once tothe dog's mood; it sat down where it was and began to wash.
But the washing, the doctor noted, was by no means its real purpose; itonly used it to mask something else; it stopped at the most busy andfurious moments and began to stare about the room. Its thoughts wanderedabsurdly. It peered intently at the curtains; at the shadowy corners; atempty space above; leaving its body in curiously awkward positions forwhole minutes together. Then it turned sharply and stared with a suddensignal of intelligence at the dog, and Flame at once rose somewhatstiffly to his feet and began to wander aimlessly and restlessly to andfro about the floor. Smoke followed him, padding quietly at his heels.Between them they made what seemed to be a deliberate search of theroom.
And, here, as he watched them, noting carefully every detail of theperformance over the top of his book, yet making no effort tointerfere, it seemed to the doctor that the first beginnings of a faintdistress betrayed themselves in the collie, and in the cat the stirringsof a vague excitement.
He observed them closely. The fog was thick in the air, and the tobaccosmoke from his pipe added to its density; the furniture at the far endstood mistily, and where the shadows congregated in hanging clouds underthe ceiling, it was difficult to see clearly at all; the lamplight onlyreached to a level of five feet from the floor, above which came layersof comparative darkness, so that the room appeared twice as lofty as itactually was. By means of the lamp and the fire, however, the carpet waseverywhere clearly visible.
The animals made their silent tour of the floor, sometimes the dogleading, sometimes the cat; occasionally they looked at one another asthough exchanging signals; and once or twice, in spite of the limitedspace, he lost sight of one or other among the fog and the shadows.Their curiosity, it appeared to him, was something more than theexcitement lurking in the unknown territory of a strange room; yet, sofar, it was impossible to test this, and he purposely kept his mindquietly receptive lest the smallest mental excitement on his part shouldcommunicate itself to the animals and thus destroy the value of theirindependent behaviour.
They made a very thorough journey, leaving no piece of furnitureunexamined, or unsmelt. Flame led the way, walking slowly with loweredhead, and Smoke followed demurely at his heels, making a transparentpretence of not being interested, yet missing nothing. And, at length,they returned, the old collie first, and came to rest on the mat beforethe fire. Flame rested his muzzle on his master's knee, smilingbeatifically while he patted the yellow head and spoke his name; andSmoke, coming a little later, pretending he came by chance, looked fromthe empty saucer to his face, lapped up the milk when it was given himto the last drop, and then sprang upon his knees and curled round forthe sleep it had fully earned and intended to enjoy.
Silence descended upon the room. Only the breathing of the dog upon themat came through the deep stillness, like the pulse of time marking theminutes; and the steady drip, drip of the fog outside upon thewindow-ledges dismally testified to the inclemency of the night beyond.And the soft crashings of the coals as the fire settled down into thegrate became less and less audible as the fire sank and the flamesresigned their fierceness.
It was now well after eleven o'clock, and Dr. Silence devoted himselfagain to his book. He read the words on the printed page and took intheir meaning superficially, yet without starting into life thecorrelations of thought and suggestions that should accompanyinteresting reading. Underneath, all the while, his mental energies wereabsorbed in watching, listening, waiting for what might come. He was notover-sanguine himself, yet he did not wish to be taken by surprise.Moreover, the animals, his sensitive barometers, had incontinently goneto sleep.
After reading a dozen pages, however, he realised that his mind wasreally occupied in reviewing the features of Pender's extraordinarystory, and that it was no longer necessary to steady his imagination bystudying the dull paragraphs detailed in the pages before him. He laiddown his book accordingly, and allowed his thoughts to dwell upon thefeatures of the Case. Speculations as to the meaning, however, herigorously suppressed, knowing that such thoughts would act upon hisimagination like wind upon the glowing embers of a fire.
