"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7296, 8 January 1902, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

♦ . THE GREY CAT. (By BARRY PAIN.) Author of "Playthings and Parodies," "In a Canadian Canoe," "Mrs DenmsonS Diamonds," "Saved by the Flood," etc, etc. •'. j I heiard this storjr from Archdeacon l/[ I should imagine that it would riot be very difficult, by trimming it a little and altering the facts here and there, to make it capable of some simple explanation ; but I have preferred to tell it as it was told to me. \ After all, there is some explanation possible, even if there is not one definite and simple explanation clearly indicated. It must rest with the reader whether he will prefer to believe that some of the so-called! uncivilised races may possess occult powers transcending anything of which the sooalled civilised are capable, or whether lie will consider tFat a* series of coincidences is sufficient to account for the extraordinary incidents whioh in a plain brief way I am abont to relate. It does not seem to me essential to state which view I hold myself, or if I hold neither and have reasons for not stating a third possible explanation, I must add a word or two with regard! to Archdeaoon M . At the time of this story he was in his fiftieth year, He was "a fine soholar, a man of considerable learning. His religious views were remarkably broad— his enemies said, remarkably thin. Ta his younger days he had been something of an athlete, but owing to age, sedentary habits, and some amount of self-indul-gence, he had grown stout, and no longer took exercise in any farm. He had no nervous trouble of any kind. His death, from heart disease, took place about three years ago. He told me the story twice, a* my request; there was an interval of abont six weeks between the. two narrations > come of the details were elicited by cpuetions of my own. With this preliminary note we may proceed to the story. In January, 1881, Archdeacon M , who wa« a great admirer of Tennyson's poetry, came up to London .fcr a few days, chiefly in order to wwitnes s " the performance of "The Cup" at the kyceum. He was not present on the first night (Monday, January 3rd), but on a later night in the. same week. At that time, of course, the poet had not received his peerage nor the actor his knighthood. • ' .- , • , On leaving the theatre, less satisfied with the play than with the magnificence of the setting, the Archdeacon- found some slight difficulty in getting a cab.- He walked a little way down the Strand to find _ one, when he encountered unexpectedly his old friend, Guy Breddon. > Breddon (that was not his real name) was a man of considerable fortune, a member oi the learned societies, and devoted to Central African exploration. . "He was two or three years younger than the Archdeacon, and a man of tremendous physique, Breddon was surprised to find the Arch-; deacon in London, and the Archdeaoon was equally surprised to find /Breddon in> England at all. Breddon carried off the Arohdeacon witfr him to his rooms, and sent a servant in at cab to the Eangham to pay the Archdeacon's bill and fetch his luggage. The Archdeacon protested, bnt faintly, and Breddon would not hear of his hospitality j being refused. Breddon's rooms were an expensive suite, immediately over a ruinous tapholsteter's, in a street off Berkeley Equate. There was a private street door, and from it a Srivate staircase to the fiflst and second oors. The smtepf rooms on the first 4ioor ? .occupied by Breddon, | was. entirely shut off from the staircase by a door. The second floor suite, tenanted by an Irish M.P., was similarly shut off, and at that time was unoccupied. Breddoj* and the Archdeacon passed through ihe strpet door and np the stairs to the first landing, whence by the staircase door they entered the flat. Breddon had only recently taken the flat, and the Archdeaoon, had bever been there before. It consisted of fi. broad L-shaped passage, with rooms opening into it. There were many trophies oft the walls. Horned heads glared at them. Stealthy, but stuffed, beasts watched them furtively from under the tables. There was a perfect arsenal of murderous weapons, gleaming brightly under the shaded gas lights. Breddon's servant prepared supper for them beflpre leaving for the Langham, and soon the two men were discussing Mr Tennyson, Mr Irving, and a parody of the " Queen of the May " which had recently appeared in "Punch," and doing justice to aome oysters, a cold pheasant with an excellent salad, and a bottle of '74 Pommery. It was characteristic of the Archdeacon that he remembered exactly the items of the supper, and that Breddon rather neglected . the wine. After supper th^y passed into,. the library, ' •where a bright fire was burning. The Archdeacon walked towards the fire, Tubbing his plump hands together. As he did ■o a portion of the great rug of grey fur on which he w£s standing seemed to rise up. It was a grey