Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926

From everywhere and nowhere they came, led by a scar-faced, rusty, black Tom called “Lightning”

Chapter I As Queer As a Cat

Milly Canby was ten minutes late at the office of the Argus Detective Agency. Such a thing never had happened before.

Milly pushed open the door and Henry Rood, president, manager and detective force of the agency, stared at her in mild surprise.

Milly’s cheeks were highly colored by her haste.

Her eyes shone with a mysterious excitement. She fairly radiated mystery, but mystery of a delightful sort.

Henry Rood, who would have forgiven Milly his own murder, forgave her tardiness, the second he saw her so pretty and so excited about something.

Milly held her coat wrapped in an unusual fashion. She now opened it wide and revealed the mystery.

“Look, ’Enry!” she said breathlessly. “Look what I found! We’ll keep it, won’t we, ’Enry? He won’t be a bit of trouble around the office. And we’ll name him Argus — unless, of course, he turns out to be a lady. He’ll be awfully useful on our staff, ’Enry. You know there are mice in this office and Argus can handle all our mouse cases — especially if he turns out a Tabby!”

Milly set a small kitten on Henry’s desk.

It was a very young kitten, so young that its legs were uncertain. Its coat was a sort of Jacob’s coat of many colors and proclaimed a very scrambled family tree. And it was pitifully thin.

The kitten advanced uncertainly over Henry’s desk and opened its pink mouth wide in a voiceless cry.

“The poor little thing!” Milly’s eyes grew moist. “Think, ’Enry, it was wandering right in the midst of traffic. Absolutely lost. And terrified. I rescued it from under a truck. And it’s starved almost to death. Wait, I’ll run down to the lunch counter and get it milk—” Milly broke off to demand again: “We will keep it, won’t we?”

Henry nodded. “I guess we can take him on, if you say so, Milly — hey, get out of my ink, Argus!” He chuckled as Argus began investigating with his paw and sent penholders and pencils rolling off the desk.

“They say cats bring good luck,” Henry mused. “Or is that only black cats? Well, never mind.”

Argus proved the adage within the hour. Milly brought word to Henry that a client had called. A client of any sort was still a great event in the office of the Argus Agency, for the agency was young and struggling hard to keep alive.

The client’s name was Matthew Hallock Stuyvesant, as his neat visiting card in old-fashioned script proclaimed. Henry seated him in tire visitor’s chair and excusing himself a minute with a number of papers kept ready on his desk to look impressive, studied Mr. Stuyvesant with secret glances.

Henry saw a man of more than sixty years, a slender, old maidish-looking man in well brushed, threadbare clothes of dark gray, wearing very starchy white linen, spats, and a carnation in his buttonhole, and carrying a gold-headed stick. He looked a fussy man, a fastidious man, a sickly man — for his skin had a waxy transparency — and a badly scared man.

“Mr. Stuyvesant, what can I do for you?” Henry asked when he had observed these things.

“Gracious, I scarcely know!” Mr. Stuyvesant spoke with a slight lisp. “I suppose you are used to solving all sorts of mysteries, Mr. Rood?”

Henry nodded serenely. The only mystery which had baffled him so far was the mystery of why he had so few mysteries to exercise his talents upon.

“I don’t know how to begin,” Stuyvesant went on. “I’m afraid you’re going to laugh.”

Then the client leaped from his chair with a jerk and a shriek. Kicking aside the overturned chair he retreated flat against the wall and began to stare with wild eyes at the floor. Henry saw that he trembled violently.

Across the floor toddled Argus, the newest member of the agency staff, his fat tail erect, his sides bulging with breakfast, drops of milk still adhering untidily to his questing whiskers. Argus spied the nice man in the corner and Argus, kitten that he was, must have sensed that the nice man was afraid of cats. With a cat’s perversity he went directly to the client and rubbed his shoe lovingly.

Matthew Hallock Stuyvesant turned white.

Before Henry could come to his rescue, Milly had pushed open the private office door and swooped down on the kitten. “I’m so sorry I forgot to latch the door!” she apologized breathlessly. “I think he’s started looking for that mouse already, ’Enry.”

Henry righted the overturned chair and Stuyvesant sank into it. He unfolded a large, very clean handkerchief and passed it over his face.

“I really beg your pardon, Mr. Rood,” he said, trying to force a smile. “I am terrified of cats. I have been afraid of cats all my life. My old nurse once told me that even as a baby I was afraid of them. I suppose this seems very silly to you—”

“Not at all,” Henry hastened to assure him. “And I’m extremely sorry this happened to upset you.”

The new client shuddered violently.

“I thought—” he began, then shuddered again before he could resume — “I thought — it was one of them — haunting me. I thought perhaps — I was — going mad.”

“One of what?” Henry asked.

“One of the cats. One of those damned cats that have made my house a madhouse, that have upset my life, that haunt me day and night in spite of everything I do — one of the cats that are making the house I was born in a howling wilderness! Mr. Rood, I have been to the police and I have been to two other detective agencies and been laughed at for my pains. I ask you — I beg of you — can you put aside professional dignity and undertake my case? If you will, name your own fee.”

“Just what is the case?”

“Mr. Rood, I need a detective to rid my house of a plague of cats and I assure you, to me, a plague of cats is no laughing matter!”

Chapter II Why the Cats?

Henry Rood looked again and more thoughtfully at Mr. Stuyvesant.

The client was perfectly sane, he was sure of that. Also he seemed to be a man of means. And the case he mentioned had its unusual features.

Just to make sure that he was not wasting too much time, Henry rang for Milly and secretly handed her the client’s name. Before the conference had proceeded five minutes Milly returned with a memorandum, which Henry glanced over while Stuyvesant told his story.

The memorandum said:

Mr. Stuyvesant looked good to Henry also. A rich and pardonably eccentric old stamp collector offering him a first rate mystery and inviting him to name his own fee! What more could he ask?

While this was going on in Henry’s mind the client was saying earnestly: “Mr. Rood, I have lived in that house for sixty-two years. I was born in it, you see. It was my father’s residence when Chelsea was fashionable and his father’s before that. It was one of the first fine dwellings in the district and once had a considerable lawn and a view of the river. I have been very happy in that house and I hope to die there when time comes that I must die.

“I am a simple man with few wants. My hobby is philately, and I have one of the most notable collections of stamps in this section. I entertain scarcely at all and then only a few old friends also interested in philately. My servants consist only of Mrs. Loos, my housekeeper, who has been with me more than twenty years, a maid and a furnace man, Doran, who also looks after several other houses I own. I said I have few friends and I am equally sure I have no enemies. How could I have? Dear God, I hope in all my life I have never done harm to any human being!”

Stuyvesant blinked rapidly at Henry. His exclamation was obviously direct from his innocent old heart.

