something--a great box,
as nearly as I could make out--into the road, and then, turning the
wagon on two wheels, came careening back again, still beating the horse
as he went past me, standing up and lashing it with the whip, cursing
like a sailor, and vanishing in his own cloud.
All this to get back before it rained?
I looked down the street to where the box lay in the middle of the
road, and then I saw that he had dropped it in front of my house.
It was my box he had delivered, and his hurry had not been entirely
because of the storm. I suppose I might expect to have all my packages
dropped in the road by fleeing rogues too craven to go near the
dwelling.
Vexed with him for being such a fool, knowing I could not leave my
belongings there in the street through a hurricane that might develop
into a three days’ storm, yet still having no one to help me, I ran
up the path as the first drops came down on my head and, getting an
old wheelbarrow out of the yard, hoisted the heavy thing into it and
pushed it up to the door. It was a box of books, packed in my husband’s
sketchy manner, with openings between the boards on top through which
newspapers showed. Not the sort of covering to withstand a northwest
storm! And it was very heavy. A bitter gust drove a flying handful of
straw up the street and whirled it round and round in the yard till it
caught in the tops of the pine-trees like a crow’s-nest. They bent and
swayed and squeaked under the high wind. A sheet of solid rain swept
across the bay like a curtain just as I succeeded in shoving the box of
books over the threshold and shut the door behind me.
Something had come in with me. It eyed me from under the stove. There
was the skinny cat that had bounded out of the house with our arrival
and had never been seen since! Tired with my futile trip, overwrought
with the approaching storm, angry over my struggles with the box, I
leaped upon the creature as if it was the cause of all my troubles.
“Get out! You can’t stay here! I don’t want you! Scat!”
But the cat thought otherwise.
It leaped past my clutch, scampering through the kitchen and on into
the study beyond. I followed fast. The room was half-dark with the
storm that beat around it; the rain made a cannonade upon the roof and
blinded the windows with a steady downpour. The whole house shook. The
five pine-trees outside bent beneath the onslaught as if they would
snap and crash down upon me. I knew that the old shingles must be
leaking, but first of all I must get that cat, I must put that horrible
beast out!
As if it knew my thoughts it jumped upon the mantel and raised its back
at me. Its eyes were green in its small head and its tail waved high
above it. It did not seem to be a cat at all, but the reincarnation
of some sinister spirit, tantalizing and defiant, aloof, and at the
same time inexorable. I was so excited that I picked up the poker and
would have struck it dead. But it dodged and leaped away--into the
coat-closet, and I after it. I made a lunge with the poker, missed the
cat, and struck the latch of the forbidden door. It flew open. The
cat sprang--and disappeared. I followed. As I found myself climbing
steep steps hand over hand in a black hole, I had time to think, like
a drowning man, that anyway I had the poker, and if it was the captain
hiding up there, he must be an old man and I could knock him down. I
did not want to be locked in the house in a hurricane with a black cat
and God knows what. I wanted to find out.
What I found was more of a shock than what I was ready to meet.