cat of enormous size, larger than any that the Archdeacon had seen before, and of the same colour as the rug on which it had been sleeping. It rubbed itself affectionately againsfc the Archdeacon's leg, and purred as he- bent down to etroke it. " What an extraordinary animal !" said the Archdeacon. " I had no idea cats could grow to this size. Its head's queer, too — so much too small for the body." "Yes," said Breddon, "and his feet are just as much too big." The grey cat stretched himself voluptuously under the Archdeacon's caressing hand, and the feet could be seen plainly. They were very broad, and the claws, which rihot out, teemed unusually powerful andi well-developed. The beast's coat was short, thick, and wiry. " Most extraordinary," the Archdeacon repeated. He lowered himself into a comfortable chair by the fire. He was still bending over the cat and playing with it, when a ■light ohink made him look up; Breddon was potting something down on the tablo behind the liqueur decanters. * , "Any particular breed?" the Archdeacon asked. , : "Not that I know of. Freakish, I should say. We found him on board the boat when I left for horne — may have come there after mice. He'd have been thrown overboard but for me. I got-rather interested to him. Smoke?" "Oh! Thank you." Outside a cold north wind screamed in quick gusts. Within came the sharp scratch of the match. : <yi the ribbed glass as the Archdeacon lit his qgar, the bubble of the rose-water in Bredd&n's hookah, the •oft step of Breddon's man carrying the Archdeacon's luggage into the "bedroom at the end of the L-sbaped passage, and the constant purring of the big grey oat. . rt And what's the cat's name?" the Archdeacon asked. Breddon laughed. "Well, if you must have the plain truth, he's called Grey Devil — Or more frequently Devil tout court." "Really, now, really! You oan't expect an Arobdeaoon to use such abominable language. I shall call him Grey — or perhaps Mr Grey would be more respectful, seeing the shortness of qur acquaintance. Do yon object to the smell of smoke, Mr Grey? The intelligent beast does not object. Probably you've accustomed him to it." "Well, seeing what his name is, he cculd hardly object to smoke, could he?" Breddon's servant entered. As the door opened and shut, one heard for a moment the crackle of the newly-lit; fire in the room that awaked the Archdeacon. The servant swept up the hearth, and under Archdeaconal direction, mixed a lengthy brandy and soda. He retired, with the information that he would not be wanted again that night. "" Did yon notice," asked the Archdeacon, " the way Mr Grey followed your man about. I never saw a more affectionate cat." "Think ao?' said Breddon. "Watch this time." For th& first time-he approached the grey

cat, and stretched out his hand as if to ! pet him. In an instant the cat seemed to have gone mad. Its claws shot out, its back hooped, its coat bristled, its tail sfood erect; it cursed and spat, and its small green eyes glared. But a close observer would have noticed that all the time it watched not only Breddon, but also that object which had chinked as Breddon had put it down behind the decanters. The Archdeacon lay back in his chair, and laughed heartily. - "What funny creatures they are — and never so funny as when they lose their tempers! Really, Mr Grey, out of respect to my cloth you might have refrained from swearing like that. Poor Mf Grey ! Poor puss !" . Breddon resumed his seat, with a grim smile ; the grey cat slowly subsided, and then thrust its head, as though demanding sympathy, into the fat palm of the Archdeacon's dependent hand. Suddenly the Archdeacon's eye lighted on the object which the cat had been watching, visible now that the servant had displaced the decanters. "Goodness me!" he exclaimed. "You've got a revolver there." "That is so," said Breddon. "Not loaded, I trust?" .'"._■ " Oh, yes — fully loaded." "But isn't that very dangerous?" "Well, no; I'mi used to these things, and I'm not careless with them. I should have thought it more dangerous to have introduced Grey Devil to you without it. He's much more powerful than an .ordinary cat, and I fancy, there's something beside cat in his pedigree. When I bring a stranger to see him, I keep the cat cover* ! ed with the revolver until I see how lhe land lies. To do the brute justice, he has always been most friendly with J everybody except myself. I'm his only antipathy. He'd have gone for me just now, but that he's smart enough to be afraid of this/ He tapped the revolver. "I see," said the Archdeacon seriously, " and can guess how it. happened. You scared him . one day by firing the revolver ] for joke; the report frightened him, and he's never forgiven you or forgotten the revolver. Wonderful memory some of these animals have!" "Yes," said Breddon, "but that guess won't do. I have never, intentionally or by chance, given the 'Devil* any reason for his fenmity. So far as I know he has never heard a