“You have seen that I fear and loathe cats,” he resumed earnestly. “It’s something in my blood — inherited, I suppose. A cat, just the sight of one, its presence near me, puts me into a panic.

“Imagine then how I felt when two weeks ago cats began to haunt my house!”

“They came into your house?” Henry asked.

“Into it and around it. Dozens of cats, great, savage stray cats from the alleys, gaunt old cats, terrible cats. They howl and fight under my windows, they cluster on the steps where I stumble over them if I venture out, and they everlastingly sneak in somehow, though I give you my word we have locked every window and every door and stopped every hole they could crawl through.

“Yet they get in! They roam the house. They come into my very bedroom. Last night I found a great black Tom in my dressing room. This morning I woke to find him curled up on my bed, sitting on my chest, Mr. Rood! The same cat — and last night, I myself accompanied Doran when he carried that cat in a sack ten blocks from my house!”

“This annoyance has been going on for two weeks, you say?”

“Yes, Mr. Rood.”

“You were never bothered by cats before?”

“Never, thank Heaven!”

Another person might have found amusement in Mr. Stuyvesant’s vehemence. Not Henry. He addressed his client with added gravity that amounted to rebuke. “Mr. Stuyvesant, you are holding something back! It is not the matter of cats alone that brings you to a detective agency. What is it?”

The color of embarrassment came into Stuyvesant’s cheeks. He frowned, avoiding Henry’s eyes. Then it came out of him with a little burst like the popping of a cork from a bottle.

“Heavens, Mr. Rood, I don’t see how you guessed that! The police and the other detectives never saw it—”

Henry smiled mysteriously.

“Yes, there is more,” Stuyvesant went on. “The cats are an annoyance. They are nearly driving me mad, but that alone is not why I am seeking your professional advice, Mr. Rood.” The older man’s voice sank mysteriously and he hitched forward in his chair. “I believe that to-day an attempt was made to poison me!”

“Very good,” said Henry, eying his rich client composedly, his round face properly grave. “Now we are getting at the meat of the thing. You are a thrifty man, Mr. Stuyvesant. I was right in thinking you would not hire a detective merely to get rid of stray cats. You believe an attempt was made on your life. How?”

“Something was put into my tea,” Stuyvesant murmured, drawing even closer and sinking his voice even lower. “That was this morning. I came at once to get help.

“When I wake in the morning I am served with a cup of hot tea, Mr. Rood. I thought there was something queer about this morning’s breakfast cup. It didn’t taste like the good China tea I am used to, and I know good tea! My father and his father were tea importers.

“I took one sip from the cup and knew at once that my tea had been tampered with. I jumped out of bed and hurried to my bath and spat out the tea and washed my mouth thoroughly. Mr. Rood, I give you my word, that was an awful moment!”

“Did you save the rest of this tea?”

Stuyvesant shook his head. Henry sighed regretfully.

“I fear I made a mistake,” Stuyvesant said. “At the moment the only idea in my mind was inspired by terror. I poured out the tea and said nothing, lest any complaint might inform my enemy that the plot was known and provoke worse attempts.”

“How did this tea taste — in what way was it different from the usual tea?”

Stuyvesant reflected, smacking his lips thoughtfully. “It was bitter — and slightly sour — and not like tea. I can’t describe it any better—”

“There was no ill effect?”

“Not yet!” The client rolled his eyes apprehensively. He seemed to be holding his breath. “Perhaps my getting rid of it and washing my mouth saved me,” he added hopefully.

“Yes, I’m sure it did. But I wish you had saved a sample! Who prepares your morning tea?”

“Sometimes Mrs. Loos, my housekeeper. Sometimes Gertie, the maid. I think it was Gertie this morning.”

“You are making a very serious charge,” Henry said, suddenly severe. “In effect, you are casting a grave suspicion upon two women, both of whom I understand you to say, have been with you a long time—”

“A long time, yes—”

“Then why should either of them wish to put poison in your tea?”

Matthew Stuyvesant considered the abrupt question and a little gleam of cunning came into his eyes. “I have made a will, Mr. Rood. The three servants are down in that will for a substantial remembrance— Heavens, Mr. Rood! I don’t charge this against any of them — but suppose one or more of them were to think too much of that money and desire my death!”

“I suppose you have paid them good wages during your lifetime?”

“All three have been adequately taken care of,” Stuyvesant murmured.

Henry detected an evasion in the answer. “How adequately, Mr. Stuyvesant?”

“They’ve had a good home,” Stuyvesant answered rather sourly. “They’ve had the best to eat and an allowance for clothes. Yes — and pocket money, too! And they know I mean to do the handsome thing by them in my will.”

“Ah,” said Henry.

Henry thought he knew his client fairly well by this interview. He had a definite picture of a timid, conservative man of much property, a bachelor with the inherited tendencies toward thrift common to long lines of property holders, now exaggerated into stinginess.

He saw a quiet household of three servants lingering on in that bachelor’s employment because of the hope of substantial legacies; putting up with little wages because of that same hope. And he saw Matthew Stuyvesant terrified by unexplained events for which, perhaps, his own parsimony was directly to blame.

“I’ll take your case, if you wish,” Henry said then. “But you understand my services cost money, cost rather dearly in fact?”

“Name your own figure, Mr. Rood,” Stuyvesant declared, clasping his thin hands together. “I am quite content to trust to your sense of fair dealing — and generosity. If you can clear up these things that are upsetting me I’ll pay gladly.”

“No,” Henry interrupted. “I’ll have to insist that I be paid, regardless of success. Those are my terms.”

“Oh, I’m sure you won’t ask too much!” the client gasped. “Oh, I trust to your generosity. Name your fee.”

Henry named it.

Stuyvesant gasped afresh. For a moment he looked like a man inclined to bargain. Then he sighed prodigiously. “Very well, I agree. Only in goodness’ name get to the bottom of this terrible affair!”

Chapter III A Rusty, Black Tom

Henry and his client neared Matthew Stuyvesant’s home. They had ridden across the city by street car.

When they boarded the car Matthew Stuyvesant fumbled nervously in his change pocket and seemed to have difficulty finding any money.

“Allow me,” said Henry, and paid both fares.

Stuyvesant thanked him warmly, and Henry noted that he sighed with obvious relief, a cunning, sly little gleam in his eyes. But Henry considered the nickel well invested, since it further proved Stuyvesant’s hereditary objection to parting with money.

When they left the car Henry instructed his client, “Please make no reference of any sort to the attempt to poison your morning tea. To do so might provoke a further attack and put you in danger I could not handle.”

Stuyvesant promised hastily.

“Just tell your servants that you have hired me to get rid of the plague of cats,” Henry said further. “That is sufficient excuse for my visiting you.”

As they entered by an old iron gate Stuyvesant grasped Henry’s arm. “Look!” he bleated. “You see?”

