Tales of Terror and Mystery
great wealth of Lord Southerton, all my other relations were fairly
well-to-do. The nearest of these was Everard King, my father's nephew
and my own first cousin, who had spent an adventurous life in Brazil,
and had now returned to this country to settle down on his fortune. We
never knew how he made his money, but he appeared to have plenty of it,
for he bought the estate of Greylands, near Clipton-on-the-Marsh, in
Suffolk. For the first year of his residence in England he took no
more notice of me than my miserly uncle; but at last one summer
morning, to my very great relief and joy, I received a letter asking me
to come down that very day and spend a short visit at Greylands Court.
I was expecting a rather long visit to Bankruptcy Court at the time,
and this interruption seemed almost providential. If I could only get
on terms with this unknown relative of mine, I might pull through yet.
For the family credit he could not let me go entirely to the wall. I
ordered my valet to pack my valise, and I set off the same evening for
Clipton-on-the-Marsh.
After changing at Ipswich, a little local train deposited me at a
small, deserted station lying amidst a rolling grassy country, with a
sluggish and winding river curving in and out amidst the valleys,
between high, silted banks, which showed that we were within reach of
the tide. No carriage was awaiting me (I found afterwards that my
telegram had been delayed), so I hired a dogcart at the local inn. The
driver, an excellent fellow, was full of my relative's praises, and I
learned from him that Mr. Everard King was already a name to conjure
with in that part of the county. He had entertained the
school-children, he had thrown his grounds open to visitors, he had
subscribed to charities--in short, his benevolence had been so
universal that my driver could only account for it on the supposition
that he had parliamentary ambitions.
My attention was drawn away from my driver's panegyric by the
appearance of a very beautiful bird which settled on a telegraph-post
beside the road. At first I thought that it was a jay, but it was
larger, with a brighter plumage. The driver accounted for its presence
at once by saying that it belonged to the very man whom we were about
to visit. It seems that the acclimatization of foreign creatures was
one of his hobbies, and that he had brought with him from Brazil a
number of birds and beasts which he was endeavouring to rear in
England. When once we had passed the gates of Greylands Park we had
ample evidence of this taste of his. Some small spotted deer, a
curious wild pig known, I believe, as a peccary, a gorgeously feathered
oriole, some sort of armadillo, and a singular lumbering in-toed beast
like a very fat badger, were among the creatures which I observed as we
drove along the winding avenue.
Mr. Everard King, my unknown cousin, was standing in person upon the
steps of his house, for he had seen us in the distance, and guessed
that it was I. His appearance was very homely and benevolent, short
and stout, forty-five years old, perhaps, with a round, good-humoured
face, burned brown with the tropical sun, and shot with a thousand
wrinkles. He wore white linen clothes, in true planter style, with a
cigar between his lips, and a large Panama hat upon the back of his
head. It was such a figure as one associates with a verandahed
bungalow, and it looked curiously out of place in front of this broad,
stone English mansion, with its solid wings and its Palladio pillars
before the doorway.
"My dear!" he cried, glancing over his shoulder; "my dear, here is our
guest! Welcome, welcome to Greylands! I am delighted to make your
acquaintance, Cousin Marshall, and I take it as a great compliment that
you should honour this sleepy little country place with your presence."
Nothing could be more hearty than his manner, and he set me at my ease
in an instant. But it needed all his cordiality to atone for the
frigidity and even rudeness of his wife, a tall, haggard woman, who
came forward at his summons. She was, I believe, of Brazilian
extraction, though she spoke excellent English, and I excused her
manners on the score of her ignorance of our customs. She did not
attempt to conceal, however, either then or afterwards, that I was no
very welcome visitor at Greylands Court. Her actual words were, as a
rule, courteous, but she was the possessor of a pair of particularly
expressive dark eyes, and I read in them very clearly from the first
that she heartily wished me back in London once more.
However, my debts were too pressing and my designs upon my wealthy
relative were too vital for me to allow them to be upset by the
ill-temper of his wife, so I disregarded her coldness and reciprocated
the extreme cordiality of his welcome. No pains had been spared by him
to make me comfortable. My room was a charming one. He implored me to
tell him anything which could add to my happiness. It was on the tip
of my tongue to inform him that a blank cheque would materially help
towards that end, but I felt that it might be premature in the present
state of our acquaintance. The dinner was excellent, and as we sat
together afterwards over his Havanas and coffee, which later he told me
was specially prepared upon his own plantation, it seemed to me that
all my driver's eulogies were justified, and that I had never met a
more large-hearted and hospitable man.
But, in spite of his cheery good nature, he was a man with a strong
will and a fiery temper of his own. Of this I had an example upon the
following morning. The curious aversion which Mrs. Everard King had
conceived towards me was so strong, that her manner at breakfast was
almost offensive. But her meaning became unmistakable when her husband
had quitted the room.
