TRAPPED!

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 141, 16 June 1922, Page 10

TRAPPED!

SHORT STORY.

(By WILLIAM FR-EEMAX.) This morning I had a visit from Biliberr.V. He doesn't often (blow in, but when he does he's generally fairly cheerful. This time he looked as though he had been reading 'The Undertaker's G-av.ette' in a north-east wind. "What ?'' 1 asked. '•Listen," Said Bilberry. "You're a hums.n being. You've a heart. Well — no, 1 won't have a cigarette. Nor a drjnic—yet. I want your opinion. 1 want to know if I've a claim against Frittleshatn. the chap who lives next door to mc. He may not have been responsible for the mouse, but " "The mouse I' , '•Yes. Alonzo. My blood still boils ■■•hen I think of it. Of course. Julia blames mc. But she always does. If it wasn't for their wives "men would lead comparatively blameless lives."' 1 concurred. [ "It began on the day she discovered wisps of newspaper wattered about the bottom of the kitchen cupboard, At first .Julia was inclined to put it down to the girl, who had parked her iboxes and left at five minutes' notice the evening before. But. a« I pointed out, no girl of ordinary intelligence—and o»r girl's intelligence was very ordinary indeed— would chew up a month-old copy of 'The Daily Hash" ami scatter it over the floor, merely to irritate her mistress. The criminal was a mouse. Obvious enough! But I've wished a good many times since that I had never «aid it. 'VTulia fell in with the mouse theory right away. Said the little 'brute must have come in from next door. We're semi-detached, you know." I nodded sympathetically. "At the corner of our road." Bilberry continued, "a man named Flagg runs the Eureka Household Stores. He makes a speciality of small la'boiir-saving devices. It occurred to mc that he would be a promising sort of chap to turn to for help, and he was. I've never met a man who promised more. As soon as I breathed the word 'mouse-trap' he whisked out a tray and exhibited about thirty, all different. I'd. no idea the little ibeasts were so—so pampered. ""We difcusssed them pretty thoroughly and in the end I invested in a pattern that was Flagg*s own favourite—a block of wood with a little tunnel drilled in it. You sprinkled a fe/w crumbs at the far end of the tunnel, and then drew down a wire loop attached to a spring and kejpt it down with a thread. The thread barred the 'way to the .crumbs, and the theory was that the mouse would see the bait and gnaw its way through the thread to get at it. Then the wire loop, through which he had shoved hie head, would whiz up, and the next item would, be a funeral. Affair of an instant, as you might say. "Julia sniffed when she saw the trap —my wife's a born sniffer—and challenged mc. to set it. The job took an hour and a-quarter, and Julia said that if she had known that I was going to use that eort of language, she would have spent the day with her married 6ister. '"But the trap didn't work. Our own particular rodent must have had an extra long tongue or an extra thin nose, for he got the bait, night after night, without worrying himself to gnaw through the thread. I told Flagg so when I took back the tray. . . Yes, Julia insisted on my taking it back. " t&y second investment was a stupendous affair. They gave you a six-teen-page booklet of instructions with the thing, and it was jolly well needed. I explained to Flagg that ours seemed an intellectual sort of mouse, and capable of associating cause and effect, and he said that this was exactly the type of trap to appeal to it. '"The little 'beggar was expected to go in.lby a, self-closing door, to clinvb .a flight of stairs, push open another door, toddle along a passage, turn to the right, negotiate a third door, climb a slope, turn to the left, and wind up the evening's entertainment .by taking a fl>leap at a chunk of bait suspended over a metal flap that was guaranteed to flap him down into fifteen inches of water. The whole arrangement cost four and sixpence, and was labelled 'Hygienic' I've always noticed that you have to pay extra for hygienic inventions. ""I took it home. Julia's first impres«ion was that it was a portable washingmachine; her nostrils curled a bit when I explained its real use. If you knew Julia, you'd understand what I mean. There wasn't room for the thing at the bottom of the cupboard until I Tcmoved the shelf above. A good deal of plaster came down during the removal, and the jofo took the best part of three hours. But it was done at last. "Julia prophesied from the first that Alonzo—yes, we absolutely had to give the little brute a name! —wouldn't go in. She was right. I don't altogether blame him. He must have felt like a City man strolling out casually to get lunch, and finding that the only place open was St. Paul's, with milk and buns being served in the Whispering Gallery. He was anxious to give satisfaction, but he jibbed at the 'Hygienic' "So—yes, you've guessed right. We reserved it as an emergency cage for the canary, and I got another trap. This one was the last word in simplicity—■'! just a email, flat piece of wood and a spring. You set it. Mouse daibs his nose on the bait. Spring, released, whizzes over and gives him one on the vertebrae. Xo gnawing through thread, no dimbing, no nose dives. Kasv as collecting sea-ehelle. " 'Used all over the country,' Flagg assured mc. "I fancy that was trie trouble. Alonzo had already heard of the thing and practised on it. The way he would clear off with every particle of bait was a knock-out —an albsolute Maskelyne-and-Devant mystery. I would set the trap and bait it with oatmeal—Julia swore by oatmeal —and within an hour every trace of the stuff would be gone and the trap still set. At last things reached such a pitch fchat he would hardly wait for us to clear ouj of the kitchen before he would get busy. It wae like feeding a pet rabbit. "I didn't object. But Julia did. Her theory was that Mie trap wasn't set deftly enough. I got ?o export at last : that the thing went off if you coughed, or opened the door, or switched on the light. The spring would go, and the oatmeal would scatter itself all over the cupboard floor. After which you would wipe it up and start afresh, and sneak out of the room on tiptoes. ■'But Alonzo continued to take the ■bait. He got on my nerves to such an extent that I u.=fd to dream about him, and wake up in the small hours thinking I had heard the muffled click that marked his end. Last night I had the most vivid dream of all. It was so vivid that, without disturbing Julia, i slid into a dressing-gown and slippers, grabbed an electric torch, and went downstairs.

