It was a Saturday evening and an evil-looking man stood at the door,
when Jenkins opened it to a modest ring. He had a large black bag which
bulged and looked heavy in his hand.
“A fine cat, mister,” he whispered hoarsely, “only two bob, hand over
and let me go.”
Jenkins took the bag and loosening the string at its mouth looked down
into it. At the bottom was a soft mass of handsome-looking fur from
which a faint mew came as the cat saw Jenkins’ face at the top of the
bag. It was evidently very tame and nestled up against Jenkins’ chest
directly he drew it out. It was a magnificent creature, not a Persian,
but with a very thick coat, pure white and a tail like the brush of an
Arctic fox. Jenkins returned the bag and gave two shillings to the man
with the evil face who immediately melted into the darkness and Jenkins
was just closing the door, the cat still in his arms, when the doctor
came up from the outside and entered.
“That’s a fine animal,” he remarked as he closed the door and the cat
turned its great golden eyes on him, “how much did you have to give?”
“Only 2/ Sir,” Jenkins answered, “the man has stolen it I should think.”
The doctor laughed.
“Evidently. Some old maid’s cat, I expect. Nice tame beast,” he put
his hand on the cat’s head and ruffled the fur backwards and forwards
rather roughly. The cat put its head back and looked at the doctor
with some resentment in its golden eyes. “Accustomed to sit on the
table and drink cream out of the old maid’s saucer, eh?” he went on
half playfully. “Well, we’ve a little table here for you, my beauty.
We’ll set you on it and clamp you down and then we set it spinning.
One hundred miles an hour or more we keep you whirling round for
a fortnight and then when we take you off your eyes will be all
criss-cross and you’ll be just mad with terror. That’s what we’ll
do with you, Pussy.” Then he walked on humming into his own study,
into which he went and slammed the door. Jenkins left standing in the
passage, the cat still clasped to him, wondered whether men were men
or fiends. A sick loathing grew up in him and seemed to submerge his
spirit like a great wave. Then it rolled over, leaving him with a clear
fierce determination that come what might, this thing in his arms so
gentle, so trustful, should never be placed on that hellish table.
The cat, distressed by something in the doctor’s touch or voice or
face, turned its head up to Jenkins and fixed its beautiful golden gaze
on him and apparently from Jenkins’ drawn sad face it gained confidence
and began to purr. Jenkins with the fire of hatred glowing in his heart
against mankind climbed the stairs to his own room and deposited the
cat on his bed. He then set his stove going, drew his curtains and
poured out a saucer of milk. The cat watched all these proceedings
appreciatively and purred loudly in response. When it had lapped up
all the milk while Jenkins held the saucer, it lay back on the bed and
stretched its paws up purring, saying quite clearly, “Come and caress
me, I’m accustomed to it. I’m a very nice cat,” and Jenkins sat beside
it, stroking it, with the tears burning behind his eye-lids. It was a
stolen pet evidently and Jenkins would not have taken it in at the door
except that he knew if he refused it, where possibly through him it
might have a chance of safety, the cat stealer would simply take it on
to another accursed laboratory where it would have _no_ chance of
escape from the tortures awaiting it.
That night the doctor called to Jenkins as he was going up to bed, “I’m
very busy just now. I’ve got so many things going to attend to but I’ll
have more time in a week or so. Just remind me about the cat later on,
will you? If I forget.”
Jenkins listened, his face growing dark as he stood in the shadow, on
the stairs.
“Yes, Sir,” he replied and went on up.
The cat was waiting for him curled on the bed and mewed delightedly
at his entrance, showing its white teeth and its little pink tongue,
curled up like a rose leaf, behind them.
Jenkins seated himself beside the cat and fed it on some scraps he had
brought up with him. For a week the cat remained, a willing prisoner
in his room. He gave it a large tray of earth over by the window to
scratch in and replenished it every day from the bit of common ground
round the house. He brought everything up to it and waited on it and
never let it out where evil eyes could fall on it and all that week he
searched the papers daily for some announcement of a lost cat. There
were no shops very near the laboratory but he walked every day to the
nearest, a small newsagent’s and tobacconist’s where he bought his
papers and then studied them diligently in his own room.
At last he found the notice he wanted.
“Lost. A large white tomcat. Not Persian, but thick coat and bushy
tail. Finder will be handsomely rewarded if he brings cat to blank
Grosvenor Square, W.”
Jenkins read this with a beating heart. This was his cat he felt sure.
