I cut across the lawn and knocked on the door.
Seeing her from a distance, I’d thought she was a knockout. Now, as she opened the door and I got a close look, I knew she was.
I said, “My name is Brian Murray. I live next door and I-”
“And you play with Russ Whitlow’s orchestra.” She smiled, and I saw I’d underestimated how pretty she was.
Strictly tops. “I was hoping we’d get acquainted while you were here. Won’t you come in?”
I didn’t argue about that. I went in, and almost the first thing I noticed inside was a beautiful walnut grand piano. I asked, “Do you play, Miss—?”
“Carson. Ruth Carson. I give piano lessons to brats with sticky fingers who’d rather be outside playing ball or skipping rope. When I heard Whitlow on the radio a few nights ago, the piano sounded different. Aren’t you still—?”
“I’m on leave,” I explained. “I had rather good luck with a couple of compositions a year ago, and Russ gave me a month off to try my hand at some more.”
“Have you written any?”
I said ruefully, “To date all I’ve set down is a pair of clef signs. Maybe now…” I was going to say that maybe now that I’d met her, things would be different. But that was working too fast, I decided.
She said, “Sit down, Mr. Murray. My uncle and aunt will be home soon, and I’d like you to meet them. Meanwhile, would you care for some tea?”
I said that I would, and it was only after she’d gone out into the kitchen that I realized I hadn’t asked the question I’d come to ask. When she came back, I said:
“Miss Carson, I came to ask you about a black cat. It walked into my house a few minutes ago. Do you know if it belongs to anybody here in the neighborhood?”
“A black cat? That’s odd. Mr. Lasky owned one, but outside of that one, I don’t know of any around here.”
“Who is Mr. Lasky?”
She looked surprised. “Why, didn’t you know? He was the man who lived in that cottage before you did. He died only a few weeks ago. He — he committed suicide.”
The faintest little shiver ran down my spine. Funny, in a city, how little one knows about the places one lives in. You rent a house or an apartment and never think to wonder who has lived there before you or what tragedies have been enacted there.
I said, “That might explain it. I mean, if it’s his cat. Cats become attached to people. It would explain why the cat—”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t,” she said. “The cat is dead, too. I happened to see him bury it in your back yard, under the maple tree. It was run over by a car, I believe.”
The phone rang, and she went to answer it. I started thinking about the cat again. The way it had walked in, as though it lived there — it was a bit eerie, somehow. If it were my predecessor’s cat, that would explain its apparent familiarity with the place. But it couldn’t be my predecessor’s cat. Unless he’d had more than one…
Ruth Carson came back from the hallway. She said,
“That was my aunt. They won’t be home until late tonight, so probably you won’t get to meet them until tomorrow. That means I’ll have to get my own dinner, and I hate to eat alone.
Will you share it with me, Mr. Murray?”
That was the easiest question I’d ever had to answer in my life.
We had an excellent meal in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. We talked about music for a while, and then I told her about the cat and the doorbell.
It puzzled her almost as much as it had puzzled me. She said, “Are you sure some child couldn’t have rung it for a prank, and then ducked out of sight before you got there?”
“I don’t see how,” I said. “I was just inside the door the second time it rang. Tell me about this Mr. Lasky and about his cat.”
She said, “I don’t know how long he lived there. We moved here just a year ago, and he was there then. He was rather an eccentric chap, almost a hermit. He never had any guests, never spoke to anyone. He and the cat lived there alone. I think he was crazy about the cat.”
“An old duck?” I asked.
“Not really old. Probably in his fifties. He had a gray beard that made him look older.”
“And the cat. Could he possibly have had two black cats?”
“I’m almost positive he didn’t. I never saw more than the big black torn he called Satan. And there was no cat around during the week after it was killed.”
“You’re positive it died?”
“Yes. I happened to see him burying it, and it wasn’t in a box or anything. And it was almost the only time I ever heard him speak; he was talking to himself, cursing about careless auto drivers. He took it hard. Maybe—”
She stopped, and I tried to fill in the blank. “You mean that was why he committed suicide a week later?”
“Oh, he must have had other reasons, but I imagine that was a factor. He left a suicide note, I understand. It was in the papers, at the time. There was one particularly unhappy circumstance about it. He wrote the note and then took poison. But before the poison had taken effect, he regretted it or changed his mind; he telephoned the police and they rushed an ambulance and a doctor — but he was dead when they got there.”
For an instant I wondered how he could have phoned the police from a house in which there was no telephone. Then I remembered that there had been one, taken out before I moved in. The rental agency had told me so, and that the wiring was already there in case I wanted one installed. For privacy’s sake I’d decided against having it done.
We’d finished our meal, and I insisted on helping with the dishes. Then I said, “Would you like to meet the cat?”
“Of course,” she said. “Are you going to let him stay?”
I grinned. “The question seems to be whether he’s going to let me stay. Come on; maybe you can give me a recommendation.”
We were right by her kitchen door, so we cut across the back yards into my kitchen. All the hamburger I’d put under the sink was gone. The cat was back in the Morris chair, asleep again. He blinked at us as I turned on the light.
Ruth stood there staring at him. “He’s a dead ringer for Mr. Lasky’s Satan. I’d almost swear it’s the same. But it couldn’t be!”
I said, “A cat has nine lives, you know. Anyway, I’ll call him Satan. And since the question arises whether he’s Satan One or Satan Two, let’s compromise. Satan One-and-a-Half.
So, Satan One-and-a-Half, you’ve got the only comfortable chair in this room. Mind giving it up for a lady?”
Whether he minded or not, I picked him up and moved him to a straight chair. Satan One-and-a-Half promptly jumped down to the floor from his straight chair, went back to the Morris, and jumped up on Ruth’s lap.
I said, “Shall I shut him in the kitchen?”
“No, don’t. Really, I like cats.” She was stroking his fur gently, and the cat promptly curled into a black ball of fur and went to sleep.
“Anyway,” I said, “he’s got good taste. But now you’re stuck. You can’t move without waking him, and that would be rude.”
She smiled. “Will you play for me? Something of your own, I mean. Did you mean it literally when you said you’d composed nothing since you’ve been here, or were you being modest?”
I looked down at the staff paper on the piano. There were a few bars there, an opening. But it wasn’t any good. I said, “I wasn’t being modest. I can compose, when I have an idea. But I haven’t had an idea since I’ve been here.”
She said, “Play the ‘Black Cat Nocturne.’ ”
“Sorry, I don’t know—”
“Of course not. It hasn’t been written yet.”
Then I got what she was talking about, and it began to click.
She said, “A doorbell rings, but nobody is there. The ghost of a dead black cat walks in and takes over your house.