"The best train in the day is at twelve-fifteen," said she.
"But I was not thinking of going today," I answered, frankly--perhaps
even defiantly, for I was determined not to be driven out by this woman.
"Oh, if it rests with you--" said she, and stopped with a most insolent
expression in her eyes.
"I am sure," I answered, "that Mr. Everard King would tell me if I were
outstaying my welcome."
"What's this? What's this?" said a voice, and there he was in the
room. He had overheard my last words, and a glance at our faces had
told him the rest. In an instant his chubby, cheery face set into an
expression of absolute ferocity.
"Might I trouble you to walk outside, Marshall?" said he. (I may
mention that my own name is Marshall King.)
He closed the door behind me, and then, for an instant, I heard him
talking in a low voice of concentrated passion to his wife. This gross
breach of hospitality had evidently hit upon his tenderest point. I am
no eavesdropper, so I walked out on to the lawn. Presently I heard a
hurried step behind me, and there was the lady, her face pale with
excitement, and her eyes red with tears.
"My husband has asked me to apologize to you, Mr. Marshall King," said
she, standing with downcast eyes before me.
"Please do not say another word, Mrs. King."
Her dark eyes suddenly blazed out at me.
"You fool!" she hissed, with frantic vehemence, and turning on her heel
swept back to the house.
The insult was so outrageous, so insufferable, that I could only stand
staring after her in bewilderment. I was still there when my host
joined me. He was his cheery, chubby self once more.
"I hope that my wife has apologized for her foolish remarks," said he.
"Oh, yes--yes, certainly!"
He put his hand through my arm and walked with me up and down the lawn.
"You must not take it seriously," said he. "It would grieve me
inexpressibly if you curtailed your visit by one hour. The fact
is--there is no reason why there should be any concealment between
relatives--that my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. She hates
that anyone--male or female--should for an instant come between us. Her
ideal is a desert island and an eternal tete-a-tete. That gives you
the clue to her actions, which are, I confess, upon this particular
point, not very far removed from mania. Tell me that you will think no
more of it."
"No, no; certainly not."
"Then light this cigar and come round with me and see my little
menagerie."
The whole afternoon was occupied by this inspection, which included all
the birds, beasts, and even reptiles which he had imported. Some were
free, some in cages, a few actually in the house. He spoke with
enthusiasm of his successes and his failures, his births and his
deaths, and he would cry out in his delight, like a schoolboy, when, as
we walked, some gaudy bird would flutter up from the grass, or some
curious beast slink into the cover. Finally he led me down a corridor
which extended from one wing of the house. At the end of this there
was a heavy door with a sliding shutter in it, and beside it there
projected from the wall an iron handle attached to a wheel and a drum.
A line of stout bars extended across the passage.
"I am about to show you the jewel of my collection," said he. "There is
only one other specimen in Europe, now that the Rotterdam cub is dead.
It is a Brazilian cat."
"But how does that differ from any other cat?"
"You will soon see that," said he, laughing. "Will you kindly draw
that shutter and look through?"
I did so, and found that I was gazing into a large, empty room, with
stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall. In the
centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of sunlight,
there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but as black
and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very well-kept
black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of light
exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so
gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes from the
opening.
"Isn't he splendid?" said my host, enthusiastically.
"Glorious! I never saw such a noble creature."
"Some people call it a black puma, but really it is not a puma at all.
That fellow is nearly eleven feet from tail to tip. Four years ago he
was a little ball of black fluff, with two yellow eyes staring out of
it. He was sold me as a new-born cub up in the wild country at the
head-waters of the Rio Negro. They speared his mother to death after
she had killed a dozen of them."
"They are ferocious, then?"
"The most absolutely treacherous and bloodthirsty creatures upon earth.
You talk about a Brazilian cat to an up-country Indian, and see him get
the jumps. They prefer humans to game. This fellow has never tasted
living blood yet, but when he does he will be a terror. At present he
won't stand anyone but me in his den. Even Baldwin, the groom, dare
not go near him. As to me, I am his mother and father in one."
As he spoke he suddenly, to my astonishment, opened the door and
slipped in, closing it instantly behind him. At the sound of his voice
the huge, lithe creature rose, yawned and rubbed its round, black head
affectionately against his side, while he patted and fondled it.
"Now, Tommy, into your cage!" said he.
The monstrous cat walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself
up under a grating. Everard King came out, and taking the iron handle
which I have mentioned, he began to turn it. As he did so the line of
bars in the corridor began to pass through a slot in the wall and
closed up the front of this grating, so as to make an effective cage.
When it was in position he opened the door once more and invited me
into the room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell peculiar
to the great carnivora.
"That's how we work it," said he. "We give him the run of the room for