“The cats,” he exclaimed, as a tabby-striped tom appeared, demanding sustenance. “How do they get in and out?”
“One of those pet doors, in the cellar. No,” she said, as he made an involuntary movement of alarm. “It’s too small for anything but a cat. You know how they can compress themselves-like rubber-”
“Yes, I know,” he said.
The meal was a poor one-she had already depleted Andrea’s stock of food-but Linda ate ravenously. She hadn’t had much appetite the last few days. Michael watched her with satisfaction, eating little himself. She didn’t blame him; canned lima beans and tuna fish were unappealing unless you were half starved. When she pushed her empty plate away and looked up, she found him braced and ready.
“Talk to me,” he said. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“About-it?” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “How can I? How do you talk about something that is either supernatural or else a-”
“Delusion? You still believe that?”
“At first, when you saw it too, I thought…But Michael, you’ve heard of collective hallucinations.”
“The fact that you can still admit that possibility is a good indication of your sanity,” Michael said. “I’m willing to admit it myself, but only as one theory among others. Linda, are you sure that damned thing isn’t real? That it isn’t an actual, living dog?”
“There is no such animal in the neighborhood. Believe me, I made sure.”
“A wild dog? Even a wolf? It sounds unlikely, I know, but-”
“Even a wolf can’t live without food. Sooner or later it would rob a poultry yard, or attack a pet animal. It might not be seen, but its presence would certainly be known.”
“And no one else has seen it?”
“No…” She found it hard to meet his eyes after that admission, but he seemed undismayed.
“Not Andrea?”
“She knows about it,” Linda admitted. “She believes in it. But she’s never seen it.”
“Odd,” Michael muttered. “That she hasn’t seen it. She believes it’s supernatural, of course.”
“Of course. But don’t make the obvious mistake about Andrea. For all her superstitions, she has a hard core of common sense. She can believe in various fantastic phenomena, but she doesn’t imagine things. There’s a difference.”
“I know what you mean. I could believe in flying saucers without too much effort; there has been a certain amount of evidence. But I can’t believe that I saw one land, and a bunch of little green guys get out of it, unless I have a screw loose somewhere.”
“None of Andrea’s screws are loose. She has some screws in unusual places, though.”
Michael laughed.
“Then you and I are the only ones who have seen the dog,” he said. “When did you see it first?”
“It’s hard to remember exactly… About a year ago, I guess. I remember the occasion very clearly, though.”
“I can see why you might.”
“I went for a walk, at twilight. I like that time of day-at least I used to. I wasn’t in a very happy mood. There had been…words, with Gordon. I walked out under the trees, just wandering around. The ground was wet and soggy, but everything smelled so fresh and sweet. The sky was a pale greenish blue, there was a new moon. I went down that avenue of cherry trees. It ends, if you remember, at a fence; there’s a pretty view from that point, out across the pastures.
“I was leaning on the fence, thinking, when-there it was. I saw it quite distinctly; the light was fading, but it seemed to stand out, as if something shone behind it. I was frightened, but only because it appeared so suddenly, out of nowhere, and because it was a fierce-looking dog and a stranger. Honestly, Michael, I couldn’t be mistaken about that, I really like dogs, I was friends with all the neighbors’ pets… Well, I knew better than to run, but I retreated as quickly as I could. It didn’t follow me. Not until later did I realize that it hadn’t moved, or made a sound, the whole time. It just stood there, looking at me…”
“When did you start to think that it might not be a real dog?”
“Not that time. Not even when a search failed to turn up any sign of such an animal. Gordon was alarmed when I told him,” she said expressionlessly. “He insisted on looking for it, right then, even though it was almost dark. He and the yard servants searched again next morning, and he called all the neighbors, and the police, to see if anyone else had reported seeing it. No one had. But the worst was…I told you the ground was soft and wet. When they searched the field where I had seen it, they found no prints.”
From Michael’s expression, she realized that, despite his comments, he had been clinging to the hope that the creature was material. This piece of news hit him hard.
“How could prints show on grass?”
“There were large bare patches,” she said inexorably. “Something would have shown, somewhere.”
“I see. But that wouldn’t be enough, in itself, to convince you that you were having hallucinations.”
“No. I didn’t start thinking that until Jack Briggs failed to see it, the next time it came.”
“If he wasn’t looking…”
“It ran straight across the terrace while we were looking out the drawing-room window. It went fast, but it was in sight for several seconds. That’s a long time, Michael.”
“Long enough. Any other non-witnesses?”
“Several. My maid, for one. That was from an upstairs window, of course, and it was pretty dark.”
“Not easy to see in that kind of light, especially if she had already been told you were suffering from hallucinations. Most people see only what they expect to see.”
“Gordon told her something,” Linda said doubtfully. “I think he must have warned all the servants about me. They started treating me peculiarly about that time. But God knows I was acting pretty peculiarly anyhow.”
“I imagine he pays excellent salaries, doesn’t he? Yes; money, and his famous charm, could convince them of anything he wanted them to believe.”
The room was full of cats by this time-fat cats, thin cats, striped, spotted, and Siamese. One of them jumped onto the table, with that uncanny suggestion of teleportation that surrounds a cat’s suave quickness, and Linda stood up, overturning her chair.
“What are you trying to prove?” she demanded wildly. “You still don’t believe in it, do you? You think it’s real.”
Michael stroked the cat, a round orange creature, which was investigating his half-empty plate.
“That shouldn’t be the main point, for you,” he said mildly.
“I’m grateful, don’t think I’m not. Whether it’s real or just a plain apparition, it isn’t a figment of my imagination, or you wouldn’t have seen it too. You aren’t the suggestible type. You’ve come a long way to bolster me up, to support me. But you’d stop-you couldn’t go on-if you knew what I really believe…”
The lights flickered and faded, leaving the room in brown obscurity; and a violent clap of thunder seemed to rock the foundations of the house. Linda covered her face with her hands. On the roof, a thousand minuscule feet began dancing. The rain had started.
Michael stood up. He had scooped up the cat, to keep it out of his food; and the animal, already full, hung complacently from his hands with a full-moon smirk on its fat face. The contrast between its furry blandness and Michael’s drawn features turned Linda’s cry of alarm into a semi-hysterical gasp of laughter.
“Stop it,” Michael said sharply. “You’re losing your grip-no wonder, in this place…”