CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CLAWS OF THE CAT
The hoarse voice ceased. Neither Gatton nor I moved or spoke. Then:
"I have three minutes--or less," whispered Damar Greefe. "Question me.I am at your service."
"Where is your villa?" asked Gatton suddenly.
"It is called The Laurels--"
"The Laurels!" I cried incredulously.
"It is called so," whispered the Eurasian. "It is the last house butone in College Road! From there I conducted my last experiment withL.K. Vapor, which resulted not in the death of Mr. Addison, but inthat of Eric Coverly--"
Gatton sprang to his feet.
"Come along, Mr. Addison!" he cried. But:
"The Laurels is empty," came, ever more faintly. "In her Sothic fury,Nahemah fled. The bloodlust is upon her. I warn you. She is moredangerous ... than ... any rabid dog.... Tuberculosis will end herlife ... before the snows ... come. But there is time for her to ...Ah, God's mercy!"
He writhed. He was contorted. Foam appeared Upon his lips.
"_Hlangkuna!"_ he moaned, "_hlangkuna! She_ ... touched me with apoisoned needle ... _two hours_--ago...."
He rose to his full height, uttered a stifled scream, and crashed downupon the floor--dead!
In a species of consternation, Gatton and I stood looking at oneanother--standing rigidly like men of stone one on either side of thatlong, thin body stretched upon my study floor. The hawk face inprofile was startlingly like that of Anubis as it lay against the redcarpet.
Neither of us, I think, was capable of grasping the fact that theinquiry was all but ended and that the mysteries which had seemed sodark and insoluble were cleared up and the inner workings of thisstrange conspiracy laid bare before us. One thought, I believe, wasuppermost in both our minds: that the man who now lay dead upon thefloor, a victim of one of his own devilish inventions, was no morethan a brilliant madman.
If his great work on the ape-men of Abyssinia and that greater onedealing with what he called "the _psycho-hybrids_" had ever hadexistence outside his own strange imagination no one was ever likelyto know. But that Dr. Damar Greefe was a genius whom much learning hadmade mad, neither of us doubted.
The whole thing seemed the wildest phantasy, and, for a time, indoubting the reality of the Eurasian's work, I found myself doubtingthe evidence of my own senses and seriously wondering if thispossessed witch-cat whose green eyes had moved like Satanic lanternsthroughout the whole phantasmagoria, had any more palpable existencethan the other strange things spoken of by the unscrupulous scientist.
That Gatton's thoughts had been running parallel with my own waspresently made manifest, for:
"Without a moment's delay, Mr. Addison," he said, speaking like a mannewly awakened from slumber, "we must proceed to The Laurels and testthe truth of what we have heard."
He crossed to the door, threw it open, and:
"Sergeant!" he cried. "Come in! The prisoner is dead!"
As the sergeant and the constable who were waiting came into the studyand stood looking in stupefaction at the body stretched on the floor,I heard the telephone bell ring. I started nervously. That soundawakened ghastly memories, and I thought of the man who only a fewhours before had met his death in the room where now the bell wasringing its summons.
I doubted if I could ever spend another night beneath that roof, forhere Dr. Damar Greefe, the arch-assassin, and one of his victims bothhad met their ends. I heard the voice of Coates speaking in theadjoining room, and presently, as Gatton went to the door:
"Miss Merlin wishes to speak to you, sir," said Coates.
I ran eagerly to the 'phone, and:
"Hello!" I cried. "Is that you, Isobel?"
"Yes!" came her reply, and I noted the agitation in her voice. "I ammore dreadfully frightened than I have ever been in my life. If onlyyou were here! Is it possible for you to come at once?"
"What has alarmed you?" I asked anxiously.
"I can't explain," she replied. "It is a dreadful sense offoreboding--and all the dogs in the neighborhood seem to have gonemad!"
"Dogs!" I cried, a numbing fear creeping over me. "You mean that theyare howling?"
"Howling!" she answered. "I have never heard such a pandemonium at anytime. In my present state of nerves, Jack, I did the wrong thing incoming to this funny lonely little house. I feel deserted and hopelessand, for some reason, in terrible danger."
"Are you _alone_, then?" I asked, in ever growing anxiety.
To my utter consternation:
"Yes!" she replied. "Aunt Alison was called away half an hour ago--toidentify some one at a hospital who had asked for her--"
"What! an accident?"
"I suppose so."
"But the servants?"
"Cook left this morning. You remember Aunt told you she was leaving."
"There is the girl, Mary?"
"Aunt 'phoned for her to join her at the hospital!"
"What! I don't understand! _'Phoned_, you say? Was it Mrs. Wentworth_herself_ who 'phoned?"
"No; I think not. One of the nurses, Mary said. But at any rate, shehas gone, Jack, and I'm frightened to death! There's something else,"she added.
"Yes?" I said eagerly.
She laughed in a way that sounded almost hysterical.
"Since Mary went I have thought once or twice that I have seen someone or something creeping around outside the house in the shadowsamongst the trees! And just a while ago something happened whichreally prompted me to 'phone you."
"What was it?"
"I heard a sort of scratching at an upper window. It was just like--"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Like a great _cat_ trying to gain admittance!"
"See that all the doors and windows are fastened!" I cried. "Whateverhappens or whoever knocks don't open to any one, you understand? Wewill be with you in less than half an hour!"