It was an old brick house they faced, one of a row of old dwellings mostly used as boarding houses now. A little cement paved yard and area stood before the house, and on the brownstone steps they beheld three slinking forms — cats.

All three were those gaunt, half savage unfortunates common to cities, alley cats, marauders of ash cans, and disturbers of midnight peace. Ordinarily the theme for the jokesmith and the humorous artist, these cats did not strike Henry as humorous at the moment. Rather they were a little weird and distressing as they sat immobile, their greenish yellow eyes turned on the two men, their glances half scared, half defiant.

Not until Henry set foot on the bottom step did the three cats move. Suddenly all three uncurled their folded limbs and rose. One rusty black Tom bristled at the intruders, opened his wicked mouth and spat, baring fangs and claws big enough to make even a man thoughtful.

Then all three slipped noiselessly and sinuously off the stone steps and made way.

“You see?” Stuyvesant cried. “Day and night they haunt my house.”

A woman past middle age opened the door before Stuyvesant could use his key. Henry was introduced to Mrs. Loos, the housekeeper. She had a shrewd, rather kindly face, and was evidently a woman of practical common sense. When she learned Henry’s business there, Mrs. Loos rolled her eyes and declared it her heartfelt wish that he might succeed without loss of time.

Matthew Stuyvesant led the way to his own quarters, a study sitting room, and opening off it, through a wide arch, a bedroom. The two rooms made up the second floor accommodations.

Henry glanced about the sitting room, noted its wide, hospitable open hearth, in which a fire was laid, but not burning; its large windows, walnut furniture and figured carpet. The bedroom beyond was furnished in walnut also, walnut of a design more popular seventy years ago. The general effect was of quiet conservatism; comfort without fashion.

“I suppose this has been your home many years?” he remarked.

“All of my life — nearly. The rooms were my mother’s, first. I took them after her death.”

“And you own other houses in the row, beside this one?”

“Five,” Stuyvesant said. “The first five from the street corner.”

“Quite valuable property, I should think? I notice most of the rest of the block is built into large apartments.”

“But not my property,” Stuyvesant answered promptly. “My grandfather built these houses. He lived in this one and added the others later. My father lived here. Perhaps I’m a little old fashioned, like they were, but I dislike changes. While I live this property will remain as it is.”

“Rather an expensive taste,” Henry smiled. “I dare say for hotel or apartment use the land would bring a good price?”

“Not while I’m alive,” Stuyvesant’s mouth tightened a little. A stubborn look came into his face. “The rentals pay taxes and earn me two or three per cent over. I am content.”

“But you have had offers, no doubt?”

“Oh, offers!” A shrug. “But I really don’t see why you—”

A slight noise, just the ghost of a sound, caused both men to turn about. Stuyvesant began to retreat hastily across the room, his mouth open and his eyes staring.

Even Henry’s nerves jumped with the surprise.

A rusty, black Tom cat — Henry would have sworn it was the same he had seen on the steps as he entered — crouched on the carpet, glaring at them as though about to spring.

It had not been there a moment before, Henry could have sworn to that.

And it had not entered by the hall door, because Henry had closed the hall door carefully as he entered.

There was another door to the hall from the bedroom beyond, but he and Stuyvesant were facing that room as they talked, so the cat had not come in that way, even if it could have opened a closed door.

But there it was now, glaring at them, half crouched, the hair of its back stirring, and a low, menacing snarl rumbling in its throat.

“Stand perfectly still,” Henry said to Stuyvesant. He began to remove his own coat. It was the coat of Henry’s best suit of clothes, and he regretted having to use it so badly. But he stripped it off deftly and held it poised.

Henry took one delicate step, then another toward the cat, his eyes keenly fixed on its baleful glare.

A sudden spring and a swoop and Henry pounced with the coat outspread. The cat was a second too late in its retreat. Henry had it imprisoned in the folds of his coat.

Matthew Stuyvesant gave a shrill little cry and retreated shakily into the bedroom. His white face peeped out at Henry as the head of the Argus agency tucked the kicking, squirming bundle under his arm and let himself out into the hall.

Chapter IV Cause of the Cats

The basement front room was used by Mrs. Loos and the two other servants for their dining and sitting room. Off it opened a butler’s pantry, and then an old fashioned kitchen.

The basement room was rather pleasant and homey, and the four who visited in it were getting quite at ease.

There was Mrs. Loos in an old wicker chair, stitching busily at something held in an embroidery hoop. Next her sat Gertie, the general maid, a woman almost as old as the housekeeper, but thin, where Mrs. Loos was plump, short sighted and not beautiful.

In a third chair, rather upright and uncomfortably suspicious, Alf Doran, the furnace man and all-work man, lingered, smoking one of Henry Rood’s cigars with enjoyment, but not lulled into entire security despite that gift.

As for Henry, he was doing his best to be good company and establish himself on friendly terms with the three who made up Stuyvesant’s household staff. His youth and pink cheeks and round, innocent face were in Henry’s favor. He did not look like a detective, and he let drop hints that he was less detective than a handy man called in to rid the house of cats. In fact he had just finished relating a somewhat imaginary account of finding the black cat in Matthew Stuyvesant’s study.

“He seemed to hold it against me,” Henry complained. “Gosh, he’s got to give me a little time, hasn’t he? Believe me, I want to get the cats out of the house, because I took this job on the no-cure-no-pay basis.”

“Then you’d better kiss your money good-by,” Doran said, sourly. “I’ve been trying to get the cats out of here for two weeks. I catch the devil from the old man every day! I can’t keep ’em out, and I don’t believe anybody else can.”

“Well, maybe Mr. Stuyvesant will pay me something, even if I fail. I guess that’s only fair,” Henry mused hopefully.

Doran snorted. The two women glanced at each other, and a cynical smile passed.

“No?” Henry asked, observing this.

“I wouldn’t count on it, young man,” said Mrs. Loos.

“Any time!” Doran jeered. “His pockets are sewed up tighter than a drum.”

Gertie the maid giggled and shook her head.

“Well, you ought to know,” Henry said mournfully. “You’ve been with him quite awhile, I suppose?”

“Eighteen years for me,” Doran said. “Nineteen for you, eh, Mrs. Loos?”

“No, indeed, twenty!” Mrs. Loos corrected.

“Twenty years, Mr. Rood, every day of them spent in this very house working for Mr. Stuyvesant. And if I was to tell you the amount in wages I was paid for those twenty years.”

Mrs. Loos raised her eyes to heaven and her hands also.

The thin maid, Gertie, rolled up her blue eyes behind her thick lensed spectacles and sighed.

“Wages!” Doran snorted.

“Would you believe it, Mr. Rood,” Gertie chimed in shrilly, “I’ve been twenty-three years here, longer than any of ’em, and I get the same wages to-day I did the day I started. And if you want to know how much wages that is, I say it’s board and room and five dollars a month. And I can prove it.”

