Chapter III. The Watchers

by Bram Stoker

　　I was struck by the way the two young women looked at each other. Isuppose I have been so much in the habit of weighing up in my own mindthe personality of witnesses and of forming judgement by theirunconscious action and mode of bearing themselves, that the habitextends to my life outside as well as within the court-house. At thismoment of my life anything that interested Miss Trelawny interested me;and as she had been struck by the newcomer I instinctively weighed herup also. By comparison of the two I seemed somehow to gain a newknowledge of Miss Trelawny. Certainly, the two women made a goodcontrast. Miss Trelawny was of fine figure, dark, straight-featured.She had marvelous eyes; great, wide-open, and as black and soft asvelvet, with a mysterious depth. To look in them was like gazing at ablack mirror such as Doctor Dee used in his wizard rites. I heard anold gentleman at the picnic, a great oriental traveller, describe theeffect of her eyes 'as looking at night at the great distant lamps of amosque through the open door'. The eyebrows were typical. Finely archedand rich in long curling hair, they seemed like the properarchitectural environment of the deep, splendid eyes. Her hair wasblack also, but was as fine as silk. Generally black hair is a type ofanimal strength and seems as if some strong expression of the forces ofa strong nature; but in this case there could be no such thought. Therewere refinement and high breeding; and though there was no suggestionof weakness, any sense of -power there was, was rather spiritual thananimal. The whole harmony of her being seemed complete. Carriage,figure, hair, eyes; the mobile, full mouth, whose scarlet lips andwhite teeth seemed to light up the lower part -of the face--as the eyesdid the upper; the wide sweep of the jaw from chin to ear; the long,fine fingers; the hand which seemed to move from the wrist as though ithad a sentience of its own. All these perfections went to make up apersonality that dominated, either by its grace, its sweetness, itsbeauty, or its charm.Nurse Kennedy, on the other hand, was rather under than over awoman's average height. She was firm and thickset, with full limbs andbroad, strong, capable hands. Her colour was in the general effect thatof an autumn leaf. The yellow-brown hair was thick and long, and thegolden-brown eyes sparkled from the freckled, sunburnt skin. Her rosycheeks gave a general idea of rich brown. The red lips and white teethdid not alter the colour scheme, but only emphasized it. She had a snubnose--there was no possible doubt about it; but Eke such noses ingeneral it showed a nature generous, untiring, and full of good nature.Her broad white forehead, which even the freckles had spared, was fullof forceful thought and reason.Doctor Winchester had on their journey from the hospital, coachedher in the necessary particulars, and without a word she took charge ofthe patient and set to work Having examined the new-made bed and shaken the pillows, she spoketo the Doctor, who gave instructions; presently we all four, steppingtogether, lifted the unconscious man from the sofa.Early in the afternoon, when Sergeant Daw had returned, I called-atmy rooms in Jermyn Street and sent out such clothes, books, and papersas I should be likely to want within a few days. Then I went on to keepmy legal engagements.The Court sat late that day as an important case was ending; it wasstriking six as I drove in at the gate of the Kensington Palace Road. Ifound myself installed in a large room close to the sick chamber.That night we were not yet regularly organized for watching, so thatthe early part of the evening showed an unevenly balanced guard. NurseKennedy, who had been on duty all day, was lying down, as she hadarranged to come on again by twelve o'clock. Doctor Winchester, who wasdining in the house, remained in the room until dinner was announced;and went back at once when it was over. During dinner Mrs. Grantremained in the room, and with her Sergeant Daw, who wished to completea minute examination which he had undertaken of everything in the roomand near it. At nine o'clock Miss Trelawny and I went in to relieve theDoctor. She had lain down for a few hours in the afternoon so as to berefreshed for her work at night. She told me that she had determinedthat for this night at least she would sit up and watch. I did not tryto dissuade her, for I knew that her mind was made up. Then and there Imade up my mind that I would watch with her--unless, of course, Ishould see that she really did not wish it. I said nothing of myintentions for the present. We came in on tiptoe, so silently that theDoctor, who was bending over the bed, did not hear us, and seemed alittle startled when suddenly looking up he saw our eyes upon him. Ifelt that the mystery of the whole thing was getting on his nerves, asit had already got on the nerves of some others of us. He was, Ifancied, a little annoyed with himself for having been so startled, andat once began to talk in a hurried manner as though to get over ouridea of his embarrassment:'I am really and absolutely at my wits' end to find any fit causefor this stupor. I have made again as accurate an examination as I knowhow, and I am satisfied that there is no injury to the brain, that is,no external injury. Indeed, all his vital organs seem unimpaired. Ihave given him, as you know, food several times and it has manifestlydone him good. His breathing is strong and regular, and his pulse isslower and stronger than it was this morning. I cannot find evidence ofany known drug, and his unconsciousness does not resemble any of themany cases of hypnotic sleep which I saw in the Charcot Hospital inParis. And as to these wounds'--he laid his finger gently on thebandaged wrist which lay outside the coverlet as he spoke, 'I do notknow what to make of them. They might have been made by acarding-machine; but that supposition is untenable. It is within thebounds of possibility that they might have been made by a wild animalif it had-taken care to sharpen its claws. That, too, is, I take it,impossible. By the way, have you any strange pets here in the house;anything of an exceptional kind, such as a tiger-cat or anything out ofthe common?' Miss Trelawny smiled a sad smile which made my heart ache,as she made answer:'Oh no! Father does not like animals about the house, unless theyare dead and mummied.' This was said with a touch of bitterness--orjealousy, I could hardly tell which. 