firearm, and certainly he .has never heard one since I made his acquaintance. Somebody may have scared him before, and I'm inclined to think that somebody did, for there can be no doubt that the brute knows all that a cat need know about a revolver, and that he's scared of j it. .. , . - _ 'j " The first time we met was almost in darkness. Td got some cases that I was particular about, and the captain had said I could go down to look after them. Well, this beast suddenly came out of a lump of black and flew at me. I didn't even recognise that it was a cat, because he's so mighty big. I fetched him a clip on the .side of the head that knocked him off, and whipped out my ison.. He was away in a : streak. He knew. And I've had plenty of proof since that he knows. He'd bite me now if .he had the chance, but he understands that he hasn't got the chance. I'm often half inclined to take him on plain— shooting barrel— and to feel my own hands breaking his damned neck." " Really, old man, really '."said the Archdeacon in perfunctory protests as he rose and mixed himself another drink. , " Sorry to use strong language, but 1 don't love that cat, you know."The Archdeacon expressed his surprise that in that case Breddon did'not get rid of the brute. "You come across him on board ship and he flies at you. ■ You cave his life, give him board and lodging, and he still hates you so much that he won't let you touch him ; and you are no fonder of him than he is of you. Why don't you part company?" " As for his board, I've rarely known him to eat anything but his own kill. He goes out hunting every night. I kick him : Simply and solely because I'm afraid of j him. As long as I ; can kick him, I know my nerves are all right. If I let my funk iof him make any difference— well, I shouldn't be much good in a Central African forest. At. first! had some idea of taming him — and besides, . there was a queer coincidence." ■ - He rose and opened the window, and Grey Devil slowly slunk up to it. He paused a few moments on the window-sill j and then suddenly sprang and vanished. "What was the coincidence?" j, "What do you think of that?" Breddon ' Banded the Archdeacon a figure of a' cat, which he had taken from the manteJpiece, It was a little thing about three inches high. In colour, in the small head, enormous feet, and curiously human eyes, it seemed an exact reproduction of Grey j Devil. « j " A perfect likeness. How did you get it made?" "I got the likeness before I got the original. A little Jew dealer sold it me the night before I left for England. He thought it was Egyptian, and described it as an idol. Anyhow tit was a nici^h piece of jade." . • -*. "I always thought jado was bright green." , "It may be — or white — or brown. It '•varies. I don't think there can be any \ doubt that thi? little figure is old, though I doubt if it's Egyptian." Breddon put it back in its place. "By the way, that same night the little Jew came to try to buy it back again. He offered me twice what I had given for it. I said he must have found somebody who was pretty keen on it. I asked if it was a collector. The Jew thought not — said it was a coloured gentleman. I wasn't going to do anything to oblige a nigger. The Jew pleaded that it was a. particularly fine buck-nigger, with mountains . of money, who'd been tracking tbe thing for years, and hinted at all manner of mumbo-jumbo busihess-^-to scare me, I suppose. ' However, I wouldn't listen and kicked him out. Then came the coincidence. Having boughtthe likeness, next day I found the living original. Rum, wasn't it?" At this moment the clock struck, and the Archdeacon recognised with horror that it was very, very much past the time when respectable Archdeacons should be in bed and asleep. He rose and said good-night, observing that he'd like to hear more about it on the morrow. This was extremely unfortunate; for, it wili be seen, it is just at this part of the story that one wants full details, and on the morrow it became impossible to elicit them. Before leaving the library Breddon closed the window, and the Archdeacon asked how "Mr Grey," as he called him, would get back. "Very likely he's back already. He's got a special window in the kitchen — made on purpose — just big enough to. let him get in and out as he likes." " But don't other cats get in, too ?" " No !" said Breddon. " Other cats avoid Grey Devil." The Archdeacon found himself unaccountably nervous when he got to his room. He owned to me that he had to satisfy himself that there was no one concealed under the bed, and after a little while fell into a deep sleep ; his fire was burning brightly, and the room was quite light. Shortly after four he was awakened by a loud scream. Still sleepy, he did not for the moment locate the' sound, thinking that it must have come from the street outside. But almost immediately afterwards he heard the report of a revolver, fired twice in quick succession, and then, after a short pause, a third time.

