David Keller: Tiger Cat

Naturally, I wanted to open the door. As master of the villa, I had a right to. Upstairs the old woman seemed unable to understand me and ended by telling me to see her husband. He, in turn, seemed incapable of following my stream of talk. At last, I took him to the door and pointed to the keyhole. In English, Italian and sign language I told him rather emphatically that I wanted the key to that door. At last he was willing to admit that he understood my questions. He shook his head. He had never had the key to that door. Yes, he knew that there was such a door, but he had never been on the other side. It was very old. Perhaps his ancestors understood about it, but they were all dead. He made me tired, so much so that I rested by placing a hand on the butt of the upper hinge. I knew that he was deceiving me. Lived there all his life and never saw the door open!

"And you have no key to that door?" I repeated.

"No. I have no key."

"Who has the key?"

"The owner of the house."

"But I own it."

"Yes, you are the master; but I mean the one who owns it all the time."

"So, the various masters do not really buy the place?"

"They buy it, but they come and go."

"But the owner keeps on selling it and owning it?"

"Yes."

"Must be a profitable business. And who owns it?"

"Donna Marchesi."

"I think I met her yesterday in Sorona."

"Yes, that is where she lives."

The storm had passed. Sorona was only two miles away, on the other side of the mountain. The cellar, the door, the mysterious uncertainty on the other side intrigued me. I told the man that I would be back by supper, and I went to my bedroom to change, preparatory to making an afternoon call.

In the room I found my hand black with oil.

And that told me a good many things, as it was the hand that had rested against the upper hinge of the door. I washed the hand, changed my clothes and drove my car to Sorona.

Fortunately, the Donna Marchesi was at home. I might have met her before, but I now saw her ethereal beauty for the first time. At least, it seemed ethereal at the first moment. In some ways she was the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen: skin white as milk, hair a tawny red, piled in great masses on her head, and eyes of a peculiar green, with pupils that were slots instead of circles. She wore her nails long, and they were tinted red to match the Titian of her hair. She seemed surprized to have me call on her, and more surprized to hear of my errand.

"You bought the villa?" she asked.

"Yes. Though, when I bought it, I did not know that you were the owner. The agent never stated whom he was acting for."

"I know," she said with a smile. "Franco is peculiar that way. He always pretends that he owns the place."

"No doubt he has used it more than once."

"I fear so. The place seems to be unfortunate. I sell it with a reserve clause. The owner must live there. And no one seems to want to stay; so the place reverts back to me."

"It seems to be an old place."

"Very old. It has been in my family for generations. I have tried to get rid of it, but what can I do when the young men will not stay?"

She shrugged her shoulders expressively. I countered with,

"Perhaps if they knew, as I do, that you owned the property, they would be content to stay, for ever, in Sorona."

"Prettily said," she answered. Then the room became silent, and I heard her heavy breathing, like the deep purr of a cat.

"They come and go," she said at last.

"And, when they go, you sell to another?" I asked.

"Naturally, and with the hope that one will stay."

"I have come for the key," I said bluntly, "the key to the cellar door."

"Are you sure you want it?"

"Absolutely! It is my villa and my cellar and my door. I want the key. I want to see what is on the other side of the door."

And then it was that I saw the pupils of her eyes narrow to livid slits. She looked at me for a second, for five, and then opening a drawer in a cabinet near her chair, she took out the key and handed it to me. It was a tool worthy of the door that it was supposed to open, being fully eight inches long and a pound in weight.

Taking it, I thanked her and said good-bye. Fifteen minutes later I was back, profuse in my apologies: I was temperamental, I explained, and I frequently changed my mind. Whatever was on the other side of the door could stay there, as far as I was concerned. Then again I kissed her hand farewell.

On the side street I passed through the door of a locksmith and waited while he completed a key. He was following a wax impression of the original key. An hour later I was on the way back to the villa, with the key in my pocket, a key that I was sure would unlock the door, and I was confident that the lady with the cat eyes felt sure that I had lost all interest in that door and what was beyond it.

The full moon was just appearing over the mountains when I drove my car up to the villa. I was tired, but happy. Taking the candlestick in my hand, which candlestick was handed to me with a deep bow by the old woman, I ascended the stairs to my bedroom. And soon I was fast asleep.

I awoke with a start. The moon was still shining. It was midnight. I heard, or thought I heard, a deep moaning. It sounded a little like waves beating on a rockbound coast. Then it ceased and was replaced by a musical element that came in certain stately measures. Those sounds were in the room, but they came from far away; only by straining my sense of sound to the utmost could I hear anything.

Slippers on my feet, flashlight in my hand and the key in the pocket of my dressing-gown, I slowly descended the stairs. Loud snores from the servants' room told, or seemed to tell, of their deep slumbers. Down into the cellar I went and put the key into the hole of the lock. The key turned easily — no rust there — the springs and the tumblers had been well oiled, like the hinges. It was evident that the door had been used often. Turning the light on the hinges, I saw what had made my hand black with oil. Earnestly I damned the servants. They knew about the door. They knew what was on the other side!

Just as I was about to open the door I heard a woman's voice singing in Italian; it sounded like a selection from an opera. It was followed by applause, and then a moaning, and one shrill cry, as though someone had been hurt. There was no doubt now as to where the sounds that I heard in my room had come from; they had come from the other side of the door. There was a mystery there for me to solve. But I was not ready to solve it; so I turned the key noiselessly, and with the door locked, tiptoed back to my bed.

There I tried to put two and two together. They made five, seven, a million vague admixtures of impossible results, all filled with weird forebodings. But never did they make four, and till they did, I knew the answers to be wrong, for two and two had to make four.

Many changes of masters! One after another they came and bought and disappeared. A whitewashed wall. What secrets were covered with that whitewash? A door in a cellar. And what deviltry went on behind it? A key and a well-oiled lock, and servants that knew everything. In vain the question came to me. What is back of the door? There was no ready answer. But, Donna Marchesi knew! Was it her voice that I had heard? She knew almost everything about it, but there was one thing that I knew and she did not. She did not know that I could pass through the door and find out what was on the other side. She did not know that I had a key.

The next day I pleaded indisposition and spent most of the hours idling and drowsing in my chamber. Not till nearly midnight did I venture down. The servants were certainly asleep that time. A dose of chloral in their wine had attended to the certainty of their slumbers. Fully dressed, with an automatic in my pocket, I reached the cellar and opened the door. It swung noiselessly on its well-greased hinges. The darkness on the other side was the blackness of hell. An indescribable odor came to me, a prison smell and with it the soft half sob, half laugh of sleeping children, dreaming in their sleep, and not happy.