The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (74 page)

“What a funny scent!” he said.

And as he spoke, a lantern flashed its light through the window of the kitchen, a face peered in, and a voice said—

“What’s all this row about? You let me in.”

It was the voice of the police!

Robert tip-toed to the window, and spoke through the pane that had been a little cracked since Cyril accidentally knocked it with a walking-stick when he was playing at balancing it on his nose. (It was after they had been to a circus.)

“What do you mean?” he said. “There’s no row. You listen; everything’s as quiet as quiet.” And indeed it was.

The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.

The policeman hesitated.

“They’re
musk
-rats,” said the Phoenix. “I suppose some cats eat them—but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpet to make! Oh, what a night we’re having!”

“Do go away,” said Robert, nervously. “We’re just going to bed—that’s our bedroom candle; there isn’t any row. Everything’s as quiet as a mouse.”

A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled the shrieks of the musk-rats. What had happened? Had the cats tasted them before deciding that they disliked the flavour?

“I’m a-coming in,” said the policeman. “You’ve got a cat shut up there.”

“A cat,” said Cyril. “Oh, my only aunt! A cat!”

“Come in, then,” said Robert. “It’s your own look out. I advise you not. Wait a shake, and I’ll undo the side gate.”

He undid the side gate, and the policeman, very cautiously, came in. And there in the kitchen, by the light of one candle, with the mewing and the screaming going like a dozen steam sirens, twenty waiting on motor-cars, and half a hundred squeaking pumps, four agitated voices shouted to the policeman four mixed and wholly different explanations of the very mixed events of the evening.

Did you ever try to explain the simplest thing to a policeman?

CHAPTER 8

THE CATS, THE COW, AND THE BURGLAR

The nursery was full of Persian cats and musk-rats that ha
d been brought there by the wishing carpet. The cats were mewing and the musk-rats were squeaking so that you could hardly hear yourself speak. In the kitchen were the four children, one candle, a concealed Phoenix, and a very visible policeman.

“Now then, look here,” said the Policeman, very loudly, and he pointed his lantern at each child in turn, “what’s the meaning of this here yelling and caterwauling. I tell you you’ve got a cat here, and some one’s a ill-treating of it. What do you mean by it, eh?”

It was five to one, counting the Phoenix; but the policeman, who was one, was of unusually fine size, and the five, including the Phoenix, were small. The mews and the squeaks grew softer, and in the comparative silence, Cyril said—

“It’s true. There are a few cats here. But we’ve not hurt them. It’s quite the opposite. We’ve just fed them.”

“It don’t sound like it,” said the policeman grimly.

“I daresay they’re not
real
cats,” said Jane madly, perhaps they’re only dream-cats.”

“I’ll dream-cat you, my lady,” was the brief response of the force.

“If you understood anything except people who do murders and stealings and naughty things like that, I’d tell you all about it,” said Robert; “but I’m certain you don’t. You’re not meant to shove your oar into people’s private cat-keepings. You’re only supposed to interfere when people shout ‘murder’ and ‘stop thief’ in the street. So there!”

The policeman assured them that he should see about that; and at this point the Phoenix, who had been making itself small on the pot-shelf under the dresser, among the saucepan lids and the fish-kettle, walked on tip-toed claws in a noiseless and modest manner, and left the room unnoticed by any one.

“Oh, don’t be so horrid,” Anthea was saying, gently and earnestly. “We
love
cats—dear pussy-soft things. We wouldn’t hurt them for worlds. Would we, Pussy?”

And Jane answered that of course they wouldn’t. And still the policeman seemed unmoved by their eloquence.

“Now, look here,” he said, “I’m a-going to see what’s in that room beyond there, and—”

His voice was drowned in a wild burst of mewing and squeaking. And as soon as it died down all four children began to explain at once; and though the squeaking and mewing were not at their very loudest, yet there was quite enough of both to make it very hard for the policeman to understand a single word of any of the four wholly different explanations now poured out to him.

“Stow it,” he said at last. “I’m a-goin’ into the next room in the execution of my duty. I’m a-goin’ to use my eyes—my ears have gone off their chumps, what with you and them cats.”

And he pushed Robert aside, and strode through the door.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Robert.

“It’s tigers
really
,” said Jane. “Father said so. I wouldn’t go in, if I were you.”

But the policeman was quite stony; nothing any one said seemed to make any difference to him. Some policemen are like this, I believe. He strode down the passage, and in another moment he would have been in the room with all the cats and all the rats (musk), but at that very instant a thin, sharp voice screamed from the street outside—

“Murder—murder! Stop thief!”

The policeman stopped, with one regulation boot heavily poised in the air.