The Archdeacon was terribly frightened. He did not know what had happened, and thought of armed burglars. For a timehe did not think it could have been more than a minute — fear held him motionless; then with an effort he rose, lit the gas, and hurried on his clothes. As he was dressing he heard a' step down the passage, and a knock at his door. He opened it and found Breddon's servant. The man had put on a blue overcoat over his night-things, and wore slippers. He was shivering with cold and terror. " Oh, my God, sir !" he exclaimed, "Mr Breddon's shot himself. Would you come, sir?" The Archdeacon followed the man to Breddon's bedroom, A mirror had been smashed and lay in fragments on the floor. On the bed, with his back to the Archdeacon, lay Breddon dead. His right hand still grasped the revolver, and there was a blackened wound oehind the right ear. When the Archdeacon came round to look at the face, he turned faint, and ihe servant took him out into the library, and gave him brandy, the glasses and decanters still standing there. Breddon's face certainly had looked very ghastly; it had been scratched, torn, and bitten; one eye was gone, and the whole face was covered with blood. " Do you think it was that brute that did it? " „. a " Sure of it, sir. Sprang on his face while he was asleep. I knew it would happen one of these ntohlbs. He knew it, .too — always slept with tne revolver by his side. He fired twice at the brute, but couldn't see for the blood. Then he killed himself." . ■ - , . It seemed likely enough, with his eyesight gone, horribly mauled, in an agony of pain, possibly believing that he was saving himself from a death still more horrible, Breddon might very well have turned the weapon on himself. "What do we do now?" the man asked. "We must get a doctor^ and fetch the police at once. Come on." As they turned the corner of the passage, they saw that ..the door communicating with the. staiicaUo wP* open. "Did you open that doorf' asked the •Archdeacon. "No!" said the man, aghast. "Then who did?" V "Don't iknow, sir. Looks as if we weren't at the end of this yet." They passed down the stairs together, and found the street-door also ajar. On the pavement outside lay a policeman, slowly recovering consciousness. Breddon's man took the policeman's- whistle, and blew it, A passing hansom, going back to the mews, slowed up ; the cab was -rent to fetch a doctor, and communication with the police-station rapidly followed. The injured policeman told a curious story. He was passing the house, when he heard shots fired. Almost immediately afterwards he heard the bolts of the front door being drawn, and stepped back into the neighbouring doorway. The front door opened, and a n«gro emerged, clad in a grey tweed suit with a grey overcoat. The policeman jumped out, and without a second's hesitation the black man failed him. "It I was all done before you could think," was | the pedioeman's phrase. " Wh*frkind of negro?" asked the Arch- " A big man-stood over six foot, and Mack as ooal. He n«ver waited to be challenged. The moment he knew that he was seen he hit out." '«• ' The policeman was not a very intellh gent fellow, and ther© was little mote to be got out of him. He had heard the shots, seen the street door open, and the man in grey appear, and had been felled by a lightning blow before he had time to do anything. . ' *.v._ The doctor, a plain, matter-aWaofc little man had no hedtatioa in saying that Breddon W dead, and must hare dted almost immediately. After the Injuries received remtatfion and heart action roust have ceased at once. 3J« was expWnfox something which oozed from the dead mans ear, when the Arohd*aoon oouM stand it no lfager, arid, staggered out into the library. There he found Breddon's servant, etill in the btae overcoat, explaining to a policeman'with a notebook that, as far as he knew, nothing was missing, except a jad© image or idoi of a cat, which formerly stood onthe mantelpiece. „„ , The cat known as " Grey Devil waa also missbg, and although a description of it was circulated in the pnblio press nothing was ever heard of it again. But grey fur was found in the clenched left hand of the dead man. The inquest resulted in the customary verdict, and brought to light no new facts. But it may be as woll to give wha* the