rare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a hundred
yards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to the density
of the fog. The echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer reached him, the
clamour of occasional voices no longer came down the side street. The
night, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate mystery, hung about
the haunted villa like a doom. Nothing in the house stirred. Stillness,
in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys. Only the mist in the
room grew more dense, he thought, and the damp cold more penetrating.
Certainly, from time to time, he shivered.
The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,--grunted, sighed,
or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm,
black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of his
sleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head and
body joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin nose
and a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret.
Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie's breathing
was soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another two
hours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness.
He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state of
mind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let it
come--and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire died
down later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be time
enough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From various
psychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not pass
without adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and he
wished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that,
when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any straining
of the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the rest,
he had no fear.
Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, and
the last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyes
like soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs at
once, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position for
his paws and muzzle upon the mat.
* * * * *
It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon his
chest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A soft
touch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him.
He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair of
brilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke's face lay level with his
own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest.
The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence saw
in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with its
front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt them
prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted his
cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back;
the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply.
The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant he
realized this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and sprang up with a
quick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some curious instinct,
his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of defence in front of
him, as though to ward off something that threatened his safety. Yet
nothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung about rather heavily in the
air, moving slightly to and fro.
His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. He
turned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became aware
of at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited;
the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at his
feet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from the
window, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurked
plainly something of alarm.
Something in the dog's behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence as
unusual, and, calling him by name, he moved across to pat him. Flame got
up, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a low
sound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed about
something, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort when his
attention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other four-footed
companion, the cat.
And what he saw filled him with something like amazement.
Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupied
the middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff as
ramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrow
space, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds of
pleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to make
expressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back made
it appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile of
beatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy.
At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back again
along the same line, padding softly, and purring like a roll of little
muffled drums. It behaved precisely as though it were rubbing against
the ankles of some one who remained invisible. A thrill ran down the
doctor's spine as he stood and stared. His experiment was growing
interesting at last.
He called the collie's attention to his friend's performance to see
whether he too was aware of anything standing there upon the carpet, and
the dog's behaviour was significant and corroborative. He came as far
as his master's knees and then stopped dead, refusing to investigate
closely. In vain Dr. Silence urged him; he wagged his tail, whined a
little, and stood in a half-crouching attitude, staring alternately at
the cat and at his master's face. He was, apparently, both puzzled and
alarmed, and the whine went deeper and deeper down into his throat till
it changed into an ugly snarl of awakening anger.
Then the doctor called to him in a tone of command he had never known to
be disregarded; but still the dog, though springing up in response,
declined to move nearer. He made tentative motions, pranced a little
like a dog about to take to water, pretended to bark, and ran to and fro
on the carpet. So far there was no actual fear in his manner, but he was
uneasy and anxious, and nothing would induce him to go within touching
distance of the walking cat. Once he made a complete circuit, but always
carefully out of reach; and in the end he returned to his master's legs
and rubbed vigorously against him. Flame did not like the performance at
all: that much was quite clear.
For several minutes John Silence watched the performance of the cat with
profound attention and without interfering. Then he called to the animal
by name.
"Smoke, you mysterious beastie, what in the world are you about?" he
said, in a coaxing tone.
The cat looked up at him for a moment, smiling in its ecstasy, blinking
its eyes, but too happy to pause. He spoke to it again. He called to it
several times, and each time it turned upon him its blazing eyes, drunk
with inner delight, opening and shutting its lips, its body large and
rigid with excitement. Yet it never for one instant paused in its short
journeys to and fro.
He noted exactly what it did: it walked, he saw, the same number of
paces each time, some six or seven steps, and then it turned sharply and
retraced them. By the pattern of the great roses in the carpet he
measured it. It kept to the same direction and the same line. It behaved
precisely as though it were rubbing against something solid.
Undoubtedly, there was something standing there on that strip of carpet,
something invisible to the doctor, something that alarmed the dog, yet
caused the cat unspeakable pleasure.
"Smokie!" he called again, "Smokie, you black mystery, what is it
excites you so?"