Gertie glanced at her fellow servants and both nodded earnestly, watching Henry to enjoy his astonishment. Henry looked properly astonished.

“Goodness knows, I do little better,” said Mrs. Loos. “A mere matter of fifteen a month, I do assure you, Mr. Rood.”

“Yes, and twelve a month for me,” Doran grumbled. “The old tightwad!”

“Ah,” said Henry, “but Mr. Stuyvesant will do the handsome thing by you in his will, I know!”

The three exchanged silent looks. Doran said reluctantly: “Well, providing he ever dies. I give him more years than I’ll ever see.”

“It’s not the money with me, Mr. Rood,” the housekeeper explained, confidentially. “I’m not one to set money above everything. It’s living in this old house I mind. When I came here as a young woman this house was all well enough, but time hasn’t mended it any, and the neighborhood is not what it was, I assure you.”

“It’s nothing but a slum!” said Gertie.

“A dump,” said Doran.

“Well, for my part, I could stand it, though it’s not what I’m used to,” Mrs. Loos reasoned. “But it’s bad for Mr. Stuyvesant. A man of his wealth and position! His old friends laugh at him for living here! Why doesn’t he go out to the country like a sensible person?”

“Ah, why!” Gertie exclaimed.

“I’ll tell you why,” the furnace man volunteered, hitching his chair forward. “He’s too stingy, that’s why! Too tight with his money. Afraid to spend a cent.”

“And him with an elegant place on Long Island. A fine country place, if ever there was one,” said the housekeeper. “But no, he’d rather take the rent from it.”

“He makes me so mad!” Gertie burst out. “Why don’t he sell these houses? Goodness knows he can get any price he asks. Why, he’s been offered—”

Mrs. Loos coughed sharply. Gertie stopped and bit her lip.

Doran pushed back his chair. “I’m off,” he declared.

“Yes, we gossip too much, goodness knows,” Mrs. Loos agreed. “A person would think we had nothing better to do. Would you like a bite of lunch, young man?”

“Thank you,” Henry smiled. “I breakfasted late, but I would enjoy a cup of hot tea.”

Henry watched to note if this innocent remark had any effect upon them.

It had no effect except to bring a hospitable nod from Mrs. Loos. Gertie rose. “I’ll get it for the gentleman,” she offered.

Doran gave Henry a nod and went through the butler’s pantry toward the rear of the house. The two women followed him.

The door between the dining and sitting room and the kitchen was a swing door. When they were gone Henry stepped to it and peered through the crack.

Gertie had started water to boil, and the three servants had their heads close together. They talked in whispers Henry could not distinguish, and their eyes turned toward the room he was in. They were discussing him.

The water boiled. Gertie made tea.

“I’ll take a cup myself,” Doran offered in his natural voice. He suited the action to the word by reaching down a cup from the closet and pouring for himself.

He raised his cup, sipped noisily and sputtered like a geyser. Doran bounded to the sink, seized a glass and washed his mouth with water.

“Is that nice?” said Mrs. Loos.

Over his shoulder Doran demanded: “Say, what’s the big idea? Trying to poison me?”

“What’s the matter with the man?” Gertie and Mrs. Loos chorused together.

“Matter!” Doran cried angrily. “That stuff ain’t tea. My God, maybe it’s poison!” He applied his head to the water that was streaming out of the faucet, gulping noisily.

“For evermore!” the housekeeper gasped. “Here, Gertie.” She poured herself a taste from the teapot and sipped. She passed the cup to Gertie, who tasted and shuddered.

“Where’s that tea caddy?” Mrs. Loos exclaimed. “I thought so! Look here.”

The three clustered about the tea caddy.

“I declare, Gertie, you’re getting blind as an owl,” Mrs. Loos snapped. “You got the two caddies mixed.”

“Well, what in the nation did you go put it in a tea caddy for?” Gertie mourned. “A person would think you’d know better. Oh, misery! I made up a potful of this for Mr. Stuyvesant this morning! He never said a word. Drank every drop!”

Mrs. Loos began to laugh. “I always said the man never knows what’s in his mouth!”

“But what is it?” Doran persisted. Henry saw him taste a leaf. He began to laugh, too. “Catnip!” he exclaimed.

“Shush your mouth and get out of here,” Mrs. Loos snapped. Her eyes rolled toward the room where they had left Henry. “Get out,” said Mrs. Loos, “and hold your tongue. Do you want him to hear and to spoil everything?”

Henry had seen and heard enough to throw a great light on his activities.

Catnip!

Then it was catnip tea that had been served to Matthew Stuyvesant for breakfast. The shortsighted Gertie had confused the caddy containing tea with the tin containing that contraband.

And why catnip in Matthew Stuyvesant’s house?

Why, but to lure cats to that house!

The three servants were in the conspiracy to haunt Matthew Stuyvesant with cats. Henry Rood still had to find out the motive behind that conspiracy.

Henry thought he already had a definite clew, one that he could follow up speedily.

So far as he could see into the future, the great cat mystery was turning the corner toward its successful conclusion.

Chapter V The Last Cat

Henry finished his cup of tea, borrowed a latchkey from the housekeeper, and put on his hat and coat, making an excuse for leaving.

He wanted to telephone to Milly and he did not care to have Stuyvesant’s servants overhear his instructions. He meant to put Milly on the trail of catnip. Catnip in the city comes from drug stores, and Henry did not expect much difficulty in tracing the purchaser of an herb for which there is not much demand.

On Matthew Stuyvesant’s brownstone steps the gaunt black Tom cat crouched as Henry opened the door.

The slinking beast turned its baleful green eyes on Henry and hissed.

An hour before Henry had ejected it unceremoniously, but it lingered and he no longer wondered at that.

The black alley cat had associated that house with the drug for which a cat will dare greatly.

Henry closed the door behind him and stood regarding the cat, not three feet away from it. Properly nourished, it would have been rather a handsome cat, except for a diagonal black scar across its head, a scar that looked oddly like a streak of lightning against an inky midnight sky.

“Well, Lightnin’, old boy,” said Henry, “sore at me?”

The cat regarded him with no more malevolence than it had for any of the human race. It kept out of reach and it swore softly and warningly, but that was its habit. “I treated you rough, cat,” Henry grinned. “I guess I owe you an apology. Seems to me I saw a liver shop in the next block.”

Ten cents’ worth of liver and a little patience put Henry and Lightnin’ on good terms. When Henry reentered Stuyvesant’s house, he carried Lightnin’ concealed beneath his overcoat. “If I know where this cat is, he can’t fool me another time,” Henry reasoned wisely.

During the afternoon Henry spent several busy hours on the roof of Matthew Stuyvesant’s house in company with a tinsmith. After he had washed away the traces of that sooty adventure, he called again on the second floor study and asked Stuyvesant to send for his three servants. He said to them when they assembled, all curiosity: “I have just assured Mr. Stuyvesant that there will be no more cats in this house. I’m sure you all will be glad to know that.”

