The Mystery of M. Felix

"Well, if you must know, it was where she kept a spare bustle, and a bit or two of hair, and some other little vanities that she didn't want us young 'uns to pull about. There, the murder's out, and I wouldn't have mentioned the things if you hadn't been so curious; but it's a privilege of your sex, Mrs. Middlemore, one of your amiable weaknesses that we're bound to respect."

Mrs. Middlemore laughed, and asked Constable Wigg what he was thinking of. That worthy had, indeed, put on his considering cap, as the saying is; he felt that Constable Nightingale was making the running too fast, and that he should be left hopelessly in the rear unless he made an attempt to assert himself, and to show that he knew a thing or two.

"I was thinking of the red cat," he said.

"Wigg," said Constable Nightingale, in a tone of reproof, "I'm astonished at you. When everything's been made smooth!"

"For the moment, Nightingale, for the moment," said Constable Wigg, complacently. "But there's by and by to reckon with. It ain't to be expected that Mrs. Middlemore can have us always with her, though I'm sure I should ask for nothing better. What could a man want better than this? Outside snow and blow, inside wine and shine."

"You're quite a poet, Mr. Wigg," said Mrs. Middlemore, admiringly.

"I don't see it," grumbled Constable Nightingale; "where's the wine?"

"If this," said Constable Wigg, raising his glass and looking at its contents with the eye of a connoisseur, "ain't as good as the best of wine, I stand corrected. Did you never hear of a poet's license, Nightingale?" He asked this question banteringly.

"No, I didn't, and I don't believe you know where to get one, and what the Government charges for it."

"I'm afraid, Nightingale," said Constable Wigg, beginning to feel the effects of the drink, "that you've no soul for poetry."

"Never you mind whether I have or haven't," retorted Constable Nightingale.

"Gents both," interposed Mrs. Middlemore, "whatever you do, don't fall out. You're as welcome as welcome can be, but don't fall out."

"I bear no malice," said Constable Nightingale, who was really a simple-minded, good-hearted fellow; "shake hands, Wigg, and let bygones be bygones. All I want you to do is to let the red cat alone, or to stick to the point, and have done with it once and for all."

"Very good, Nightingale," said Constable Wigg, assuming the lofty air of a man who had established his claim to pre-eminence. "I'll stick to the point, and if I don't make Mrs. Middlemore's mind easy, I'll give up. Not easy as long as we're here, but easy when we're gone, as gone we must be some time or other, because it don't stand to reason that this storm's going to last forever. I'm only thinking of you, I give you my word, ma'am."

"You're very kind, I'm sure," murmured Mrs. Middlemore, inclining, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, now to Constable, Nightingale and now to Constable Wigg.

"It's the least I can do," proceeded Constable Wigg, addressing himself solely to his hostess, "after the way I've been treated here. Not for the last time, I hope."

"Not by a many," said Mrs. Middlemore, smirking at the flatterer, "if it remains with me."

"You're monarch of all you survey, ma'am," observed the wily Wigg, smirking back at her, "and remain with you it must, as long as you remain single."

"Oh, Mr. Wigg!"

"It's nobody's fault but your own if you do; there's not many as can pick and choose, but you're one as can. Perhaps you're hard to please, ma'am-"

"I ain't," said Mrs. Middlemore, so energetically that Constable Nightingale began to think it time to interfere.

"You're forgetting the red cat, Wigg," he said.

"Not at all," said Constable Wigg, blandly; "I'm coming to it, but I don't forget that Mrs. Middlemore has nerves. It amounts to this, ma'am. I've read a bit in my time, and I'm going to give you-and Nightingale, if he ain't too proud-the benefit of it. You did see a red cat, ma'am."

"Did I?" said Mrs. Middlemore, looking around with a shiver.

"You did, ma'am, and yet the cat wasn't red. I thought it was red, and so did Nightingale, if he'll speak the truth. I'll wait for him to say."

"I won't keep you waiting long," said Constable Nightingale, in a surly tone. "As you and Mrs. Middlemore seem to be of one mind, I'll make a clean breast of it. I thought it was red, and when I made light of it I did it for her sake."

He said this so tenderly that Mrs. Middlemore rewarded him with a look of gratitude; but she kept her eyes averted from the kitchen door.

"Now we can get on like a house on fire," said Constable Wigg. "When you winked at me, Nightingale, I didn't contradict you, but I fell a-thinking, and then what I read come to my mind. You've been out in the snow, Mrs. Middlemore, and you saw nothing but white. We've been out in the snow, ma'am, and we saw nothing but white. Not for a minute, not for five, not for ten but for hours I may say. I remember reading somewhere that when you've looked for a longish time upon nothing but white, that it's as likely as not the next thing you see will be red, never mind what the color really is. That's the way with us. The cat's been haunting me, in a manner of speaking, the whole livelong night, and what with that and the snow, and being all of a sudden shoved into darkness, the minute a light shines on the wretched thing it comes to me as red as a ball of fire; and it comes to you the same, because the snow's got into your eyes and affected your sight."

"Bosh!" exclaimed Constable Nightingale.

"What's that you say, Nightingale?" asked Constable Wigg.

"Bosh! I didn't want to frighten Mrs. Middlemore, and that's the reason I wouldn't harp on it, but now you've raked it up again I'll have the matter settled."

So saying, Constable Nightingale rose from his chair.

"Where are you going?" cried Mrs. Middlemore. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find that cat," replied Constable Nightingale, "if it's in the house. If it isn't red, I give in and apologize. If it is, I shall take the liberty of saying for the third time, Bosh!"

He walked toward the door, but started back before he reached it, and pointing to the floor, asked,

"What do you call that, Wigg? Is that a deloosion!"

Constable Wigg advanced, looked down, rubbed his eyes, looked down again, and answered,

"I'm bound to say there's no mistaking the color. Have you got any red ochre in the house, ma'am?"

"Not a bit," gasped Mrs. Middlemore, "as I knows on."

"These," said Constable Nightingale, kneeling, and examining the floor, "are marks of the cat's paws, and they're red. Look for yourself, Wigg."

"There's no denying it," said the baffled Wigg.

"You're on duty here, Wigg."

"What do you advise, Nightingale? You've been longer in the force than me."

"It's got to be looked into by somebody. It ain't for me to do it, because I'm out of my beat, and I don't want to be made an example of. Would you oblige me by going to the door and giving the alarm?"

"What for?"

"For me, being at a distance, to hear it. For me hearing it, to run to your assistance. Do you twig? My being on your beat must be accounted for. That will account for it."

This ingenious suggestion relieved Constable Wigg's mind as well as his comrade's.

"That's a good idea," he said; "and it'll account, too, for our being in the house, supposing anything should be said about it."

"Exactly. Being here with Mrs. Middlemore's permission. You've got a lot to learn, Wigg, and one of the lessons I'd advise you to take to heart" – here he looked significantly at Mrs. Middlemore-"is not to poach on a pal's preserves."

Constable Wigg may have felt the reproach, but he took no notice of it. "You may as well come to the door with me, Nightingale."