Again the cat looked up at him for a brief second, and then continued
its sentry-walk, blissfully happy, intensely preoccupied. And, for an
instant, as he watched it, the doctor was aware that a faint uneasiness
stirred in the depths of his own being, focusing itself for the moment
upon this curious behaviour of the uncanny creature before him.
There rose in him quite a new realization of the mystery connected with
the whole feline tribe, but especially with that common member of it,
the domestic cat--their hidden lives, their strange aloofness, their
incalculable subtlety. How utterly remote from anything that human
beings understood lay the sources of their elusive activities. As he
watched the indescribable bearing of the little creature mincing along
the strip of carpet under his eyes, coquetting with the powers of
darkness, welcoming, maybe, some fearsome visitor, there stirred in his
heart a feeling strangely akin to awe. Its indifference to human kind,
its serene superiority to the obvious, struck him forcibly with fresh
meaning; so remote, so inaccessible seemed the secret purposes of its
real life, so alien to the blundering honesty of other animals. Its
absolute poise of bearing brought into his mind the opium-eater's words
that "no dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself
with the mysterious"; and he became suddenly aware that the presence of
the dog in this foggy, haunted room on the top of Putney Hill was
uncommonly welcome to him. He was glad to feel that Flame's dependable
personality was with him. The savage growling at his heels was a
pleasant sound. He was glad to hear it. That marching cat made him
uneasy.
Finding that Smoke paid no further attention to his words, the doctor
decided upon action. Would it rub against his leg, too? He would take it
by surprise and see.
He stepped quickly forward and placed himself upon the exact strip of
carpet where it walked.
But no cat is ever taken by surprise! The moment he occupied the space
of the Intruder, setting his feet on the woven roses midway in the line
of travel, Smoke suddenly stopped purring and sat down. It lifted up its
face with the most innocent stare imaginable of its green eyes. He could
have sworn it laughed. It was a perfect child again. In a single second
it had resumed its simple, domestic manner; and it gazed at him in such
a way that he almost felt Smoke was the normal being, and _his_ was the
eccentric behaviour that was being watched. It was consummate, the
manner in which it brought about this change so easily and so quickly.
"Superb little actor!" he laughed in spite of himself, and stooped to
stroke the shining black back. But, in a flash, as he touched its fur,
the cat turned and spat at him viciously, striking at his hand with one
paw. Then, with a hurried scutter of feet, it shot like a shadow across
the floor and a moment later was calmly sitting over by the
window-curtains washing its face as though nothing interested it in the
whole world but the cleanness of its cheeks and whiskers.
John Silence straightened himself up and drew a long breath. He realized
that the performance was temporarily at an end. The collie, meanwhile,
who had watched the whole proceeding with marked disapproval, had now
lain down again upon the mat by the fire, no longer growling. It seemed
to the doctor just as though something that had entered the room while
he slept, alarming the dog, yet bringing happiness to the cat, had now
gone out again, leaving all as it was before. Whatever it was that
excited its blissful attentions had retreated for the moment.
He realized this intuitively. Smoke evidently realized it, too, for
presently he deigned to march back to the fireplace and jump upon his
master's knees. Dr. Silence, patient and determined, settled down once
more to his book. The animals soon slept; the fire blazed cheerfully;
and the cold fog from outside poured into the room through every
available chink and crannie.
For a long time silence and peace reigned in the room and Dr. Silence
availed himself of the quietness to make careful notes of what had
happened. He entered for future use in other cases an exhaustive
analysis of what he had observed, especially with regard to the effect
upon the two animals. It is impossible here, nor would it be
intelligible to the reader unversed in the knowledge of the region known
to a scientifically trained psychic like Dr. Silence, to detail these
observations. But to him it was clear, up to a certain point--and for
the rest he must still wait and watch. So far, at least, he realized
that while he slept in the chair--that is, while his will was
dormant--the room had suffered intrusion from what he recognized as an
intensely active Force, and might later be forced to acknowledge as
something more than merely a blind force, namely, a distinct
personality.
So far it had affected himself scarcely at all, but had acted directly
upon the simpler organisms of the animals. It stimulated keenly the
centres of the cat's psychic being, inducing a state of instant
happiness (intensifying its consciousness probably in the same way a
drug or stimulant intensifies that of a human being); whereas it alarmed
the less sensitive dog, causing it to feel a vague apprehension and
distress.