“Eh?” he said.

And again the shrieks sounded shrilly and piercingly from the dark street outside.

“Come on,” said Robert. “Come and look after cats while somebody’s being killed outside.” For Robert had an inside feeling that told him quite plainly
who
it was that was screaming.

“You young rip,” said the policeman, “I’ll settle up with you bimeby.”

And he rushed out, and the children heard his boots going weightily along the pavement, and the screams also going along, rather ahead of the policeman; and both the murder-screams and the policeman’s boots faded away in the remote distance.

Then Robert smacked his knickerbocker loudly with his palm, and said—

“Good old Phoenix! I should know its golden voice anywhere.”

And then every one understood how cleverly the Phoenix had caught at what Robert had said about the real work of a policeman being to look after murderers and thieves, and not after cats, and all hearts were filled with admiring affection.

“But he’ll come back,” said Anthea, mournfully, “as soon as it finds the murderer is only a bright vision of a dream, and there isn’t one at all really.”

“No he won’t,” said the soft voice of the clever Phoenix, as it flew in. “
He does not know where your house is
. I heard him own as much to a fellow mercenary. Oh! what a night we are having! Lock the door, and let us rid ourselves of this intolerable smell of the perfume peculiar to the musk-rat and to the house of the trimmers of beards. If you’ll excuse me, I will go to bed. I am worn out.”

It was Cyril who wrote the paper that told the carpet to take away the rats and bring milk, because there seemed to be no doubt in any breast that, however Persian cats may be, they must like milk.

“Let’s hope it won’t be musk-milk,” said Anthea, in gloom, as she pinned the paper face-downwards on the carpet. “Is there such a thing as a musk-cow?” she added anxiously, as the carpet shrivelled and vanished. “I do hope not. Perhaps really it
would
have been wiser to let the carpet take the cats away. It’s getting quite late, and we can’t keep them all night.”

“Oh, can’t we?” was the bitter rejoinder of Robert, who had been fastening the side door. “You might have consulted me,” he went on. “I’m not such an idiot as some people.”

“Why, whatever—”

“Don’t you see? We’ve jolly well
got
to keep the cats all night—oh, get down, you furry beasts!—because we’ve had three wishes out of the old carpet now, and we can’t get any more till tomorrow.”

The liveliness of Persian mews alone prevented the occurrence of a dismal silence.

Anthea spoke first.

“Never mind,” she said. “Do you know, I really do think they’re quieting down a bit. Perhaps they heard us say milk.”

“They can’t understand English,” said Jane. “You forget they’re Persian cats, Panther.”

“Well,” said Anthea, rather sharply, for she was tired and anxious, “who told you ‘milk’ wasn’t Persian for milk. Lots of English words are just the same in French—at least I know ‘miaw’ is, and ‘croquet,’ and ‘fiance.’ Oh, pussies, do be quiet! Let’s stroke them as hard as we can with both hands, and perhaps they’ll stop.”

So every one stroked grey fur till their hands were tired, and as soon as a cat had been stroked enough to make it stop mewing it was pushed gently away, and another mewing mouser was approached by the hands of the strokers. And the noise was really more than half purr when the carpet suddenly appeared in its proper place, and on it, instead of rows of milk-cans, or even of milk-jugs, there was a
cow
. Not a Persian cow, either, nor, most fortunately, a musk-cow, if there is such a thing, but a smooth, sleek, dun-coloured Jersey cow, who blinked large soft eyes at the gas-light and mooed in an amiable if rather inquiring manner.

Anthea had always been afraid of cows; but now she tried to be brave.

“Anyway, it can’t run after me,” she said to herself “There isn’t room for it even to begin to run.”

The cow was perfectly placid. She behaved like a strayed duchess till some one brought a saucer for the milk, and some one else tried to milk the cow into it. Milking is very difficult. You may think it is easy, but it is not. All the children were by this time strung up to a pitch of heroism that would have been impossible to them in their ordinary condition. Robert and Cyril held the cow by the horns; and Jane, when she was quite sure that their end of the cow was quite secure, consented to stand by, ready to hold the cow by the tail should occasion arise. Anthea, holding the saucer, now advanced towards the cow. She remembered to have heard that cows, when milked by strangers, are susceptible to the soothing influence of the human voice. So, clutching her saucer very tight, she sought for words to whose soothing influence the cow might be susceptible. And her memory, troubled by the events of the night, which seemed to go on and on for ever and ever, refused to help her with any form of words suitable to address a Jersey cow in.

“Poor pussy, then. Lie down, then, good dog, lie down!” was all that she could think of to say, and she said it.