Three heads nodded enthusiastically. But they nodded without conviction.

Henry went on: “I’ve had the Humane Society agent round up the strays. Of course, that may not dispose of every cat about here, but it will help. I’ve had strong screens put in all the windows. And when any of you enter or leave the house, I want you to be very careful that no cat gets in. Mr. Stuyvesant has been made seriously unwell by this disturbance, as you can see for yourselves. He must not be disturbed again.”

Matthew Stuyvesant did look ill. Two weeks of living in a cat-haunted house undoubtedly had worn down his natural powers of resistance.

“I hope your scheme works,” Doran said reluctantly. “But I’m blessed if I can see that you’ve done anything we didn’t do for the last two weeks, except Mr. Stuyvesant didn’t want to spend the money for them screens.”

“Well, I do hope it succeeds,” Mrs. Loos echoed with palpable doubt.

“My, yes!” said Gertie.

“Oh, yes, another precaution I forgot to mention,” Henry said blandly. “I had the tinner put strong wire screens over the tops of both chimneys of this house. The chimney flues lead into open grate fireplaces, you know. Just supposing a person wanted to scare Mr. Stuyvesant with cats, he might introduce a cat now and then by lowering him in a basket from the chimney top, don’t you see? So now I think we are really quite catproof!”

The three servants looked straight before them. Not a word was said. The silence was distinctly audible.

Mrs. Loos’s nervous fingers twisted up the gold fringe of a chair. Gertie clasped her hands until the knuckles turned white. Doran’s hands were on his knees, his gaze fixed on the carpet. He seemed to be holding his breath.

When Henry added genially: “Well, that’s all. I just wanted you to know what I have done,” the tension was suddenly released. The three exchanged quick glances.

“Yes, that’s all,” Matthew Stuyvesant lisped wearily. “And now I really think I shall lie down and try to get some rest. My sleep has been so broken!”

“Do,” his housekeeper urged. “You haven’t eaten a bite to-day, either. Just a snack now? No? Well then, a nice cup of hot tea?”

Henry had thoughtfully given the elderly man his arm and was able to whisper to him: “Take it, if you want it. Your poison mystery is solved. I give you my word, tea is safe.”

“Not tea,” Stuyvesant answered. “But I wish you would fix me up some of my sedative, Mrs. Loos. Just a few drops in a glass of water. I don’t trust my nervous hand to pour it.”

“Now, Mr. Stuyvesant, really!” Mrs. Loos shook her head with a frown.

“That doctor’s a fool!” Stuyvesant said angrily.

“That doctor is not a fool,” his housekeeper contradicted. “He says those drops are bad for your heart — and you know you have a weak heart!”

Stuyvesant cried out: “I tell you I’ve got to sleep and I can’t sleep without my drops. I’ve got to sleep or I’ll go mad!”

“Well, it isn’t right, and I tell you so,” Mrs. Loos grumbled. “But I’ll fix the drops.”

Stuyvesant walked wearily into his bedroom and threw himself down. Mrs. Loos lingered to answer Henry’s silent questions.

“He’s got a bad heart,” she whispered. “The doctor says if he doesn’t stop using those drops it will kill him. But don’t you worry, Mr. Young Man!” She chuckled. She favored Henry with a wink. “I mix his drops for him now,” she explained. “He thinks he’s getting his medicine, but it’s just pure water! And it makes him sleep like a baby!”

“Imagination is a wonderful thing,” Henry smiled.

“Yes, indeed it is,” Mrs. Loos agreed. She added in a louder tone: “I’ll get the bottle and bring you your dose, Mr. Stuyvesant.”

“Well, I must be on my way,” Henry said. “I’ve got to see some people, especially a certain real estate agent who handles property in this district.”

But Henry contrived to delay his going long enough to observe that Mrs. Loos, Gertie and Doran were consulting with their heads together in the basement hallway. They were discussing a secret and discussing it with angry emphasis. Henry did not try to eavesdrop. He knew what they were discussing. After the hints he had let drop, Henry did not anticipate any more visits from mysterious cats.

A moment later, in hat and coat, he passed the trio with a cheerful smile and a good-by. For answer he received the combined glare of three pairs of eyes.

It was almost six o’clock when Henry walked back toward Stuyvesant’s house. He walked briskly, and as he walked he whistled a little tune.

Ahead of him, walking briskly in the same direction, Henry recognized an acquaintance and sometimes rival, Police Captain De Kane. De Kane was in a hurry. His red face glowed like a ripe tomato and the plume of smoke from his cigar trailed out behind him.

Henry quickened his steps and greeted De Kane jubilantly.

“Where the deuce you bound for?” De Kane frowned.

“Just a little case I’m winding up,” Henry chuckled. “Queer old chap with a lot of money who’s been haunted by cats. Been following a catnip trail all day, cap, but I’ve got it all straight and figured out now. I guess Matthew Stuyvesant won’t be bothered by any more feline ghosts in his house.”

“Matthew Stuyvesant?” De Kane barked. He stopped short to glare at Henry, still puffing hard from his hurry.

“Yes, you know him?”

“Stuyvesant!” De Kane cried. “No, I guess he won’t be troubled by any more cats, Rood. Not him.” Henry had the uneasy feeling that De Kane was reveling in hidden sarcasm.

“Not Stuyvesant!” said De Kane. “If he’s your client, you’d better know about it. Matthew Stuyvesant has just been found murdered. Some hysterical woman called up headquarters and she was babbling about a big black cat sitting on Matthew Stuyvesant’s chest.”

Chapter VI Murdered by a Tom

The quiet old home of Matthew Stuyvesant was more quiet than ever. But it lacked the atmosphere of security and well being it had held these many years.

The quiet of the house was the hushed, breathless first impulse of awe and terror.

The three scared servants sat stiffly in the reception room under the guardianship of two police patrolmen, who had come off their beats to take charge, pending De Kane’s arrival.

In the second story bedroom Matthew Stuyvesant’s body lay as it had been found, stretched on the cover of his bed. Stuyvesant had removed his coat, vest and linen collar and slipped on a light dressing gown before he lay down to sleep.

The neck of this gown gaped open, exposing the dead man’s throat and chest. Henry Rood pointed silently to three red marks or punctures at the base of the throat.

“Scratches,” he murmured, keeping his voice low, as though the dead man might waken. “Scratches, like a cat might make with its claws.”

“Look at his face!” De Kane growled. “Looks like a man that was scared to death. If what I heard by telephone is so, I guess he was. You say he was scared of cats, Henry?”

Henry nodded. He went into Stuyvesant’s bath which opened off the bedroom. The door of the white enamel medicine closet was closed, but not locked. Henry looked for and found the bottle of sedative about which Stuyvesant and Mrs. Loos had disputed. The bottle was about half filled. Henry dropped it into his coat pocket. “I’ll tell you later,” he said in answer to De Kane’s stare of inquiry.