His own sudden action and exhibition of energy had served to disperse it
temporarily, yet he felt convinced--the indications were not lacking
even while he sat there making notes--that it still remained near to
him, conditionally if not spatially, and was, as it were, gathering
force for a second attack.
And, further, he intuitively understood that the relations between the
two animals had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had become
immeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiar
region, whereas Flame had been weakened by an attack he could not
comprehend and knew not how to reply to. Though not yet afraid, he was
defiant--ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. He
was no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. Smoke held the
key to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it.
Thus, as the minutes passed, John Silence sat and waited, keenly on the
alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what point
it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself.
The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With one
hand on the cat's fur, and the dog's front paws resting against his
feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the
night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight.
It was well after one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned the
lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. Then
Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither
stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it,
realized that a certain indefinable change had come about that very
moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four
walls had taken place--a new disposition of their personal equations.
The balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. Smoke, most
sensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog was
not slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that Flame was no
longer asleep. He was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instant
he sat up on his great haunches and began to growl.
Dr. Silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lamp
when an audible movement in the room behind made him pause. Smoke leaped
down from his knee and moved a few paces across the carpet. Then it
stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up on the rug to watch.
As he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not in
the room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more
directions than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against the
window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against
the door--out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet,
twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot of the door. The
influence that had destroyed the harmonious conditions of the room had
apparently moved in advance of its cause. Clearly, something was about
to happen.
For the first time that night John Silence hesitated; the thought of
that dark narrow hall-way, choked with fog, and destitute of human
comfort, was unpleasant. He became aware of a faint creeping of his
flesh. He knew, of course, that the actual opening of the door was not
necessary to the invasion of the room that was about to take place,
since neither doors nor windows, nor any other solid barriers could
interpose an obstacle to what was seeking entrance. Yet the opening of
the door would be significant and symbolic, and he distinctly shrank
from it.
But for a moment only. Smoke, turning with a show of impatience,
recalled him to his purpose, and he moved past the sitting, watching
creature, and deliberately opened the door to its full width.
What subsequently happened, happened in the feeble and flickering light
of the solitary candle on the mantelpiece.
Through the opened door he saw the hall, dimly lit and thick with fog.
Nothing, of course, was visible--nothing but the hat-stand, the African
spears in dark lines upon the wall and the high-backed wooden chair
standing grotesquely underneath on the oilcloth floor. For one instant
the fog seemed to move and thicken oddly; but he set that down to the
score of the imagination. The door had opened upon nothing.
Yet Smoke apparently thought otherwise, and the deep growling of the
collie from the mat at the back of the room seemed to confirm his
judgment.
For, proud and self-possessed, the cat had again risen to his feet, and
having advanced to the door, was now ushering some one slowly into the
room. Nothing could have been more evident. He paced from side to side,
bowing his little head with great _empressement_ and holding his
stiffened tail aloft like a flagstaff. He turned this way and that,
mincing to and fro, and showing signs of supreme satisfaction. He was in
his element. He welcomed the intrusion, and apparently reckoned that his
companions, the doctor and the dog, would welcome it likewise.
The Intruder had returned for a second attack.
Dr. Silence moved slowly backwards and took up his position on the
hearthrug, keying himself up to a condition of concentrated attention.
He noted that Flame stood beside him, facing the room, with body
motionless, and head moving swiftly from side to side with a curious
swaying movement. His eyes were wide open, his back rigid, his neck and
jaws thrust forward, his legs tense and ready to leap. Savage, ready for
attack or defence, yet dreadfully puzzled and perhaps already a little
cowed, he stood and stared, the hair on his spine and sides positively
bristling outwards as though a wind played through them. In the dim
firelight he looked like a great yellow-haired wolf, silent, eyes
shooting dark fire, exceedingly formidable. It was Flame, the terrible.
Smoke, meanwhile, advanced from the door towards the middle of the room,
adopting the very slow pace of an invisible companion. A few feet away
it stopped and began to smile and blink its eyes. There was something
deliberately coaxing in its attitude as it stood there undecided on the
carpet, clearly wishing to effect some sort of introduction between the
Intruder and its canine friend and ally. It assumed its most winning
manners, purring, smiling, looking persuasively from one to the other,
and making quick tentative steps first in one direction and then in the
other. There had always existed such perfect understanding between them
in everything. Surely Flame would appreciate Smoke's intentions now, and
acquiesce.
