[adapted]

by
Saki

It was a cold, rainy afternoon of a late August day, that unclear season when partridges are still safe or in cold rooms, and there is nothing to hunt—unless one is next to the Bristol Channel on the north side, in which case one may legally ride fast after fat red stags. Lady Blemley’s house party was not next to the Bristol Channel on the north side, so there was a full gathering of her guests around the tea table on this very afternoon. And, in spite of the emptiness of the season and the dullness of the occasion, there was no sign in the company of that tired restlessness which means a fear of the pianola and a quiet wish for auction bridge.

The not hidden open-mouthed attention of the entire party was fixed on the plain, not interesting personality of Mr. Cornelius Appin. Of all her guests, he was the one who had come to Lady Blemley with the most unclear reputation. Some one had said he was “clever,” and he had got his invitation with the modest hope, from his hostess, that at least some part of his cleverness would be given to the general entertainment.

Until tea-time that day she had not been able to find out in what way, if any, he was clever. He was neither witty nor a croquet champion, neither someone who could hypnotize people nor a maker of amateur plays. Nor did his looks suggest the kind of man whom women are willing to forgive for a lot of stupidity. He had fallen back into just Mr. Appin, and the Cornelius seemed an obvious naming trick. And now he was saying he had given the world a discovery compared with which the invention of gunpowder, the printing press, and steam trains were small things. Science had made amazing steps in many areas in recent years, but this thing seemed to belong to the world of miracle rather than to scientific success.

“And do you really want us to believe,” Sir Wilfrid was saying, “that you have found a way to teach animals to talk like humans, and that dear old Tobermory has been your first successful student?”

“It is a problem I have worked on for the last seventeen years,” said Mr. Appin, “but only in the last eight or nine months have I had small signs of success. Of course I have experimented with thousands of animals, but lately only with cats, those wonderful animals that have fitted in so well with our society while keeping all their strong wild instincts. Here and there among cats one finds a very clever mind, just as one does among the crowd of human beings, and when I met Tobermory a week ago I saw at once that I was in contact with a ‘Beyond-cat’ of very great intelligence. I had gone far along the road to success in recent experiments; with Tobermory, as you call him, I have reached the goal.”

Mr. Appin finished his very unusual statement in a voice that he tried to keep from sounding proud. No one said “Rats,” though Clovis’s lips moved in a twist for a short word that probably called up those rats of doubt.

“And do you mean to say,” asked Miss Resker, after a short pause, “that you have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy sentences with one-syllable words?”

“My dear Miss Resker,” said the miracle worker patiently, “one teaches little children and wild people and slow adults in that bit-by-bit way; when someone has solved the problem of starting with an animal that is very clever one does not need those slow, unsure ways. Tobermory can speak our language perfectly correctly.”

This time Clovis very clearly said, “Beyond-rats!”. Sir Wilfrid was more polite, but just as doubtful.

“Shouldn’t we bring the cat in and decide for ourselves?” suggested Lady Blemley.

Sir Wilfrid went to look for the animal, and the group sat down to the lazy hope of seeing some more or less clever living-room ventriloquist show.

In a minute Sir Wilfrid was back in the room, his face white under its tan and his eyes wide with excitement. “My God, it’s true!”

His worry was clearly real, and his listeners moved forward with sudden excitement and new interest.

Falling into an armchair, he went on, out of breath: “I found him half asleep in the smoking-room and called out to him to come for his tea. He blinked at me as usual, and I said, ‘Come on, Toby; don’t keep us waiting’; and, goodness! he said slowly in a very natural voice that he would come when he felt like it! I nearly jumped out of my skin!”

Appin had spoken to listeners who did not believe at all; Sir Wilfred’s words made everyone believe at once. A noisy mix of surprised shouts began, in which the scientist sat in silence enjoying the first result of his amazing discovery.

In the middle of the noise Tobermory entered the room and walked with soft steps and looking as if he did not care over to the group sitting around the tea-table.

A sudden silence of awkwardness and tension came over the group. Somehow there seemed to be a bit of embarrassment in speaking to a house cat as an equal with known intelligence.

“Will you have some milk, Tobermory?” asked Lady Blemley in a voice that was a little worried.

“Yes, I will,” was the response, said in a very calm, uninterested voice. A shiver of held-back excitement went through the listeners, and Lady Blemley could be forgiven for pouring out the saucer full of milk rather shakily.

“I’m sorry I have spilled a lot of it,” she said in a sorry way.

“Anyway, it’s not my carpet,” was Tobermory’s reply.

Another silence came over the group, and then Miss Resker, in her best polite manner, asked if the human language had been difficult to learn. Tobermory looked straight at her for a moment and then looked calmly at the distance. It was clear that boring questions were not part of his way of life.

“What do you think of people’s intelligence?” asked Mavis Pellington weakly.

“Of whose cleverness, exactly?” asked Tobermory coldly.

“Oh, well, mine for example,” said Mavis, with a weak laugh.

“You put me in an embarrassing position,” said Tobermory, whose tone and attitude certainly did not show any embarrassment. “When someone suggested inviting you to this house party, Sir Wilfrid said that you were the most brainless woman he knew, and that there was a big difference between being a host and taking care of people with weak minds. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the exact quality that had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be silly enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they call ‘The Envy of Sisyphus,’ because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it.”

Lady Blemley’s protests would have had more effect if she had not suggested to Mavis in a casual way only that morning that the car they were talking about would be just right for her at her home in Devonshire.

Major Barfield jumped in quickly to make a distraction.

