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."
"I've no objections."
"I'll come too," said Mrs. Middlemore, nervously. "I wouldn't be left alone here for anythink you could orfer me."
The three walked upstairs to the passage, Mrs. Middlemore needing the support of Constable Nightingale's arm round her waist; but the moment the fastenings of the street-door were unloosed, it flew open as though a battering ram had been applied to it, and the wind and snow swept in upon them with undiminished fury.
"Hanged if it ain't getting worse and worse!" muttered Constable Nightingale, helping the others to shut the door, which was accomplished with great difficulty.
"Don't make a noise in the passage," whispered Mrs. Middlemore to Constable Wigg. "Mr. Felix 'll 'ear it, and he'd never forgive me."
"We'll take it for granted, then, that the alarm is given," said Constable Nightingale, "and we'll go downstairs, and consider what ought to be done."
CHAPTER V.
DR. LAMB TELLS THE CONSTABLES AND MRS. MIDDLEMORE WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH MR. FELIX
Arrived once more in that comfortable apartment, they shook off the snow dust which had blown in upon them from the street. Then Constable Nightingale assumed a judicial attitude.
"In case of anything being wrong," he said, "we must all be agreed upon what has took place before it's discovered."
"Before what's discovered?" cried Mrs. Middlemore.
"That we've got to find out."
"It's ten to one there's nothing to find out," said Constable Wigg.
"It's ten to one there is," retorted Constable Nightingale. "I go a bit deeper than you, Wigg; but whether there is or there ain't, it's always well to be prepared with a story. I've got something in my mind that you don't seem to have in yours; what it is you shall hear presently. Mrs. Middlemore, going out for her supper-beer at her usual hour, about half-past eleven shuts the street-door behind her, and does not return till past twelve. Is that correct, ma'am?"
"Quite correct, Mr. Nightingale; but what are you driving at?"
"All in good time, my dear. You leave the house safe, and you are sure you shut the street-door tight?"
"I'll take my oath of it."
"It may come to that; I don't want to scare you, but it may come to that. When you come back with the supper-beer you find the street-door open?"
"But I don't."
"Excuse