police theory of the case was. Acoording to the police, the' suicide took pltwe much as Breddon's servant had supposed. Mad with pain and unable to bear the .thought of his awful mutilation, Breddon had shot himself. . The story of the jade image, as far as jt was known, was told at the inquest ; the police held that this image was an idol, that some uncivilised tribe was much perturbed by the theft of it, and waa ready to pay an enormously high price for its recovery. The negro was assumed to 'be aware of this, and to have determined to obtain possession of the idol by fair means or foul. Sair means failing, it was suggested tha* the negro followed Breddon to England, tracked bim trat, a,nd on the night «*<£«*■ tion foiled sojne means to conceal Mfoaall lin Breddim'e flat. There it was assumed ' that he fell asleep, was awakened by the screams and the sound of the firing, and being soawd caught np the fade imago and made off. Realising that the shots would have been heard oufaide, and tbat his departure at that moment would be considered extremely suspicious, he was ready as he opened the street door to fell the first man that he saw. ' The temporary unconsciousness of the policeman gave him time to get away. | The theory sounds -at first eight like the only possible theory. When the Archdeacon first told me the story I tried to find out indirectly whether he accepted it. Finding him rather disposed to fence with my bints and -suggestions, I put the question to him

1 plainly and bluntly, " Do you b«Heve in the police theory?" He hesitated, and then answered with complete frankness, " No, most emphatically not." " Why ?" I asked ; and he went over the evidence with me. " In the first place I do not believe that Breddon, in the ordinary sense, committed suicide. No amount of physical pain would have made him even think of it. He bad unending pluck. He would have taken the facial disfigurement and loss of sight as the ohances of war, and would have done the best that could be done by a man with such awful disabilities. One must admit that he fired the fatal j shot — the medical evidence on that point is too strong to be gainsaid — but he fired it under circumstances of supernatural horror of which we, thank God, know nothing." " I'm naturally slow to admit supernatural explanation." "Well, let's go on. What's /this* mysterious tribe the police talk about? I want to know where it lives and what its name is. If s wealthy enough to offer a huge reward — it must be of some importance. The negro managed to get in and secrete himself. How? Where? I know the flat, and iha* theory won't do. We don't even know that it was the negro who took that little image, though I believe it was. Anyhow, how did the negro get away at that hour of the morning absolutely unobserved? Negroes are not so common in London that they can walk about without being! noticed. Yet not one trace of him was ever found, and equally mysterious is the disappearance of the grey cat. It was such an extraordinary brute, and the description of it was so widely circulated, that it would have seemed almost certain we should hear of it again. Well, we've not heard." We discussed the police theory for some little time, and something whioh he happened to say led me to exclaim : " Really, do' you mean to say that the grey cat actually was the negro." " No," he replied, " not exactly that, but something near it. Cats are strange animals anyhow. I needn't remind you of their connection with certain old religions, or with that witchcraft in which even in England to-day some still believe, and not so long ago almost all believed. t have never, bythe way, seen a good explanation of the fact that there are people who cannot bear to be in a room with a cat, and ara aware of its presence as if by some mysterious extra sense. Let me remind you of the belief which undoubtedly exists, both in China and Japan, ,that evil spirits may enter into oertain of the lower animals — the fox and badger especially. Every student of demonology knows about these things." " But that idea of evil spirits "taking possession of cats or foxes is surely a heathen superstition which you' cannot hold." "Well; I have read of the evil spirits that entered into the swine. Think it over and keep an open mind." i 'in- ' ' '• i