As the night wore on the silence grew deeper and deeper, and only atrare intervals he heard the sound of wheels on the main road a hundredyards away, where the horses went at a walking pace owing to the densityof the fog. The echo of pedestrian footsteps no longer reached him, theclamour of occasional voices no longer came down the side street. Thenight, muffled by fog, shrouded by veils of ultimate mystery, hung aboutthe haunted villa like a doom. Nothing in the house stirred. Stillness,in a thick blanket, lay over the upper storeys. Only the mist in theroom grew more dense, he thought, and the damp cold more penetrating.Certainly, from time to time, he shivered.
The collie, now deep in slumber, moved occasionally,--grunted, sighed,or twitched his legs in dreams. Smoke lay on his knees, a pool of warm,black fur, only the closest observation detecting the movement of hissleek sides. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where his head andbody joined in that circle of glistening hair; only a black satin noseand a tiny tip of pink tongue betrayed the secret.
Dr. Silence watched him, and felt comfortable. The collie's breathingwas soothing. The fire was well built, and would burn for another twohours without attention. He was not conscious of the least nervousness.He particularly wished to remain in his ordinary and normal state ofmind, and to force nothing. If sleep came naturally, he would let itcome--and even welcome it. The coldness of the room, when the fire dieddown later, would be sure to wake him again; and it would then be timeenough to carry these sleeping barometers up to bed. From variouspsychic premonitions he knew quite well that the night would not passwithout adventure; but he did not wish to force its arrival; and hewished to remain normal, and let the animals remain normal, so that,when it came, it would be unattended by excitement or by any strainingof the attention. Many experiments had made him wise. And, for the rest,he had no fear.
Accordingly, after a time, he did fall asleep as he had expected, andthe last thing he remembered, before oblivion slipped up over his eyeslike soft wool, was the picture of Flame stretching all four legs atonce, and sighing noisily as he sought a more comfortable position forhis paws and muzzle upon the mat.
* * * * *
It was a good deal later when he became aware that a weight lay upon hischest, and that something was pencilling over his face and mouth. A softtouch on the cheek woke him. Something was patting him.
He sat up with a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair ofbrilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke's face lay level with hisown; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon his chest.
The lamp had burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence sawin a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with itsfront paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt themprodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted hischeek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back;the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply.The cat, of course, had wakened him with a purpose, and the instant herealised this, he set it upon the arm of the chair and sprang up with aquick turn to face the empty room behind him. By some curious instinct,his arms of their own accord assumed an attitude of defence in front ofhim, as though to ward off something that threatened his safety. Yetnothing was visible. Only shapes of fog hung about rather heavily in theair, moving slightly to and fro.
His mind was now fully alert, and the last vestiges of sleep gone. Heturned the lamp higher and peered about him. Two things he became awareof at once: one, that Smoke, while excited, was _pleasurably_ excited;the other, that the collie was no longer visible upon the mat at hisfeet. He had crept away to the corner of the wall farthest from thewindow, and lay watching the room with wide-open eyes, in which lurkedplainly something of alarm.
Something in the dog's behaviour instantly struck Dr. Silence asunusual, and, calling him by name, h
e moved across to pat him. Flame gotup, wagged his tail, and came over slowly to the rug, uttering a lowsound that was half growl, half whine. He was evidently perturbed aboutsomething, and his master was proceeding to administer comfort when hisattention was suddenly drawn to the antics of his other four-footedcompanion, the cat.
And what he saw filled him with something like amazement.
Smoke had jumped down from the back of the arm-chair and now occupiedthe middle of the carpet, where, with tail erect and legs stiff asramrods, it was steadily pacing backwards and forwards in a narrowspace, uttering, as it did so, those curious little guttural sounds ofpleasure that only an animal of the feline species knows how to makeexpressive of supreme happiness. Its stiffened legs and arched back madeit appear larger than usual, and the black visage wore a smile ofbeatific joy. Its eyes blazed magnificently; it was in an ecstasy.
At the end of every few paces it turned sharply and stalked back againalong the same line, padding