The news of his client’s death had been a violent shock to Henry. But he was not wasting any time on his own emotions. Shocks might jolt him, but they only served to make him think harder.

“I’ve seen all I want,” De Kane said. “Shall we go downstairs and question the servants?”

Matthew Stuyvesant’s death had been discovered about an hour and a half after Henry Rood left the house last. Alf Doran, the furnace man, was the discoverer.

“I had been up to my own room on the third floor,” Doran said. “I went up just after Mr. Rood left and I was there quite awhile, reading a book. Don’t get much leisure to do that in this house, and I was interested in that story. I don’t know where Mrs. Loos and Gertie was. Didn’t see ’em, didn’t hear ’em, so I guess they was down in the basement. I saw it was half past five and time to be looking after my fires, so I put on my hat and come down.

“I was just stepping off the stair onto this floor when I heard kind of a snarllike — or a yowl. The house was dead still up to then and it gave me an awful start!”

Doran shuddered in spite of himself and apologized with a grim smile. “Those damn cats,” he said. “They got on my nerves something awful the last two weeks!

“So I was standing there, surprisedlike and listening, and I hear that yowling or snarling again and it seems to come out of Mr. Stuyvesant’s room. My slithers, I says aloud, one of ’em has got in again—”

“One moment, Doran,” Henry interrupted here. “Was the hall door to Mr. Stuyvesant’s room closed?”

“Closed,” Doran answered, “but when I put my hand on it I see it had been left off the latch. Like somebody closed it and was careless about the latch.”

“I closed that door myself,” Mrs. Loos spoke up. “I guess I was the last one in that room before Doran. I was giving Mr. Stuyvesant his sleeping drops. I latched it, too. I always latch doors.”

“It was off the latch,” Doran went on steadily. “I pushed it open. I was hoping if a cat had got in there, I could shoo it out without waking the boss. I looked in. There was Mr. Stuyvesant lying just like he is now, dead. And on his chest, flattened low and snarling into his face, was that damned black cat!”

Doran’s voice shook. He wiped his face and hands with a handkerchief. “God!” he cried suddenly.

Gertie gasped a pious ejaculation.

Police Captain De Kane scowled from one face to another. De Kane was a practical man and anything not readily explained, anything that verged on the weird, annoyed him.

“Now, your story.” De Kane pointed at the housekeeper.

“The last I saw of Mr. Stuyvesant I gave him his drops,” Mrs. Loos began. “Mr. Rood knows about that—”

“I heard you speak to him about it,” Henry corrected.

“Well, I gave him the dose just after you left the house — say a matter of five minutes after. Mr. Stuyvesant went to sleep like a baby and I came back downstairs. I was in the basement sitting room going over household accounts. Gertie was out in the kitchen, getting things ready for dinner. She came and asked me about things two times and I heard her moving around, too.

“Nothing happened until just before Doran yelled for us to come. Maybe it was three or four minutes before or maybe a little less, I heard a cat yowling. I couldn’t make out where the yowling came from. I called to Gertie to listen and we both stood in the basement hall.”

Mrs. Loos, whose voice had been steady and manner composed, exhibited the first signs of hysteria as her mind reviewed that moment.

“Well?” De Kane questioned impatiently, for the housekeeper seemed unable to go on.

“Well... well, nothing came of it. We just stood there listening. Gertie was pretty rattled—”

“No more than you, Mrs. Loos!” Gertie interposed tartly.

“We heard that cat yowl a couple of times and we couldn’t locate the sound. It was a very distant sound, muffled and faint. Then Doran yelled from upstairs, and the way he yelled, we both knew something awful had happened. We ran up to the second story and saw Mr. Stuyvesant lying dead.”

“Did you see a black cat on his breast — or anywhere in the room?” De Kane asked.

Both women shook their heads.

“The window screen was pushed open,” Mrs. Loos said. “It is one of those slide screens that fit any window and it had been hit a blow — you can see the dent in the wire — and was jarred out of the frame. Doran said the black cat jumped at the screen, knocked it loose and went out over the porch roof.”

“That is quite correct,” Doran agreed.

Gertie’s statement was merely a corroboration of the housekeeper’s account.

De Kane asked: “What do you know about this, Henry?”

Henry detailed his day with Matthew Stuyvesant.

“Stuyvesant, we know, had an inherited fear of cats, one of those fears that you can’t cure,” Henry summed up. “For more than two weeks his house has been haunted by cats. Stuyvesant also had a bad heart. His nervousness disturbed his rest and his condition became dangerous, from excitement and heart strain. The natural conclusion from the story of these witnesses is that Matthew Stuyvesant came out of his sleep this afternoon to find one of those uncanny cats lying on his breast, snarling into his face. The shock of that horrible waking stopped his weak heart forever. In other words, Matthew Stuyvesant died of acute fright.”

“Sounds reasonable,” De Kane agreed. “Our police surgeon says shock and a bad heart. Damn weird kind of case. And it doesn’t look any too good for you, Henry. You being hired to keep cats out of his house!”

“No,” Henry said humbly. “It looks bad for me, I’m afraid.”

There was a rather awkward silence.

Doran stirred uneasily after a few minutes. “Saints alive!” he muttered. “I’ll never forget that old devil cat so long as I live!”

Chapter VII The Cat Mystery Clears

They all stared solemnly at Doran.

Henry asked absently: “Did you get a good look at that cat, Doran?”

“I certainly did!”

“Could you describe it?”

“I certainly could. It’s that ugly black Tom that’s been haunting our house for two weeks. A devil if there ever was one. I’d know him any place by the crooked white scar across his head.”

“I’d give a lot to know how he got into this house,” Henry puzzled.

“Tell you what I think, Mr. Rood,” Doran volunteered. “Not meaning to criticize or nothing, but I think that cat slipped in past you when you went out. Stands to reason, because you was the last person that left the house. That’s how he slipped in.”

“God forbid!” Henry cried. “I could never forgive myself if that were true.”

The doorbell rang.

“I think,” said Henry, “perhaps that is some people I sent for. Will you have your man send them in, captain?”

“Sure,” De Kane agreed wonderingly. “Anything that will help this case along!”

A patrolman ushered in two visitors. The first was Milly Canby, whose eyes flew to Henry. Henry smiled wearily. “Please sit down and wait a minute, Milly,” he said.

The advent of the second visitor produced a noticeable awkwardness. The three servants stiffened and stared hard.

The newcomer was a round, conservatively dressed man of middle age. He had a sly, sober face with long nose and close-set little eyes. He bore an ultra conservative, church vestryman look about him, a look somehow belied by the sly twinkle of his eyes and a slight redness of his nose.

