"There's one in the house now, though," said Constable Nightingale. "It come in when the wind burst open the street door, and Wigg and me fell into the passage. He says it's not a cat, but a spectre, a ghost."
"Lord save us!" ejaculated Mrs. Middlemore. "If Mr. Felix sees it he'll never forgive me. He 'as a 'atred of 'em. And the ghost of a cat, too!" She was so impressed that she edged closer to Constable Nightingale.
"It was a spectre cat," said Constable Wigg, desirous to do something to divert Mrs. Middlemore's thoughts from Mr. Felix, and also from her leaning toward his comrade. "And then there was that cry for 'Help' I fancied I heard."
"What cry for help?" asked Mrs. Middlemore.
"I thought I heard it three times," said Constable Wigg--but he was prevented from going further by an incident which was followed by a startling picture. Constable Nightingale, rather thrown off his balance by the drink he had imbibed, and desirous to meet the advances of Mrs. Middlemore, slyly put his arm round her waist, and to hide the movement from the observation of his brother constable, made a clumsy movement over the table, and overturned the candle, the effect of which was to put out the light and to leave them in darkness. He was not sorry for it, for the reason that he was hugging Mrs. Middlemore close. But Constable Wigg started up in fear, and cried:
"Somebody has pushed open the door!"
In point of fact the kitchen-door had been quietly pushed open, and the other two observed it when their attention was directed toward it.
"What is it?" whispered Mrs. Middlemore, shaking like a jelly, "Oh, what is it?"
Constable Nightingale, for the second time that night pulled out his dark lantern, and cast its light upon the door. And there, imbedded in the circle of light, was the cat which had already twice before alarmed Constable Wigg. They uttered a cry of horror, and indeed they were justified by the picture which presented itself. The cat was red. Every bristle, sticking up on its skin, was luminous with horrible color. It was a perfect ball of blood.