Still in that frightened voice:
"For heaven's sake," she begged, "don't be long, Jack!..."
I became aware of a singular rasping sound on the wires, whichrendered Isobel's words almost unintelligible. Then:
"Jack," I heard, in a faint whisper, "there is a strange noise ...just outside the room...."
Silence came. But, vaguely, above that rasping sound, I had detectedthe words: "Cutting ... telephone ... wires...."
I replaced the receiver. My hand was shaking wildly.
"Gatton!" I said, "do you understand? _It_ has turned its attentionto Miss Merlin!" Then, raising my voice: "Coates!" I cried, "Coates!run for the car! Hurry, man! Some one's life depends on your speed!"
Inspector Gatton grabbed the telephone directory.
"I will instruct the local police," he muttered. "Give me the exactaddress, Mr. Addison, and go and see the cab that's outside. If it's agood one we'll take it instead of waiting."
Out I dashed, spurred by a sickly terror, crying Mrs. Wentworth'saddress as I ran. And of the ensuing five minutes I retain nothing butchaotic memories: the bewildered cabman; the police bending over thegaunt form on my study floor; Gatton's voice shouting orders. Then, wehad jumped into the cab and enjoining the man to drive like fury, werespeeding off through the busy London streets. Leaving the quietude ofone suburb for the maelstrom of central London, we presently emergedinto an equally quiet backwater upon the Northerly outskirts.
It was a nightmare journey, but when at last we approached the housefor which we were bound my apprehension and excitement grew evenkeener. It was infinitely more isolated and lonely than I had everrealized, behind its high brick walls.
Of the local police there was no sign. And without hesitation we ranin at the open gate and up the path towards the porch. Every window inthe house was brightly illuminated, testifying to the greatness of theoccupant's fear. Gaining the porch, we stopped, as if prompted by somemutual thought, and listened.
There was the remote murmuring of busy London, but here surrounding uswas a stillness as great as that which prevailed in my ownneighborhood; and as
we stood there, keenly alert--distinctly we bothheard the howling of dogs!
"You hear it?" rapped Gatton.
"I do!" I replied.
Grasping the bell-knob, I executed a vigorous peal upon the bell.There was a light in the hallway but my ringing elicited no response,until:
"My God, look!" cried Gatton.
He pulled me backward out of the porch, looking upward to the windowof a room on the first floor.
A silhouette appeared there--undoubtedly that of Isobel. She seemed tobe endeavoring to pull the curtain aside ... when the shadow of a longarm reached out to her, and she was plucked irresistibly back. Thesound of a muffled scream reached my ears, and:
"Great heavens! _It_ has got in!" whispered Gatton.
He raised his hand and the shrill note of a police whistle split thesilence.
The closed door was obviously too strong to be forced without the aidof implements for the purpose, and we began to run around the house,looking for some means of entrance. Suddenly:
"There's the way!" said Gatton, and pointed up to where the branchesof an old elm tree stretched out before a window. The glass of thewindow was entirely shattered except for some few points whichglittered like daggers around the edges of the frame.
"Can you do it?"
"In the circumstances--yes!" I said.
Without more ado I began to climb the elm, stimulated by memories ofhow I had entered Friar's Park. It afforded little foothold for thefirst six feet and proved an even tougher job than I had anticipated,but at last I reached a projecting limb, the bulk of which had beensawn off. Gatton's agility was not so great as mine, but at the momentthat I half staggered and half fell into the room, I heard himswinging himself onto the limb behind me so that as I leaped to theopen door he came tumbling in through the window, and the pair of usraced side by side along the corridor towards an apartment facingfront from which horrifying cries and sounds of conflict now arose.
Gaining the closed door of this room, I literally hurled myself uponit. It crashed open ... and I beheld a dreadful spectacle.
Isobel lay forced back upon a settee which occupied the windowrecess--and bending over her, having her back turned towards me, was atall, lithe, black-clad woman who, so far as I could see, wasclutching Isobel's throat and forcing her further backward--backwardupon the cushions strewn upon the settee!
But instant upon the door's opening this horrible scene changed. Withnever a backward glance (so that neither Gatton nor I had even amomentary glimpse of her face) the black-robed woman sprang to thewindow, opened it in a moment, and to my dismay and astonishmentsprang out into the darkness!
My first thought was for Isobel--but Gatton leaped across the room andcraned out, peering on to the path below. Indeed, even as I dropped onmy knees beside the swooning girl, I found myself listening for thethud of the falling body upon the gravel path. But no sound reachedme. That uncanny creature must have alighted truly in the manner of acat. Through the stillness of the house rang the flat note of apolice-whistle. From some distant spot I heard a faint reply.
* * * * *
For long I failed to persuade myself that Isobel had not sustainedsome ghastly injury from the attack of the cat-woman. Memories uprosestarkly before me of that _hlangkuna_ and the other dreadfuldeath-instruments of the mad Eurasian doctor. Not even the assurancesof the local medical man who had been summoned in haste could convinceme. For I recognized how petty was his knowledge in comparison withthat of Dr. Damar Greefe. But although I trembled to think what herfate might have been if we had arrived a few minutes later, the factremained (and I returned thanks to Heaven) that she had escapedserious physical injury at the hands of her assailant.
But, alas, to this very hour she sometimes awakes shrieking in thenight. And her terrified cry is always the same: "The green eyes ofBast!... the green-eyes of Bast!"