“Captain De Kane,” Henry said, “this is Mr. James Topping, a realty broker. I took the liberty of sending for him to help clear up some matters about Mr. Stuyvesant.” Henry explained rapidly to Topping the details of Stuyvesant’s death.

“Mr. Topping,” he said then, “you deal extensively in property in this locality?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know these five houses in this block owned by Mr. Stuyvesant?”

“Very well, indeed.”

“Very well, indeed! So well, in fact, that you have made numerous offers to purchase them from Mr. Stuyvesant? These offers were made on behalf of a realty syndicate which hoped to build a large apartment hotel on this property?”

“I don’t deny it,” Topping said, growing a little uneasy.

“No, you don’t deny it. I’m glad to hear that,” Henry agreed gravely. “In fact, Mr. Topping, your client, the realty syndicate, was so anxious to get hold of Stuyvesant’s land that a handsome bonus was promised in addition to the usual broker’s commission?”

“I don’t deny it,” the broker answered.

“Then I shall tell you something else, Mr. Topping. First, you received a call from me late this afternoon?”

“Yes, I did—”

“I represented myself as hopeful of influencing Mr. Stuyvesant to sell to your syndicate?”

“Correct—”

“And I bargained with you about what I would be paid if I swung this deal. Your final offer was a commission of twenty thousand dollars.”

“Correct,” Topping nodded. “Nothing criminal about that, I hope?” he demanded.

“Not at all,” Henry agreed. “You also informed me that others had been trying to influence Mr. Stuyvesant toward this sale, didn’t you? You informed me that the three servants in this house had been working for you for some time?”

“Correct again!”

“And that the servants had been promised a like reward, twenty thousand dollars, if they could induce their employer to sell out?”

“Why not? Nothing wrong about that. Just the usual way in our business,” Topping retorted uneasily.

“That’s all then, and thank you for your frankly given testimony,” Henry answered. “I don’t think we need any more of your valuable time.”

James Topping, with De Kane’s added permission, took himself out of the house.

Matthew Stuyvesant’s three servants had turned red and white during this examination. Gertie looked on the point of a shrill outburst. Mrs. Loos was biting her lips angrily. Doran sneered his defiance, being obviously tempered by qualms of uneasy doubt.

“Well, what are you getting at?” De Kane asked.

“Just a minute more,” Henry begged. “I hope to get somewhere. I’d like to speak to my assistant in private.”

Milly’s eyes had been signaling for Henry’s attention.

Watched by the others, Henry and Milly talked briefly in whispers. In the midst of this colloquy Henry uttered one audible gasp of surprise which he turned into a cough.

Presently Henry and Milly turned back to the group. “You know Miss Canby, my assistant, Captain De Kane? I want you to hear some testimony from her. But first I’ll tell you what I am driving at.”

Henry’s round, youthful face was very serious. He let his gaze dwell on Stuyvesant’s three servants.

“I think what Topping told us clears up the mystery of the cats which haunted this house, captain. These three people, Mrs. Loos, Gertie, and Doran, worked for Matthew Stuyvesant many years. They were paid starvation wages. But they lingered on because Mr. Stuyvesant put them down for a handsome remembrance in his will, provided they did not leave his employ.

“But Mr. Stuyvesant remained in good health and their expectations of a reward seemed very remote. And then another source of income appeared. That was the proposition — I won’t say how ethical it was — made by Topping. Topping’s customer wants this property badly. Topping was able to offer a small fortune to anybody who could induce Stuyvesant to make the sale. And three people who knew Stuyvesant like a book hit upon the plan of making his house so uncomfortable that he would be driven to sell out and move away. Do I make it clear?”

De Kane nodded, keenly interested.

The three servants made no denial.

“So long as it appeared to me that Mr. Stuyvesant’s death was due to fright, when he waked to find a cat on his bed, I realized that we could never bring a case against any person here,” Henry went on sternly, “To be quite frank with you, while I knew that these three actually conspired to haunt this house with cats, I was not sure but it was my own carelessness that was responsible for that cat which scared Stuyvesant into heart failure. But now I know something of far greater importance!”

Henry’s voice took on a stronger vehemence.

“Matthew Stuyvesant’s death was not caused by fear,” he said firmly. “Matthew Stuyvesant was murdered. And that murder was accomplished not by frightening a man with a weak heart, but by a deliberate, poisonous overdose of sleeping drops that would kill a horse. And one of these three old servants of Mr. Stuyvesant’s is the murderer!”

Chapter VIII Not Cats, But Catnip

After a moment of stupefied silence Mrs. Loos sprang to her feet. “I want to say—” she began.

Captain De Kane roared: “Sit down, and keep quiet!”

The housekeeper subsided. De Kane ordered one of the patrolmen to watch the three of them. “Go ahead, Henry,” he said, “you’ve got the floor. But you’ll have to prove what you say a lot better than you have so far!”

“I’ll try to, captain,” he said and took from his coat pocket the bottle of sedative he had found in the medicine closet. “This is the medicine which was used to kill Stuyvesant. A harmless sedative, unless the dose is too large—”

“Oh, is it?” Mrs. Loos cried. “Is it, indeed? I guess you don’t remember very well, young man! That’s the bottle I gave Mr. Stuyvesant his dose from, yes. And I’ll tell you what’s in it. Plain water! Just common, pure water!”

The housekeeper looked at them in grim triumph.

“I told you that myself, in this very house this afternoon, young man,” Mrs. Loos declared.

Henry said to De Kane: “There is a registered pharmacist just around the corner. Ask one of the boys to have the contents of this bottle identified, captain. It won’t take long, I think.”

When a man had gone on that errand Henry spoke to Mrs. Loos. “You did tell me about the water this afternoon, Mrs. Loos. You told me that Mr. Stuyvesant’s doctor forbade his using the sedative because of his weak heart. You said that you were fooling him by substituting water for the drops.”

“Well, I’m glad you have the decency to remember!”

“And you kept just pure water in that bottle?” Henry prompted.

“Yes,” Mrs. Loos snapped. “I poured the medicine down the sink three weeks ago, and put in water out of the faucet. It was water I gave him to-day — a good, stiff dose of it. It fooled him like it always did and he went to sleep.”

They waited in silence for the return of the messenger. He was soon back, bringing the pharmacist in person.

“The contents of this bottle,” said the pharmacist, gravely returning it, “is used commonly for sleeping drops or sedative.”

“Safe to take?” De Kane asked.

“If the patient takes the prescribed dose — and his heart is normal.”

“An overdose — say, for a man with a very bad heart?”

“If it was much of an overdose,” the pharmacist answered gravely, “it would kill a man like a bullet, supposing he had a bad heart.”

Mrs. Loos sprang from her chair at the words. The scream she gave was so wild and despairing it brought them all from their chairs. Then the housekeeper crumpled up in a faint.