"I had got as far as the hall level— our kitchen is a half-'basement —when I heard a scuffling noise, and the sound that our cupboard door make 3 when it is opened slowly. That made my hair bristle a bit. I had never actually met Alon/.o faoe to face, but I had always pictured him as a fairly normal mouse as regards Not a beast capable of opening doors six feet high. It was also diabolically cold, and when I reached the 'bottom of the last, flight I discovered that tlio casement window of the scullery was open. "As I paused for a moment T heard a sudden ghastly screech, and then something streaked past mc with something else chattering at the end of it. I felt its fur against my knees. . . Kveu now—yes, old man. I will. Thanks! "You've heard of people being rooted to (he ypot with horror. WpII, I was rooted like an oak. The battery of the torch was pretty well exhausted.' and gave a poor light. But I had a conviction that Alonzo would make a return trip. lie did. with another screech. 1 caught a glimpse of his ej'es. They were like those of a panther. I did my best to persuade myself that the whole business was » nightmare. I tried to edge my way into the kitchen to switch on the ligiit. But my legs were petrified with cold as well as funk. On top of which I heard steps coming down from the bedroom. The front door opened, ami someone started blowing a police whistle.

"There was a constable on point-duty n few yards away, and he sprinted to the scene of 'battle at top speed. 1 hoard him mounting the steps and asking questions, and .Julia saying "B-b-bur-giars! Cutting his throat. Murdering him! Who? James, my husband. Who else would they want to murder? He must have gone down and ' "A second policeman arrived, and the pair of them came downstairs to where 1 was still standing like a monument. It had all happened too quickly for mc to call out. There was 1, now in pitch darkness, with Alonzo barging around I a 'few yards away. ""Hands up!' said the first man, and I put them up. The second man reminded mc that anything I said was lialble to be used as evidence against mc, and finished up with a yell as something whizzed past him. I was trying to explain the position when we heard a thud on the landing above. It was Julia. She had fainted. The first constable helped mc to heave her on to the dining room couch. There, after an interval, she opened her eves. A minute after that she screamed and pointed. "From under the table crawled a cat —the Frittlesham cat. It must have butted in through the unlatched scullery window. On the end of its tail was the trap and a few grains of oatmeal. It made straight for -Julia and dropped a dark object at her feet. Length of object—one inch! length of object's tail—'three inches. '"It was Alonzo. Dead, quite dead. But his eyes were open, and his lipa were curved in a faint, scornful smile, as though he was telling himself that he had had a jolly good run for his money. Which he had. That's all. Thanks tremendously, old man, tor listening. Well, if you insist, just a thimbleful."