“How about your behavior with the tortoise-shell cat up at the stables, eh?”

As soon as he had said it every one understood the mistake.

“People do not usually talk about these things in public,” said Tobermory coldly. “From a little look at the way you act since you’ve been in this house I think you would find it uncomfortable if I were to change the talk to your own little private things.”

The panic that followed was not only felt by the Major.

“Would you like to go and see if cook has got your dinner ready?” said Lady Blemley quickly, pretending not to notice that it was at least two hours until Tobermory’s dinner-time.

“Thanks,” said Tobermory, “not so soon after my tea. I don’t want to die of a stomach ache.”

“Cats have nine lives, you know,” said Sir Wilfrid cheerfully.

“Maybe”, answered Tobermory; “but only one liver.”

“Adelaide!” said Mrs. Cornett, “do you mean to let that cat go out and talk about us in the servants’ room?”

The panic had really become general. A narrow decorative railing ran in front of most of the bedroom windows at the Towers, and it was remembered with fear that this had been a favourite place to walk for Tobermory at any time, from there he could watch the pigeons—and no one knew what else besides. If he meant to start talking about the past in his present open way the effect would be something more than upsetting.

Mrs. Cornett, who spent much time at her dressing table, and whose complexion was said to be changeable though always on time, looked as ill at ease as the Major. Miss Scrawen, who wrote very passionate poetry and led a blameless life, only showed that she was annoyed; if you are careful and good in private you don’t necessarily want every one to know it. Bertie van Tahn, who was so very bad at seventeen that he had long ago given up trying to be any worse, turned a dull shade of gardenia white, but he did not make the mistake of running out of the room like Odo Finsberry, a young gentleman who was said to be studying for the Church and who was possibly upset at the thought of scandals he might hear about other people. Clovis was smart enough to keep a calm face; privately he was working out how long it would take to get a box of fancy mice through the Exchange and Mart as a kind of payment to make someone keep quiet.

Even in a difficult situation like this one, Agnes Resker could not stand to stay too long in the background.

“Why did I ever come down here?” she asked with a lot of feeling.

Tobermory accepted the chance right away.

“From what you said to Mrs. Cornett on the croquet lawn yesterday, you were there for the food. You described the Blemleys as the most boring people to stay with that you knew, but said they were smart enough to hire a very good cook; otherwise they would find it hard to get anyone to come down a second time.”

“It is not true at all! I ask Mrs. Cornett—” said the upset Agnes.

“Mrs. Cornett repeated what you said later to Bertie van Tahn,” said Tobermory, “and said, ‘That woman is a real Hunger Marcher; she would go anywhere for four full meals a day,’ and Bertie van Tahn said—”

At this point the story luckily stopped. Tobermory had seen the big yellow tom-cat from the priest’s house moving through the bushes towards the stable side. Very quickly he had gone through the open glass door.

When his too clever pupil disappeared Cornelius Appin was faced with a lot of angry scolding, worried questions, and scared begging. He was responsible for the situation, and he must stop things from getting worse. Could Tobermory give his dangerous skill to other cats? was the first question he had to answer. It was possible, he replied, that he might have taught his close friend the stable cat in his new skill, but it was not likely that he had taught more cats yet.

“Then,” said Mrs. Cornett, “Tobermory may be a cat worth a lot and a great pet; but I’m sure you agree, Adelaide, that both he and the stable cat must be killed right away.”

“You don’t think I have enjoyed the last fifteen minutes, do you?” said Lady Blemley angrily. “My husband and I like Tobermory very much—at least, we did before this terrible skill was given to him; but now, of course, the only thing is to have him killed as soon as possible.”

“We can put some poison in the leftover food he always gets at dinner-time,” said Sir Wilfrid, “and I will go and drown the cat in the stable myself. The coach driver will be very upset about losing his pet, but I’ll say a very contagious skin disease has started in both cats and we’re afraid it will spread to the dog kennels.”

“But my great discovery!” said Mr. Appin; “after all my years of study and tests—”

“You can go and do experiments on the shorthorn cows at the farm, who are under good control,” said Mrs. Cornett, “or the elephants at the zoo. People say they are very clever, and they have this good point, that they don’t come creeping around our bedrooms and under chairs, and so on.”

An archangel joyfully announcing the Millennium, and then finding that it clashed badly with Henley and would have to be put off for a long time, could hardly have felt more disappointed than Cornelius Appin at the reaction to his great success. Public opinion, however, was against him—in fact, if people in general had been asked on the subject it is likely that a strong minority vote would have been in favour of including him in the plan to poison with strychnine.

Bad train plans and an anxious wish to see things finished stopped the group from breaking up at once, but dinner that evening was not a social success. Sir Wilfrid had quite a hard time with the cat in the stables and later with the carriage driver. Agnes Resker in a showy way limited her meal to a small piece of dry toast, which she bit as if it were a personal enemy; while Mavis Pellington kept an angry silence during the whole meal. Lady Blemley kept up what she hoped was conversation, but her eyes were fixed on the doorway. A plate full of carefully prepared small pieces of fish was ready on the side table, but the sweets and the savoury and the dessert came and went, and no Tobermory appeared either in the dining-room or the kitchen.

The sad dinner was cheerful compared with the later long wait in the smoking-room. Eating and drinking had at least given something else to think about and a cover for the general embarrassment. Bridge was not possible, with everyone nervous and in a bad temper, and after Odo Finsberry had given a very sad performance of “Melisande in the Wood” to a cold audience, music was silently avoided.