II.
Matters fell this night precisely as the sapient woman had conjectured. Shortly before nine she took up position against the railings in a dark patch that marked the middle point between two lamps, some doors above 506. No tremor agitated her form; in action this woman was most masterly.
A church clock struck a full clear note, another and another. The after-humming of the ninth had scarcely died when the blackness that lay beneath the fanlight of 506 was split by a thin rod of yellow light. Instantly this widened, served for a moment to silhouette a tall figure, then vanished as the door slammed. The tall figure stepped on to the pavement; a cat at its feet trod sedately across the road. The tall figure turned; in a moment was meditatively pacing the pavement opposite where Mrs. Major stood.
Mrs. Major gave him twenty yards. Then she hurried along the railings to where the cat had tripped. Six feet inwards, delicately scratching the soil beneath a bush, she espied it.
The masterly woman pressed her face between the rails; stretched a snapping finger and thumb; in an intense voice murmured, “Tweetikins puss!”
Tweetikins puss continued thoughtfully to turn the soil. This was a nicely mannered cat.
“Tweety little puss!” cooed Mrs. Major. “Tweety pussikins! puss, puss!”
Tweety pussikins turned to regard her. Mrs. Major moistened her finger and thumb; snapped frantically. “Puss, puss—tweety pussy!”
Tweety pussy advanced till the snapping fingers were within an inch of its nose.
“Pussikins, pussikins!” implored Mrs. Major.
Pussikins very deliberately seated itself; coiled its fine tail about its feet; regarded Mrs. Major with a sphinx-like air.
Mrs. Major pressed till the iron railings cut her shoulders. She stretched the forefinger of her extended arm; at great peril of slipping forward and rasping her nose along the rails effected to scratch the top of the sphinx's head.
“Puss, puss! Tweety, tweety puss!”
By not so much as a blink did tweety puss stir a muscle.
Mrs. Major was in considerable pain. Her bent legs were cramped; the railings bit her shoulder; her neck ached: “Tweety little puss! Tweety puss! Puss! Drat the beast!”
In great physical agony and in heightening mental distress—since time was fleeting and the cat as statuesque as ever,—Mrs. Major again dratted it twice with marked sincerity and a third time as a sharp sound advertised the splitting of a secret portion of her wear against the tremendous strain her unnatural position placed upon it. Unable longer to endure the pain of her outstretched arm, she dropped her hand to earth; with a masterly effort resumed her smiling face and silky tone. Repeating her endearing cooings, she scratched the soil, enticing to some hidden mystery.
The demon of curiosity impelled this cat's doom. For a moment it eyed the scratching fingers; then stretched forward its head to investigation.
The time for gentle methods was gone. Mrs. Major gripped the downy scruff of the doomed creature's neck; dragged the surprised animal forward; rudely urged it through the railings; tucked it beneath her cloak; sped down the road in the same direction that the tall figure had taken.
But where the tall figure had turned round the gardens Mrs. Major kept straight. Along a main street, into a by-street, round a turning, across a square, up a terrace, over the Edgware Road—so into the bed-sitting-room at Angel Street.