And nobody laughed. The situation, full of grey mewing cats, was too serious for that. Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.

Jane burst into tears. “Oh, how much too horrid everything is!” she cried. “Come away. Let’s go to bed and leave the horrid cats with the hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else. And serve them right.”

They did not go to bed, but they had a shivering council in the drawing-room, which smelt of soot—and, indeed, a heap of this lay in the fender. There had been no fire in the room since mother went away, and all the chairs and tables were in the wrong places, and the chrysanthemums were dead, and the water in the pot nearly dried up. Anthea wrapped the embroidered woolly sofa blanket round Jane and herself, while Robert and Cyril had a struggle, silent and brief, but fierce, for the larger share of the fur hearthrug.

“It is most truly awful,” said Anthea, “and I am so tired. Let’s let the cats loose.”

“And the cow, perhaps?” said Cyril. “The police would find us at once. That cow would stand at the gate and mew—I mean moo—to come in. And so would the cats. No; I see quite well what we’ve got to do. We must put them in baskets and leave them on people’s doorsteps, like orphan foundlings.”

“We’ve got three baskets, counting mother’s work one,” said Jane brightening.

“And there are nearly two hundred cats,” said Anthea, “besides the cow—and it would have to be a different-sized basket for her; and then I don’t know how you’d carry it, and you’d never find a doorstep big enough to put it on. Except the church one—and—”

“Oh, well,” said Cyril, “if you simply
make
difficulties—”

“I’m with you,” said Robert. “Don’t fuss about the cow, Panther. It’s simply
got
to stay the night, and I’m sure I’ve read that the cow is a remunerating creature, and that means it will sit still and think for hours. The carpet can take it away in the morning. And as for the baskets, we’ll do them up in dusters, or pillow-cases, or bath-towels. Come on, Squirrel. You girls can be out of it if you like.”

His tone was full of contempt, but Jane and Anthea were too tired and desperate to care; even being “out of it,” which at other times they could not have borne, now seemed quite a comfort. They snuggled down in the sofa blanket, and Cyril threw the fur hearthrug over them.

“Ah,” he said, “that’s all women are fit for—to keep safe and warm, while the men do the work and run dangers and risks and things.”

“I’m not,” said Anthea, “you know I’m not.” But Cyril was gone.

It was warm under the blanket and the hearthrug, and Jane snuggled up close to her sister; and Anthea cuddled Jane closely and kindly, and in a sort of dream they heard the rise of a wave of mewing as Robert opened the door of the nursery. They heard the booted search for baskets in the back kitchen. They heard the side door open and close, and they knew that each brother had gone out with at least one cat. Anthea’s last thought was that it would take at least all night to get rid of one hundred and ninety-nine cats by twos. There would be ninety-nine journeys of two cats each, and one cat over.

“I almost think we might keep the one cat over,” said Anthea. “I don’t seem to care for cats just now, but I daresay I shall again some day.” And she fell asleep. Jane also was sleeping.

It was Jane who awoke with a start, to find Anthea still asleep. As, in the act of awakening, she kicked her sister, she wondered idly why they should have gone to bed in their boots; but the next moment she remembered where they were.

There was a sound of muffled, shuffled feet on the stairs. Like the heroine of the classic poem, Jane “thought it was the boys,” and as she felt quite wide awake, and not nearly so tired as before, she crept gently from Anthea’s side and followed the footsteps. They went down into the basement; the cats, who seemed to have fallen into the sleep of exhaustion, awoke at the sound of the approaching footsteps and mewed piteously. Jane was at the foot of the stairs before she saw it was not her brothers whose coming had roused her and the cats, but a burglar. She knew he was a burglar at once, because he wore a fur cap and a red and black charity-check comforter, and he had no business where he was.

If you had been stood in Jane’s shoes you would no doubt have run away in them, appealing to the police and neighbours with horrid screams. But Jane knew better. She had read a great many nice stories about burglars, as well as some affecting pieces of poetry, and she knew that no burglar will ever hurt a little girl if he meets her when burgling. Indeed, in all the cases Jane had read of, his burglarishness was almost at once forgotten in the interest he felt in the little girl’s artless prattle. So if Jane hesitated for a moment before addressing the burglar, it was only because she could not at once think of any remark sufficiently prattling and artless to make a beginning with. In the stories and the affecting poetry the child could never speak plainly, though it always looked old enough to in the pictures. And Jane could not make up her mind to lisp and “talk baby,” even to a burglar. And while she hesitated he softly opened the nursery door and went in.

Jane followed—just in time to see him sit down flat on the floor, scattering cats as a stone thrown into a pool splashes water.