And that left only Miss Talley.
He watched the clock and reached her place a few minutes early, but she was there.
“Doctor!” she said, when she saw his face. “Come in. Has something new happened?”
He nodded, a little grimly. “It’s about the cat. But I want to dictate it as an addendum to the statement I dictated to you last week. If you’ll get your notebook—”
Miss Talley got it, and her eyes danced as excitedly as her pencil point as he talked and she wrote. He told the whole story of the cat, from her first glimpse of it during his previous dictation to his finding it drowned in the little creek. He went into detail and it took him over an hour.
Miss Talley looked up then. “Doctor! Besides mailing these to your two friends, you’ve
Doc nodded slowly. “I’m going to, Miss Talley. I’ll tell you my plans before I leave, but first, while I’m dictating, let me give you the two covering letters that go with the statements that I’m going to mail out.”
He dictated again, and the letters ran longer than he had anticipated; it was almost five o’clock when he had finished. “Miss Talley, about how long do you think it will take you to transcribe all that?”
“A few hours, possibly four, but I’ll start it right away; I won’t even eat until I’ve finished. While I’m doing it you can go see the sheriff and—”
“No, I want to wait till I have a copy of the full statement to have him read when I see him. It’ll impress him more that way, I think. After all, outside of the gray cat episode, nothing in here will be new to him, and for me just to tell him over again—well, I’d rather have him read the statement.
“And I’m not going to let you work all evening without eating, or waste time cooking for yourself either. Put your coat on and we’ll eat together in town. Then I’ll drive you back here and leave you. You can do your typing, and in the morning I’ll talk to the sheriff and get those letters in the mail—airmail special delivery. It’ll be too late by the time you finish this evening, even if I’d let you work straight through.”
“Well—I suppose it would, even if you went in to Green Bay to mail them. But are you going to take the chance of staying out there tonight? Everything that’s happened has been, or has started, along that road you live on. And the last thing, the cat, right where you live!”
Doc smiled. “I’ll be all right tonight, Miss Talley,” he told her.
And he was, because the mind thing was otherwise occupied.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The mind thing, finally freed of his annoying imprisonment in a host that had become of no further use to him, was back in his own body, his own shell, under the back steps of the Gross farmhouse. He felt relieved and well satisfied with what he had just done. He had taken his cat-host so far into the woods before drowning it that its body would probably never be found. Staunton might wonder if he learned that the cat had not returned to its former home—but Staunton would never learn that because tonight, while he slept, he would cease to
The mind thing’s plans were simple, and he’d had plenty of time to think them out while, as a cat, he’d nothing to do but laze around Staunton’s house and play the cat role to the hilt. He felt sure that he’d done just that; he’d managed not to do a single thing out of character for a cat. He’d been tempted, just for a second, when Staunton had offered to shoot him but he’d seen through the trap easily. If he’d gone to sit on the target on the floor, Staunton’s suspicions would have been verified and shooting him would have been the
But all that was safely past now, and after tonight he’d be really safe. He’d be in control of the only human being who was a menace to him and who at the same time was his optimum host.
It was of such major importance that he take over Staunton at the earliest possible time that he wouldn’t even take the risk of using an animal or bird host for the purpose. Mrs. Gross would be safer and surer. He’d take her over as soon as she went to sleep. He’d wait until, say, one o’clock, by which time everyone between here and Staunton’s place would certainly be sound asleep; then he’d have her carry him that distance. If there was a light on in Staunton’s place, she’d wait until a full hour after it had gone out, then hide him within range of the sleeping Staunton. Then she’d come back home and die. He’d make it look like an accident—a fall down the stairs, perhaps, in the middle of the night. True, her death, in any way except a natural one, would be a suspicious coincidence so shortly after her husband’s death, but that wouldn’t matter, because within a minute after her death he’d have Staunton, the one person who could otherwise be dangerous to him. Let others wonder; he’d be safe.
He threw out his perceptor sense to refamiliarize himself with what was currently happening—what changes, if any, might have occurred during the days while his mind had been away.
Mrs. Gross was alone in the house, in the kitchen, at the moment sterilizing some mason jars in preparation for preserving or canning something.
Nothing had changed in the barnyard or in the barn except that the three cows were no longer in the latter. No doubt they were out in pasture. All was well.
Mrs. Gross came out of the house—walking right over him as she came down the kitchen steps. With mild curiosity, and since he had nothing else to do, he followed her with his sense of perception. She went around behind the barn, stopping just about at the limit of his ability to follow her. “Jim!” she called out, “Yoo-hoo, Jim!” He heard a voice call back in answer, although it was too far for him to hear the words.
He remembered now. The Kramer boy, he’d learned from conversations in the Gross house, had been willing, at his father’s suggestion, to come over and work for Mrs. Gross for the rest of the school vacation, or until she had sold the farm and turned it over to the new owner.
He knew and could picture Jim—with the memories of the cat Jerry, which had been a Kramer cat: a husky young boy about the age of Tommy Hoffman. He’d be a much better host than the aging and frail Mrs. Gross. But of course he wouldn’t be sleeping here.
“Will you bring in a few ears of the corn, Jim?” Mrs. Gross was calling out. “I’ll cook it for our lunch, huh? And maybe scone cucumbers when you pass the patch.”
She came around the barn and went back into the house.
Jim Kramer stopped what he was doing, picking beans, and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief as he headed for the edge of the cornfield. He was husky all right, and just Tommy’s age, and had known Tommy, although they hadn’t been really close friends. One way in which they had differed was that Tommy had been interested in farming, would have been content to have spent the rest of his life as a farmer. Jim had bigger ideas. When he’d be graduated in June of next year, he was going to go to college and study engineering. Just what kind he hadn’t fully decided yet. Probably mechanical engineering; chemical engineering, his alternative, would perhaps take him further and lead to bigger money, but he was a natural-born mechanic and more interested in machinery than in chemicals, so it would make more sense for him to study something at which he already had a good start. He could take apart and put together any car or tractor he’d ever had a chance to fiddle with, and after college he’d be able to design cars and other machinery.
Meanwhile, he didn’t mind farm work and was good at it. He was glad this deal with Mrs. Gross had come along to let him earn some money this summer to add to his college fund. The pay wasn’t generous, but it was adequate. And it was a full-time job while it lasted. At first he’d tried—it had been his father’s idea—to spend only half of each day here, the other half back on his own farm. But after only a day or two it became obvious that, unless the Gross farm was to deteriorate and lose crops, it was a full-time job. His father had seen the point, and agreed.
He picked half a dozen of the best ears of corn—and then, after considering, two more. He had a healthy appetite and doing outdoor work sharpened it. Mrs. Gross would probably eat only two ears, but he might want six
