colour. Ten shillings is a high price to pay for a ginger one. I don't know whether--'
'Come, come,' said Monty. 'Nothing was said in your advertisement about colour. This lady has come a long way to bring you the cat, and you can't expect her to take less than she's offered. You'll never get a better cat than this; everyone knows that the ginger ones are the best mousers--they've got more go in them. And look at this handsome white shirt-front. It shows you how beautifully clean he is. And think of the advantage--you can see him--you and your good lady won't go tripping over him in a dark corner, same as you do with these black and tabby ones. As a matter of fact, we ought to charge extra for such a handsome colour as this. They're much rarer and more high-class than the ordinary cat.'
'There's something in that,' admitted Mr Doe. 'Well, look here, Miss Maitland. Suppose you bring Maher-- what you said--out to our place this evening, and if my wife likes him we will keep him. Here's the address. And you must come at six precisely, please, as we shall be going out later.'
Monty looked at the address, which was at the northern extremity of the Edgware-Morden Tube.
'It's a very long way to come on the chance,' he said resolutely. 'You will have to pay Miss Maitland's expenses.'
'Oh, certainly,' said Mr Doe. 'That's only fair. Here is half a crown. You can return me the change this evening. Very well, thank you. Your cat will have a really happy home if he comes to us. Put him back in his basket now. The other way out, please. Mind the step. Good morning.'
Mr Egg and his new friend, stumbling down an excessively confined and stuffy back staircase into a malodorous by-street, looked at one another.
'He seemed rather an abrupt sort of person,' said Miss Maitland. 'I do hope he'll be kind to Maher-shalal- hashbaz. You were marvellous about the gingeriness--I thought he was going to be stuffy about that. My angel Mash! How anybody could object to his beautiful colour!'
'Um!' said Mr Egg. 'Well, Mr Doe may be O.K., but I shall believe in his ten shillings when I see it. And, in any case, you're not going too his house alone. I shall call for you in the car at five o'clock.'
'But, Mr Egg--I can't allow you! Besides, you've taken half a crown off him for my fare.'
'That's only business,' said Mr Egg. 'Five o'clock sharp I shall be there.'
'Well, come at four, and let us give you a cup of tea, anyway. That's the least we can do.'
'Pleased, I'm sure,' said Mr Egg.
The house occupied by Mr John Doe was a new detached villa standing solitary at the extreme end of a new and unmade suburban road. It was Mrs Doe who answered the bell--a small, frightened-looking woman with watery eyes and a nervous habit of plucking at her pale lips with her fingers. Maher-shalal-hashbaz was released from his basket in the sitting-room, where Mr Doe was reclining in an arm-chair, reading the evening paper. The cat sniffed suspiciously at him, but softened to Mrs Doe's timid advances so far as to allow his ears to be tickled.
'Well, my dear,' said Mr Doe, 'will he do? You don't object to the colour, eh?'
'Oh, no. He's a beautiful cat. I like him very much.'
'Right. Then we'll take him. Here you are, Miss Maitland. Ten shillings. Please sign this receipt. Thanks. Never mind about the change from the half-crown. There you are, my dear; you've got your cat, and I hope we shall see no more of those mice. Now'--he glanced at his watch--'I'm afraid you must say goodbye to your pet quickly, Miss Maitland; we've got to get off. He'll be quite safe with us.'
Monty strolled out with gentlemanly reticence into the hall while the last words were said. It was, no doubt, the same gentlemanly feeling which led him to move away from the sitting-room door towards the back part of the house; but he had only waited a very few minutes when Jean Maitland came out, sniffing valiantly into a small handkerchief, and followed by Mrs Doe.
'You're fond of your cat, aren't you, my dear? I do hope you don't feel too--'
'There, there, Flossie,' said her husband, appearing suddenly at her shoulders, 'Miss Maitland knows he'll be well looked after.' He showed them out, and shut the door quickly upon them.