The doctor was away for his usual week end. This was Saturday. He
always was allowed Sunday afternoon for himself. To-morrow he would
take the cat back to its owner.
That night he held it tightly to him and hardly slept but spent his
time stroking and caressing it and realising how lonely he would be
without it. But still to get it out of this hell, safe and alive, was
everything. The cat, with all its claws sheathed in its velvet skin
patted gently with its paws Jenkins’ thin cheeks and nestled close to
him purring ecstatically. It missed its own house and mistress but
no animal could be insensible of the flood of love and sympathy that
poured out from Jenkins’ unhappy heart. The next morning he spent
much time on brushing and combing its silky coat and about two in the
afternoon with his heart high in hope he set out for Grosvenor Square,
the cat curled round in the lidded basket which Jenkins had brought,
filled with vegetables, with him from the country. He thought if he;
could once see the owner of the cat and tell him or her of the horrors
his or her pet had so narrowly escaped, then surely anyone so rich and
powerful as to be able to live in Grosvenor Square would take some
steps against the system which made these horrors possible.
When he arrived at the door of the house it was opened by a footman
who at once glanced at the basket. When Jenkins asked to see the
person who had put in the advertisement, the man replied affably,
“Miss Courtneidge is in and I think will see you.” Then he stooped
down and scratched at the basket side. “Cushy,” he called and a mew of
recognition came from within.
“Come upstairs,” he said and Jenkins followed full of joyful
anticipation of coming face to face with someone who surely would
listen to his message. He entered a large room and at the far end
there sat Miss Courtneidge, a fat, middle-aged woman with a bright
intelligent and pleasing face. She jumped up and took the basket from
Jenkins smiling and lifted the lid.
“Oh, there you are Cushy,” she exclaimed, and lifted the creature out
with many murmurs of delight.
Jenkins stood by respectfully enjoying the scene to the full. There was
no doubt the lady genuinely loved her pet and the cat could hardly have
a better mistress.
“Do sit down,” she said after a minute, “and tell me where you found
him.”
She sat down with the cat in her arms and Jenkins took a seat opposite
her.
“A man, a regular cat stealer, I think, brought him in a bag to our
place and offered him to me for 2/--I saw at once he was stolen and I
thought I’d better take him and try to find the owner. If I hadn’t, the
man would have taken him to another laboratory where they wouldn’t have
bothered to restore him to his owner but used him in the laboratory.”
The lady was listening intently to Jenkins and he thought her eyes grew
harder.
“What are you then?” she asked quietly.
“I am an attendant at a laboratory for Scientific Research,” returned
Jenkins, “and the man brought the cat to be experimented upon, but I
don’t like the business and I meant to save this cat anyway.”
“If you don’t like it, why do you stay?” asked the lady quietly and
very coldly.
Jenkins realised that his hearer’s sympathies were alienated from him
and the false position in which he stood came home to him. At first
he had thought it might be possible to make a clean breast of his
feelings. He had visions of the lady coming to see the tortured animals
and in her righteous wrath having the hideous place done away with
altogether, but now something in the coldness of her voice and eyes
warned him he must go very carefully.
“I stay to try and do what I can for the animals,” he answered, “do you
know about this Scientific Research, ma’am?”
“I know that it is a very noble work carried on by selfless men and
women who give up their lives to the cause of humanity,” replied the
lady proudly.
Jenkins looked back at her aghast as these parrot phrases fell from her
lips. Evidently she knew nothing at all about it and against this dense
ignorance he felt he had no weapons.
“You don’t know what goes on in the laboratories, animals are tortured
to death and given the most hideous sufferings that don’t lead to
anything,” he said.
The lady compressed her lips.
“I can’t believe you,” she said icily, “I have many friends who are
doctors and scientific men and I am sure they would do nothing but what
is right. If they have to experiment on animals I am sure they do it
kindly.”
Jenkins could have laughed bitterly as he heard but he controlled
himself and answered:
“How _can_ you starve animals kindly, ma’am?”
The lady looked cross and was silent for a moment and Jenkins burst out:
“Do come with me now and I’ll show you what Scientific Research really
means. The laboratory is empty, I am in sole charge, the doctor is
away. Come and see the animals for yourself. Then you can judge about
it.”
The lady looked crosser than ever.
“Thank you. I am quite capable of judging the matter already. I rely
upon what my doctor tells me. In any case, if there were any cruelty, I
couldn’t bear to see it, I couldn’t sleep for a week if I did.”
Again Jenkins felt helpless and appalled. What stupendous folly, what
selfishness! Any cruelty might be practiced, provided _she_ did
not see it, provided _her_ sleep was not disturbed.
