by Gary Lovisi
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar—as the monks of the middle ages recorded to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fire-place, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.
And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself—“Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night—and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied, and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By-the-bye, gentlemen, this—this is a very well-constructed house.” (In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) “I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls—are you going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;” and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
THE CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP, by Andrew Lang
A cat had made acquaintance with a mouse, and had spoken so much of the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at last the Mouse consented to live in the same house with her, and to go shares in the housekeeping. “But we must provide for the winter or else we shall suffer hunger,” said the Cat. “You, little Mouse, cannot venture everywhere in case you run at last into a trap.” This good counsel was followed, and a little pot of fat was bought. But they did not know where to put it. At length, after long consultation, the Cat said, “I know of no place where it could be better put than in the church. No one will trouble to take it away from there. We will hide it in a corner, and we won’t touch it till we are in want.” So the little pot was placed in safety; but it was not long before the Cat had a great longing for it, and said to the Mouse, “I wanted to tell you, little Mouse, that my cousin has a little son, white with brown spots, and she wants me to be godmother to it. Let me go out today, and do you take care of the house alone.”
“Yes, go certainly,” replied the Mouse, “and when you eat anything good, think of me; I should very much like a drop of the red christening wine.”
But it was all untrue. The Cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to be godmother. She went straight to the church, slunk to the little pot of fat, began to lick it, and licked the top off. Then she took a walk on the roofs of the town, looked at the view, stretched herself out in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought of the little pot of fat. As soon as it was evening she went home again.
“Ah, here you are again!” said the Mouse; “you must certainly have had an enjoyable day.”
“It went off very well,” answered the Cat.
“What was the child’s name?” asked the Mouse.
“Top Off,” said the Cat drily.
“Topoff!” echoed the Mouse, “it is indeed a wonderful and curious name. Is it in your family?”
“What is there odd about it?” said the Cat. “It is not worse than Breadthief, as your godchild is called.”
Not long after this another great longing came over the Cat. She said to the Mouse, “You must again be kind enough to look after the house alone, for I have been asked a second time to stand godmother, and as this child has a white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.”
The kind Mouse agreed, but the Cat slunk under the town wall to the church, and ate up half of the pot of fat. “N
othing tastes better,” said she, “than what one eats by oneself,” and she was very much pleased with her day’s work. When she came home the Mouse asked, “What was this child called?”
“Half Gone,” answered the Cat.
“Halfgone! what a name! I have never heard it in my life. I don’t believe it is in the calendar.”
Soon the Cat’s mouth began to water once more after her licking business. “All good things in threes,” she said to the Mouse; “I have again to stand godmother. The child is quite black, and has very white paws, but not a single white hair on its body. This only happens once in two years, so you will let me go out?”
“Topoff! Halfgone!” repeated the Mouse, “they are such curious names; they make me very thoughtful.”
“Oh, you sit at home in your dark grey coat and your long tail,” said the Cat, “and you get fanciful. That comes of not going out in the day.”
The Mouse had a good cleaning out while the Cat was gone, and made the house tidy; but the greedy Cat ate the fat every bit up.
“When it is all gone one can be at rest,” she said to herself, and at night she came home sleek and satisfied. The Mouse asked at once after the third child’s name.
“It won’t please you any better,” said the Cat, “he was called Clean Gone.”
“Cleangone!” repeated the Mouse. “I do not believe that name has been printed any more than the others. Cleangone! What can it mean?” She shook her head, curled herself up, and went to sleep.
From this time on no one asked the Cat to stand godmother; but when the winter came and there was nothing to be got outside, the Mouse remembered their provision and said, “Come, Cat, we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored away; it will taste very good.”
“Yes, indeed,” answered the Cat; “it will taste as good to you as if you stretched your thin tongue out of the window.”
They started off, and when they reached it they found the pot in its place, but quite empty!
“Ah,” said the Mouse, “now I know what has happened! It has all come out! You are a true friend to me! You have eaten it all when you stood godmother; first the top off, then half of it gone, then—”
“Will you be quiet!” screamed the Cat. “Another word and I will eat you up.”
“Cleangone” was already on the poor Mouse’s tongue, and scarcely was it out than the Cat made a spring at her, seized and swallowed her.
You see, that is the way of the world.
NIPPER…NIP…NIP, by Robert Reginald
I am Nipper, son of Tigereyes, grandson of Sharpclaw, of the lineage of Longfang, and no one masters me.
I deign to stalk a space enclosed within four walls on two levels, which I graciously share with three mutts, two humans, and assorted smaller critters—my playthings—whose lives I control, although not all of them realize that fact. Such is the superiority of the feline being.
This is the story of how I, the smallest in body of these other, lesser creatures, but the largest always in spirit, how I, Nipper of the Grinding Teeth, how I…I saved them all.
Through the middle of the night I roam, endlessly—for no dark is dark to me—sniffing, watching, listening for intruders in this, my own sacred space. And on one such occasion of the not-too-long-ago, I heard, when no one else did, the slightest crinkling of glass, the sound of an intruder. I slipped out the door of my humans’ sleeping space, and bounded down the stairs, making nary a sound, and crept thence to the side door—the glass door—the pool door, the door that was now being pried open by a figure in black.