'If you don't feel happy about it,' said Mr Egg uneasily, 'we'll have him back in two twos.'
'No, its all right,' said Jean. 'If you don't mind, let's get in at once and drive away--rather fast.'
As they lurched over the uneven road, Mr Egg saw a lad coming down it. In one hand he carried a basket. He was whistling loudly.
'Look!' said Monty. 'One of our hated rivals. We've got in ahead of him, anyhow. 'The salesman first upon the field gets the bargain signed and sealed.' Damn it!' he added to himself, as he pressed down the accelerator, 'I hope it's O.K. I wonder.'
Although Mr Egg had worked energetically to get Maher-shalal-hashbaz settled in the world, he was not easy in his mind. The matter preyed upon his spirits to such an extent that, finding himself back in London on the following Saturday week, he made an expedition south of the Thames to make inquiries. And when the Maitlands' door was opened by Jean, there by her side, arching his back and brandishing his tail, was Maher-shalal- hashbaz.
'Yes,' said the girl, 'he found his way back, the clever darling! Just a week ago today--and he was dreadfully thin and draggled--how he did it, I can't think. But we simply couldn't send him away again, could we, Maggie?'
'No,' said Mrs Maitland. 'I don't like the cat, and never did, but there! I suppose even cats have their feelings. But it's an awkward thing about the money.'
'Yes,' said Jean. 'You see, when he got back and we decided to keep him, I wrote to Mr Doe and explained, and sent him a postal order for the ten shillings. And this morning the letter came back from the Post Office, marked 'Not Known.' So we don't know what to do about it.'
'I never did believe in Mr John Doe,' said Monty. 'If you ask me, Miss Maitland, he was no good, and I shouldn't bother any more about him.'
But the girl was not satisfied, and presently the obliging Mr Egg found himself driving out northwards in search of the mysterious Mr Doe, carrying the postal order with him.
The door of the villa was opened by a neatly dressed, elderly woman whom he had never seen before. Mr Egg inquired for Mr John Doe.
'He doesn't live here. Never heard of him.'
Monty explained that he wanted the gentleman who had purchased the cat.
'Cat?' said the woman. Her face changed. 'Step inside, will you? George!' she called to somebody inside the house, 'here's a gentleman called about a cat. Perhaps you'd like to--' The rest of the sentence was whispered into the ear of a man who emerged from the sitting-room, and who appeared to be, and was in fact, her husband.
George looked Mr Egg carefully up and down. 'I don't know nobody here called Doe,' said he; 'but if it's the late tenant you're wanting, they've left. Packed and went off in a hurry the day after the old gentleman was buried. I'm the caretaker for the landlord. And if you've missed a cat, maybe you'd like to come and have a look out here.'
He led the way through the house and out at the back door into the garden. In the middle of one of the flower-beds was a large hole, like an irregularly shaped and shallow grave. A spade stood upright in the mould. And laid in two lugubrious rows upon the lawn were the corpses of some very dead cats. At a hasty estimate, Mr Egg reckoned that there must be close on fifty of them.
'If any of these is yours,' said George, 'you're welcome to it. But they ain't in what you might call good condition.'
'Good Lord!' said Mr Egg, appalled, and thought with pleasure of Maher-shalal-hashbaz, tail erect, welcoming him on the Maitlands' threshold. 'Come back and tell me about this. It's--it's unbelievable!'
It turned out that the name of the late tenants had been Proctor. The family consisted of an old Mr Proctor, an invalid, to whom the house belonged, and his married nephew and the nephew's wife.
'They didn't have no servant sleeping in. Old Mrs Crabbe used to do for them, coming in daily, and she always told me that the old gentleman couldn't abide cats. They made him ill like--I've known folks like that afore. And, of course, they had to be careful, him being so frail and his heart so bad he might have popped off any minute. What it seemed to us when I found all them cats buried, like, was as how maybe young Proctor had killed them to prevent the old gentleman seeing 'em and getting a shock. But the queer thing is that all them cats looks to have