But the old collie made no advances. He bared his teeth, lifting his
lips till the gums showed, and stood stockstill with fixed eyes and
heaving sides. The doctor moved a little farther back, watching intently
the smallest movement, and it was just then he divined suddenly from the
cat's behaviour and attitude that it was not only a single companion it
had ushered into the room, but _several_. It kept crossing over from one
to the other, looking up at each in turn. It sought to win over the dog
to friendliness with them all. The original Intruder had come back with
reinforcements. And at the same time he further realized that the
Intruder was something more than a blindly acting force, impersonal
though destructive. It was a Personality, and moreover a great
personality. And it was accompanied for the purposes of assistance by a
host of other personalities, minor in degree, but similar in kind.
He braced himself in the corner against the mantelpiece and waited, his
whole being roused to defence, for he was now fully aware that the
attack had spread to include himself as well as the animals, and he must
be on the alert. He strained his eyes through the foggy atmosphere,
trying in vain to see what the cat and dog saw; but the candlelight
threw an uncertain and flickering light across the room and his eyes
discerned nothing. On the floor Smoke moved softly in front of him like
a black shadow, his eyes gleaming as he turned his head, still trying
with many insinuating gestures and much purring to bring about the
introductions he desired.
But it was all in vain. Flame stood riveted to one spot, motionless as a
figure carved in stone.
Some minutes passed, during which only the cat moved, and there came a
sharp change. Flame began to back towards the wall. He moved his head
from side to side as he went, sometimes turning to snap at something
almost behind him. _They_ were advancing upon him, trying to surround
him. His distress became very marked from now onwards, and it seemed to
the doctor that his anger merged into genuine terror and became
overwhelmed by it. The savage growl sounded perilously like a whine, and
more than once he tried to dive past his master's legs, as though
hunting for a way of escape. He was trying to avoid something that
everywhere blocked the way.
This terror of the indomitable fighter impressed the doctor enormously;
yet also painfully; stirring his impatience; for he had never before
seen the dog show signs of giving in, and it distressed him to witness
it. He knew, however, that he was not giving in easily, and understood
that it was really impossible for him to gauge the animal's sensations
properly at all. What Flame felt, and saw, must be terrible indeed to
turn him all at once into a coward. He faced something that made him
afraid of more than his life merely. The doctor spoke a few quick words
of encouragement to him, and stroked the bristling hair. But without
much success. The collie seemed already beyond the reach of comfort such
as that, and the collapse of the old dog followed indeed very speedily
after this.
And Smoke, meanwhile, remained behind, watching the advance, but not
joining in it; sitting, pleased and expectant, considering that all was
going well and as it wished. It was kneading on the carpet with its
front paws--slowly, laboriously, as though its feet were dipped in
treacle. The sound its claws made as they caught in the threads was
distinctly audible. It was still smiling, blinking, purring.
Suddenly the collie uttered a poignant short bark and leaped heavily to
one side. His bared teeth traced a line of whiteness through the gloom.
The next instant he dashed past his master's legs, almost upsetting his
balance, and shot out into the room, where he went blundering wildly
against walls and furniture. But that bark was significant; the doctor
had heard it before and knew what it meant: for it was the cry of the
fighter against odds and it meant that the old beast had found his
courage again. Possibly it was only the courage of despair, but at any
rate the fighting would be terrific. And Dr. Silence understood, too,
that he dared not interfere. Flame must fight his own enemies in his own
way.
But the cat, too, had heard that dreadful bark; and it, too, had
understood. This was more than it had bargained for. Across the dim
shadows of that haunted room there must have passed some secret signal
of distress between the animals. Smoke stood up and looked swiftly about
him. He uttered a piteous meow and trotted smartly away into the greater
darkness by the windows. What his object was only those endowed with the
spirit-like intelligence of cats might know. But, at any rate, he had at
last ranged himself on the side of his friend. And the little beast
meant business.