“I really must ask you to go now,” she continued. “I have a meeting
this afternoon here of the League of Love. We have the Bishop coming
and we are going to organize something to aid the hospitals.”
Jenkins rose immediately.
“To aid the hospitals! To build new laboratories for the torture of
_more_ animals! Oh ma’am, you don’t know what you are doing!
If _I_ had not saved your cat he’d have been pinned down to an
electric table and spun round at 100 miles an hour for a fortnight and
taken off it mad and blind to have his brain opened and looked at. That
was _his_ fate and how does that help humanity?”
The lady was standing too.
“You need not expect that I shall increase your reward for bringing him
back by telling me these wicked stories,” she said severely. “Here is
two pounds. I shall not give you any more!” and she held towards him
two pound-notes.
Over Jenkins’ face ran a flame of scarlet, then faded leaving him
ashy white. That was what she thought! That he was detailing false
sufferings to increase his own reward!
He took the notes from her hand and dropped them on the floor and then
stepped forward and put his foot down on them, looking her full in the
face.
“That, ma’am, is what I care for your reward! I brought that creature
back to you because I loved it. I never thought of the reward and
should not have taken any in any case. I pray some day you may be
shaken out of the darkness and the ignorance you live in.”
He turned and strode to the door, leaving the notes on the floor and
the lady too astonished to say anything. A pair of golden eyes watched
him depart and a little soft mew came to his ears as he closed the door
and seemed to stab into his heart.
He walked down the stairs and out into the street with a sorely wounded
spirit. All the joy and elation at having rescued the cat and restored
it was blotted out by the cold tide of despair. He felt that he was
helpless to save others just as loving, just as beautiful as this one,
from death by torture. What could he do? So long as the world consisted
of the friends who did these things and the fools who were so kind
that they couldn’t believe in the fiends and so cowardly that they
would not consider the question for fear of losing a night’s sleep,
what could he do? “God help me, God help me,” was the cry that rose
in his heart. And formerly it had comforted him and he had believed
that God would help him however unkind man might be. But how? Was
there any God? Was it not a Devil who ruled the world if this sort of
Scientific Research were allowed in it? Why should God help him, if he
cared nothing for the miseries of the innocent and sweet animals he had
created?
Thoroughly miserable he went back to the hell on the common and up
in his own room, making his solitary tea, he took himself severely
to task. Had he wasted that golden opportunity, when he, knowing the
truth, was face to face with one who knew nothing except some phrases
culled from the articles of doctors, in the Press? Could he have done
better? Was it his fault that he had failed? Over and over in his mind
he turned that conversation but could decide nothing. His brains felt
battered and weary but he was glad the cat was gone.
The very next morning when the doctor returned, he called Jenkins into
his study.
“Jenkins our stock of dogs is low, isn’t it?”
“The last one died last night, Sir.”
“Oh: which was that?”
“The little Skye you were starving, Sir.”
“H’m: when did I begin? Do you remember?”
“Ten days ago.”
“Ten days! That’s quite a good record. Isn’t it? Had it eaten that coke
I put in the cage?”
“No, Sir. Only gnawed it a bit. I found blood on it where the coke had
cut its mouth. It hadn’t eaten it.”
“Oh, well,” cheerily, “we must get in some more dogs. By the way,
there’s that cat, bring me that.”
“Sorry, Sir, the cat escaped.”
“What?” the doctor wheeled round in his chair and looked piercingly at
his attendant, but Jenkin’s face was still and stolid as a mask.
“You let it go, you mean, do you? I thought you were rather soft headed
over that cat when it came in. Now look here, mind this, if any more
animals _escape_ at any time, I shall have no further use for you.
See?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And to-morrow morning you’ll go and get me half a dozen kittens:
big ones. Go to the Army and Navy Stores or anywhere you like but
mind those kittens are here by noon. I am going to try some eye
transplanting.”
Jenkins withdrew.
How could such a man be allowed to exist, he asked himself. How could
such a place as this stand? Why did not a lightning stroke burn it to
the ground with its fiendish owner inside? Why did not the flame that
swept over Sodom and Gomorra sweep also over the laboratories of London
and obliterate them?
Then he smiled grimly remembering how the laboratories were supported
by the tax payer, approved by the king, and beloved by the aristocracy.
What was he, Jenkins, to think differently from all these? He was only
a poor common-sense man of the people. But he knew and they did not.
That was the tragedy of it. He would have given his life to be able to
tell and convince them.