I made myself one with the carpet under a chair in the dining room, I became a slight irregularity indiscernible by the human eye—and I waited and I watched and I quietly gnashed my teeth. This was going to be fun!
Slowly, carefully, silently (but not to me!), the figure pushed open the entryway, and eased his body into the house. The purring of the pool motor behind him covered the small sounds he made.
He flashed a light around the middle part of the walls of the room, examining the shelves where my female human kept the idols of her horsie gods (when she failed to feed me on time, I sometimes would knock one of them off its base). He carried with him a sack into which he inserted certain of the items that he seemed to regard as having value. I almost yawned—noticing such trinkets was beneath the dignity of any true feline person.
But this was my human, not his, and he had no right to take her things, even if I personally found them empty of charm. Everyone knows that the only true god is Catnip the Green, for whom I was named, and whose mere presence creates an ecstasy of mind and body and…well, never mind that now!
But what to do? The intruder soon answered my question for me.
There was an upper shelf in the room that was not easily accessible, even for the human-creatures. So he grabbed the chair under which I crouched, moved it near the wall as I dodged its wobbling legs, and climbed up on the seat.
Ah, now his situation was slightly more precarious!
He flashed his lighted cylinder on the images housed above, looking for who-knows-what, picking this one or that, according to no rational decision that any true being could possibly understand. I waited until he raised himself up to reach for a horsie image further down the shelf, opened wide my mouth, and chomped down on the back of his heel.
He screamed, to my utter delight, teetered on his perch, and then fell to the floor with a large “thud.” I heard the doggies-dead-to-the-world upstairs suddenly come alive, and take up the chant of “woof-woof-there’s-someone-down-there” and “bark-bark-we’ve-got-a-problem-master!” That would rouse them from their deadly sleep!
The invader moaned and tried to sit up. I leaped into the air—oh, such a moment of delightful flight—and then plopped squarely on his face, all four paws and claws outstretched, and dug them in as I landed. Then I hopped away out of his reach just before he could react.
“Help!” he yelled, not realizing where he was or what he was doing. “Help! I’m being attacked!”
Oh, yes, oh, yes, he was! As he tried to roll over on his stomach and rise to all fours, I thumped him again on his back, giving him another swipe of my four sets of sharp needles. He somehow got to his feet and headed toward the sliding door leading out to the water-place; but, not watching where he was going, he crashed right into the glass, and then sprawled outside as it broke, tumbling down the concrete steps. I had the satisfaction of hearing a bone crack.
“Help!” he screamed again and again. He was still moaning and shaking and bleeding when the outside human-creatures appeared in their round-legged vehicles with all the flashy lights.
None of them could understand what had happened to the poor man, who had suffered many injuries in his pursuit of the irrational.
“Thank God for all our dogs!” my male human-creature said to one of the outside-humans. “Their barking alerted us to the intruder.”
“They must have chased him right outside,” one outside human-thing said. “Then he panicked. We call him the Highlands Cat Burglar, because his modus operandi is to sneak in and out of houses surreptitiously, stealing only those small items that he can easily peddle elsewhere. You were very lucky, folks.”
This conversation was quickly becoming boring to a higher-level being, and so I quietly snuck back up the stairs and curled up on the end of my humans’ still-warm bed.
I was sound alseep when my two human-creatures and the three doggie-playthings finally returned, making enough noise to stir the dead, and startling the superior being out of his well-earned nap.
“Oh, there you are, dearest Nipper!” the female-creature said. I opened one eye in response. “You were so-o-o lucky that evil man didn’t hurt you. Poor li’l Nippums!”
She began rubbing my back, which I most certainly deserved. I purred at her in response.
And yes, yes, she was very lucky that I’d performed my duty that day, saving their lives once again. I sighed with contentment.
For I am Nipp
er, son of Tigereyes, grandson of Sharpclaw, of the lineage of Longfang—and no one masters me.
To the memory of Nipper, who shared eighteen years of his long life with us and with our daughter, much to our delight and joy.
TOBERMORY, by Saki (H. H. Munro)
It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt—unless one is bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, in which case one may lawfully gallop after fat red stags. Lady Blemley’s house-party was not bounded on the north by the Bristol Channel, hence there was a full gathering of her guests round the tea-table on this particular afternoon. And, in spite of the blankness of the season and the triteness of the occasion, there was no trace in the company of that fatigued restlessness which means a dread of the pianola and a subdued hankering for auction bridge. The undisguised open-mouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the homely negative personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the vaguest reputation. Someone had said he was “clever,” and he had got his invitation in the moderate expectation, on the part of his hostess, that some portion at least of his cleverness would be contributed to the general entertainment. Until tea-time that day she had been unable to discover in what direction, if any, his cleverness lay. He was neither a wit nor a croquet champion, a hypnotic force, nor a begetter of amateur theatricals. Neither did his exterior suggest the sort of man in whom women are willing to pardon a generous measure of mental deficiency. He had subsided into mere Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed a piece of transparent baptismal bluff. And now he was claiming to have launched on the world a discovery beside which the invention of gunpowder, of the printing-press, and of steam locomotion were inconsiderable trifles. Science had made bewildering strides in many directions during recent decades, but this thing seemed to belong to the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement.
