While I unfastened the loop and opened the umbrella, Maryvale dropped from his seat and came beside me. He asked me what this was, where it came from, and whom I had met here, all in a breath.
“This is a clue, man!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps it has some manufacturer’s mark—what’s the matter?”
I could no more have released my arm from Maryvale’s grip than from the strongest vise. But in a moment his hand relaxed, and then I caught sight of what he was looking at so hard.
On the northern wall, twice the height of that whereupon we had been sitting, crept something darker than the hills against which its form was obscure. Softly, swiftly, the form slunk along the stones, then gave a leap to the arched summit of that one perfect window and stood still, its head lifted, its form now stark against the sky—the form of an enormous cat, lean and lithe and tigerish.
Maryvale was breathing loudly. I gave him a swift look; his face was working, and with his eyes set on the cat of the sisters Delambre, he drew from a hip pocket the last thing on earth I should have imagined him to carry, a large revolver, one of the sort called in America, I believe, a six-shooter.
But the hideous expression of his face was more alarming still.
Here was a combination of circumstances I did not envisage hopefully: the lonely spot, the great cat, the man apparently unbalanced by the sight of the beast, and the revolver. I had only the umbrella.
Not a little afraid, I sought safety in valour. I reached out my hand.
“May I see that, Mr. Maryvale?”
He let me have the weapon without demur, and while I examined the deadly thing, I saw out of the corner of my eye that his attention was still riveted on the shape of the cat. I hesitated to break into that almost hypnotic absorption.