“Shame on you, to accuse her!” Gertie cried at Henry, her face red, her lean, stringy neck stretched forward angrily. Gertie’s short-sighted blue eyes glittered.

“Mrs. Loos is an innocent woman. I say it, who have worked beside her all these years and know her heart.”

“Then maybe it was you gave the old man an overdose of his dope?” De Kane suggested brutally.

“It was not,” Gertie snapped. “I don’t say I never had such an idea in my head, mind you. But I never did it.”

“Very well,” said Henry. “But you can tell us one thing. After we left Mr. Stuyvesant’s room this afternoon, and before Mrs. Loos gave him medicine, you three got together in the basement hall and talked about something. What was it you talked about?”

“About you,” Gertie answered promptly.

“Mrs. Loos said it was plain you had found out about the cats. And since you had stopped up all the ways of getting them into the house and had got wise to us, we would have to stop that business.”

“Correct,” Doran volunteered. “Just what we agreed.”

Mrs. Loos nodded weakly.

“What I am getting at,” Henry said to De Kane, “is that these three conspirators saw they were beaten in their hope to earn Topping’s bribe. Now, what I expect to prove is that one of them, cheated of that expectation and more desperate for money than the others, went on to murder. I want you to listen to Milly Canby, captain.”

Milly began: “ ’Enry — Mr. Rood — telephoned me this afternoon. His orders were to visit drug stores about this neighborhood and try to trace the purchase of catnip. He wanted the names or descriptions of any persons buying catnip during the last few weeks. Altogether I visited twenty-six stores. Five of them had sold catnip during that time, and I got a couple of descriptions.

“In the last store I visited, the druggist took me back of the store partition to talk confidentially. While we were talking a man came in. The druggist peeped out of the little hole in the ground glass.

“He said to me: ‘That’s the man! He bought some catnip three weeks ago!’

“I peeped through the spy hole and saw the customer. The druggist went out to wait on him. When he came behind the partition, I asked if the man wanted more catnip.

“ ‘No,’ the druggist said, ‘it’s a prescription this time. He’s after a sedative. It’s dangerous stuff, and I have to be careful.’

“The druggist showed me that prescription. I saw the doctor’s name. I saw the druggist fill it and sell the bottle to the man—”

“Identify the man,” Henry prompted.

Milly turned and pointed at Alf Doran.

De Kane and his two patrolmen tensed their muscles and prepared for an outburst of denial or defiance. They all expected a scene. And they were cheated.

Doran raised his head and stared.

“Absolutely correct,” he said calmly. “I had that prescription filled this afternoon. It was the prescription Mr. Stuyvesant’s doctor made out for him. Mrs. Loos sent me to get it filled. She said the bottle was empty and Stuyvesant couldn’t sleep without the drops. She gave me the money to pay for it. I brought the bottle back and gave it to her. Then I went up to my own room, like I told you before.”

Again Mrs. Loos sprang to her feet, her accusing finger stabbing at the furnace man. She gasped haltingly: “Then — it was — you! You murdered him.”

“I deny that,” Doran said composedly.

Chapter IX Scar-Faced Tom

De Kane turned on Doran, his manner threatening. “You,” he growled. “Be mighty careful now. You deny this woman’s charge?”

“Certainly.”

“But you admit you lied. You concealed that errand to the drug store!”

“Correct. If you ask me why, I’ll tell you why. I thought that old girl was up to something. That’s God’s truth—”

“You mean to say you suspected this murder and concealed your knowledge?” Henry gasped.

“Correct,” Doran nodded, calm and defiant. “Why? Well, two reasons. I was kind of sorry for Mrs. Loos, knowing how she banked on getting rich if we swung the sale of the house. Second, I could have used some money myself — and if Stuyvesant was dead I stood to get a couple thousand by his will.”

There was something about this revelation of cold-blooded complicity that had De Kane convinced. It left that choleric captain sputtering, but satisfied.

Henry Rood looked badly shaken.

But Henry persisted: “Then just for the sake of the record, I ask you again, your story is correct about finding Mr. Stuyvesant dead?”

“Absolutely,” Doran agreed. “I came out of my room at half past five. I heard a cat yowl. I went into his room looking for the cat and there he lay on the bed, dead. The black cat was flattened out across him and snarling into his face—”

“The black cat with the scarred head?” Henry asked.

“The black cat with the scarred head, yes, sir. I got a good look at it when it made a bolt for the window and knocked the screen loose.”

“Very good,” said Henry quietly. “Will you all come downstairs with me?”

“What now?” De Kane growled suspiciously.

“Something to show you,” Henry promised. “All of you.”

They made a queer little procession toward the basement, the patrolmen bringing up the rear to keep an eye on the suspects.

In the dimly lighted basement hall they all stopped suddenly and listened.

Gertie screamed aloud: “Oh, my heavenly faith!”

Mrs. Loos gasped: “There it is again!”

De Kane glared a question at Henry, and Milly clutched his arm in her fright. Even Doran turned white.

“Sounds like a cat, doesn’t it?” Henry remarked placidly. “Yes, I should say it is a cat.”

It certainly was the yowl of a cat, a long drawn, deep-toned snarling cry, faint and muffled.

“Come along,” said Henry, and led the way to the stair that communicated with the cellar below.

At the stair head was a small closet. Henry took a key from his pocket. “Try the door, captain,” he invited.

“It’s locked,” De Kane announced.

Just then the yowling came again, louder, more insistent. It came from behind the locked door.

“The door is locked,” Henry agreed. “I locked it. That was about three o’clock this afternoon. You see, I have the key.”

Henry used the key and opened the door a crack.

“Lightnin’!” he whispered through the crack. “Hey, puss, puss! Hey, boy!”

Something black and slinking tried to force itself through the crack of the door.

“Look him over carefully,” Henry invited, holding the door against the cat. “Examine that head, will you? See anything?”

“Anything!” De Kane shouted. “It’s the black cat with the crooked white scar. The black cat Doran says he saw on Stuyvesant’s bed!”

De Kane wheeled on the furnace man.

“You lied,” he roared. “You lied from start to finish. You and your mysterious black cat. You went out and bought that dope and gave it to the old man yourself. When he died, you scarred his throat to bear out your damned lie about the cat scaring him to death. And when that lie wouldn’t hold water, you tried to blame murder on an innocent woman. Answer me, Doran! Was it you who killed Matthew Stuyvesant?”

Doran’s wandering eye turned back to the gaunt black cat. He shuddered. “Yes,” he snarled. “Yes, I did.”

“Well,” said Henry Rood, drawing a deep breath of relief, “nobody would ever have proved it if you hadn’t been too artistic with that story about the cat. But when you asked me to believe that Lightnin’ let himself out of a locked door and ran upstairs and scared the old man to death, then ran back and locked himself in again, you asked for something beyond belief. Even a cat can’t do impossible things, Doran.”