He had, he told himself, acted through mercy. His aunt was suffering; Dr. Myerbron had tacitly admitted more than once that she would not recover; and certainly a few weeks or even months could make little difference to the semi-conscious invalid. Better to relieve her of suffering rather than permit her to linger and perhaps undergo worse tortures later on when her last powers of resistance were spent.
He repeated this to himself so often he finally came to believe it. But secretly he knew otherwise. Some small insistent chamber in his brain kept whispering the truth. The truth was he had grown tired of waiting.
At first all seemed to go well. Now that he was relieved of a certain measure of responsibility, he began to enjoy life. Of course, for a time, he had to put on a sober countenance when he left the house in the morning. And he had to act properly subdued on certain occasions. But that was easy enough. He even prided himself a little on his acting ability. Sometimes he played the part so well he could feel himself becoming melancholy. And then he would laugh, struck by the irony of the situation. His Aunt Martha had never meant very much to him. She had merely been an obstacle to be removed.
The first time the cat annoyed him he dismissed the incident without further thought. It was a big black Persian with a silky plume of a tail and luminous yellow eyes and it had been his aunt's favorite pet for years.
One night after he had mashed some sardines in its dish, he became irritated when, instead of running up to eat, it drew back and spit at him. But he merely shrugged and went back to the paper.
The next day it again refused to eat. He speculated, idly, assumed that it was undergoing a disorder, or distemper, or whatever it was that cats undergo, and forgot the matter.
A week or so later however, the cat's actions began to annoy him. He remembered then that so far as he could recall it had eaten almost nothing he had set out for it since his aunt's death.
Even then, the affair did not really bother him much. It was just an irritant in the back of his mind.
Nevertheless, some time later he had an experience which definitely upset him. There was certainly nothing very unusual about it—and he felt a little like a fool at times when he realized how he permitted the incident to prey on him.
He had gone to bed late and had had a vague but unpleasant dream. It seemed that he was lying somewhere in the darkness unable to move, pinned down by a deadly paralysis, a smothering weight. He awoke suddenly drenched with sweat and saw two yellow eyes staring into his own. For just a moment he was on the verge of a scream; then he remembered the cat and felt at once relieved and rather angry. The beast was lying flat on his chest and made no move until he swung his arms and swept it roughly to the floor. It sprang toward the door, turned once and scurried down the hall.