He parked the station wagon in front of Miss Talley’s little house. She must have seen him stopping there, because she had the door opened before he reached it.
“Come in, Doctor. All ready for you. Sit down, and I’ll bring the manuscripts. And my notebook.”
“Thanks, Miss Talley, but I don’t think I’m going to dictate those two letters today. I’ve decided I want a few days to think things over before I send them. And I may as well wait to write until I’m ready to mail them; something else might happen and I can put any subsequent information in the letter.”
“All right, if you think so.” She picked up a large brown envelope and gave it to him. “Want to read this now anyway?”
He shook his head. “Might as well read it at home. I’d rather talk a few minutes, if you’ve time.”
She had time, she told him. He told her about the cat. “I started out being scared of it, or about its being there.” He laughed. “You and your talk about possession did that to me, I suppose. But now I feel just the opposite. I hope it sticks around; it keeps me from getting lonesome, I think it’s a perfectly normal cat, Miss Talley.”
“And Buck was a perfectly normal dog, until he ran under your car. In spite of what you say, Doctor, I’m a little worried about its living there with you. I suppose it’s silly of me, but—I do worry.”
“I’ll be all right, Miss Talley. I’m afraid I’m beginning to think we both went a bit overboard on this.”
“Possibly, Doctor… Will you promise me you’ll send those letters, and the reports, to the two friends you mentioned?”
Doc sighed. “All right, I’ll send them. Just want a couple of days to think it over first.”
“All right. For the rest of this week I’ll be staying home, that is, early afternoons; so any day you want to come and dictate them… ”
That evening after he had finished washing the dishes he went into the living room and sat on the sofa; the cat was already there and he reached over and stroked its sleek fur. The cat purred.
“Well, Cat, getting to like it here? And to like me? Let’s see; this is Thursday evening. Let’s set a date for giving you your choice, a date and an hour. How does Monday strike you? Let’s see; I’ve been feeding you about the middle of the afternoon. I’ll let you go out—if you still want to go out—about the middle of the morning. That’ll give you time to think it over before you get hungry again.
“If I go into town I won’t stay long, I’ll go when I let you out, and be back by noon. Waiting and ready to feed you if you come back. Fair enough?”
The cat didn’t answer, but it still purred.
Doc said, “If it relieves a worry on your part, the Kramers gave you to me; they don’t want you back. Oh, they’ll take you if you want to go home to them. They’ll feed you, and forgive you.
“Yes, I know who you are, and that your name was Jerry there. Might have kept that name if another male cat had come with you. I’d have called him Tom. Tom and Jerry. Ever tasted one? They’re good. But that’s irrelevant. Which are you going to prefer, the Kramers or me?”
He got up and took a comfortable chair facing the sofa. He stared at the cat from across the room.
“Cat, why did you hide? Why did you come in an upstairs window? Don’t you know cats just don’t do that? Damn it, why didn’t you act all along as you’re acting now?”
The cat stretched languorously and then curled up again and closed its eyes.
“Cat.” Doc said it sharply and the cat opened its eyes again and stared at him.
“Cat, don’t go to sleep on me. I’m talking to you, and sleeping isn’t polite when you’re being spoken to. Cat, you used to live on the farm next to the Grosses. Did you know their cat? The one that committed suicide the night Gross did? Don’t tell me it wasn’t suicide, that cat jumping right into the jaws of a vicious dog it must have known was there. If it was suicide, why? And if it wasn’t, what was it?”
The cat’s eyes had closed, but somehow Doc felt that it wasn’t asleep.
“And an owl killed itself that same night. What do you know about that? And before that, along with Tommy Hoffman’s death we had a field mouse that got itself killed, seemingly deliberately. And a dog. Do you know that I was the one who ran over the dog? And that it had been hiding beside the road until my car got just the right distance away—only a few yards—and then ran right under my wheels? I’ll swear that one was deliberate—especially since they tell me that dog was car-shy.
“Two human beings, four animals—that we know of. Of course any other human suicides we’d know about, but how many more animals, especially ones out in the woods and not under observation, might have brought about their own deaths recently after— After what? After they’d served the purpose of whoever, or whatever, was using them?”
Outside, crickets were chirping, thousands of crickets. Doc’s mind wandered and he thought how strange it was that one could tell the temperature, almost exactly, by timing the interval between the chirps of a cricket. A cricket was a thermometer, and probably as accurate as the average household thermometer. There were many strange things in nature. Lemmings, with their periodical suicidal migrations to and into the sea. Group insanity? Or do the lemmings know something that we don’t know?
He heard the crickets, watched the black night press against the window pane. He turned back to the cat.
“Cat,” he said, “why did those other animals kill themselves? If you’re like them, why don’t you? Is the only reason you’re alive the fact that there isn’t any way of killing yourself shut up here? Wait a minute, I’ll find out.”
He left the living room and went across the hall and into the third downstairs room, a small room that was only partly furnished and used mostly for storage. Except for items that were already there, Doc used it only to store his fishing tackle and boots, his guns and ammunition. Although he knew there was open season on nothing worth hunting in Wisconsin in summer, he’d brought a pistol and a rifle for target practice and a shotgun mostly because it was a brand new one and he wanted a chance to try it out. All these things he’d had shipped ahead of him before his flight to Green Bay; he’d picked them up there after he’d bought the used station wagon which he’d sell before flying back at the end of the summer.
He took the pistol, a .38-caliber S. & W. Special and took a cardboard rifle target from a package of them. In the doorway between the hall and the living room he put the square of cardboard down on the floor and went back to the chair he’d been sitting in. He cocked the gun and saw the cat raise its head at the sudden click.
“Listen, Cat,” he said, “let’s try this for size. If you’re only wanting out of here so you can find a way to kill yourself, I’ll save you the trouble. If you understand what I’m saying and want me to shoot you, prove it by going to the doorway there. Sit down on that target, that’s all you have to do.”
For a moment the cat blinked at him sleepily and then it put its head down again and went back to sleep—or pretended to. If it understood his offer, it wasn’t having any.