'Even my poor kitten was onlyallowed in the house on sufferance; and though he is the dearest andbest-conducted cat in the world, he is now on a sort of parole, and isnot allowed into this room.'As she was speaking a faint rattling of the door handle was heard.Instantly Miss Trelawny's face brightened. She sprang up and went overto the door, saying as she went:'There he is! That is my Silvio. He stands on his hind legs andrattles the door handle when he wants to come into a room.' She openedthe door, speaking to the cat as though he were a baby: 'Did him wanthis mower? Come then; but he must stay with her!' She lifted the cat,and came back with him in her arms. He was certainly a magnificentanimal. A chinchilla grey Persian with long silky hair; a really lordlyanimal with a haughty bearing, despite his gentleness; and with greatpaws which spread out as he placed them on the ground. Whilst she wasfondling him, he suddenly gave a wriggle like an eel and slipped out ofher arms. He ran across the room and stood opposite a low table onwhich stood the mummy of an animal, and began to mew and snarl. MissTrelawny was after him in an instant and lifted him in her arms,kicking and struggling and wriggling to get away; but not biting orscratching, for evidently he loved his beautiful mistress. He ceased tomake a noise the moment he was in her arms; in a whisper she admonishedhim:'O you naughty Silvio! You have broken your parole that mother gavefor you. Now, say good-night to the gentlemen, and come away tomother's room!' As she was speaking she held out the cat's paw to me toshake. As I did so I could not but admire its size and beauty. 'Why,'said I, 'his paw seems like a little boxing-glove full of claws.' Shesmiled:'So it ought to. Don't you notice that my Silvio has seven toessee!' she opened the paw; and surely enough there were seven separateclaws, each of them seamed in a delicate, fine, shell-like case. As Igently stroked the foot the claws emerged and one of themaccidentally--there was no anger now and the cat was purring--struckinto my hand. Instinctively I said as I drew back:'Why, his claws are like razors!'Doctor Winchester had come close to us and was bending over lookingat die- cat's claws; as I spoke he said in a quick, sharp way:'Eh!' I could hear the quick intake of his breath. Whilst I wasstroking the now quiescent cat, the Doctor went to the table and toreoff a piece of blotting-paper from the writing-pad and came back. Helaid the paper on his palm, and, with a simple 'pardon me!' to MissTrelawny, placed the cat's paw on it and pressed it down with his otherhand. The haughty cat seemed to resent somewhat the familiarity, andtried to draw its foot away. This was plainly what the Doctor wanted,for in the act the cat opened the sheathes of its claws and madeseveral reefs in the soft paper. Then Miss Trelawny took her pet away.She returned in a couple of minutes; as she came in she said:'It is most odd about that mummy! When Silvio came into the roomfirst--indeed I took him in as a kitten to show to Father--he went onjust the same way. He jumped up on the table, and tried to scratch andbite the mummy. That was what made Father so angry, and brought thedecree of banishment on poor Silvio. Only his parole, given through me,kept him in the house.'Whilst she had been gone, Doctor Winchester had taken the bandagefrom her father's wrist. The wound was now quite clear, as the separatecuts showed out in fierce red lines. The Doctor folded theblotting-paper across the line of punctures made by the cat's claws,and held it down close to the wound. As he did so, he looked uptriumphantly and beckoned us over to him.The cuts in the paper corresponded with the wounds in the wrist! Noexplanation was needed, as he said:'It would have been better if master Silvio had not broken hisparole!'We were all silent for a little while. Suddenly Miss Trelawny said:'But Silvio was not in here last night!''Are you sure? Could you prove that if necessary?' She hesitatedbefore replying:'I am certain of it; but I fear it would be difficult to prove.Silvio sleeps in a basket in my room. I certainly put him to bed lastnight; I remember distinctly laying his little blanket over him, andtucking him in. This morning I took him out of the basket myself. Icertainly never noticed him in here; though, of course, that would notmean much, for I was too concerned about poor Father, and too muchoccupied with him, to notice even Silvio.'The Doctor shook his head as he said with a certain sadness:'Well, at any rate it is no use trying to prove anything now. Anycat in the world would have cleaned blood-marks--did any exist--fromhis paws in a hundredth part of the time that has elapsed.'Again we were all silent; and again the silence was broken by MissTrelawny:'But now that I think of it, it could not have been poor Silvio thatinjured Father. My door was shut when I first heard the sound; andFather's was shut when I listened at it. When I went in, the injury hadbeen done; so that it must have been before Silvio could possibly havegot in.' This reasoning commended itself, especially to me as abarrister, for it was proof to satisfy a jury. It gave me a distinctpleasure to have Silvio acquitted of the crime--possibly because he wasMiss Trelawny's cat and was loved by her. Happy cat! Silvio's mistresswas manifestly pleased as I said:'Verdict, "not guilty!" ' Doctor Winchester after a pause observed:'My apologies to master Silvio on this occasion; but I am stillpuzzled to know why he is so keen against that mummy. Is he the sametoward the other mummies in the house? There are, I suppose, a lot ofthem. I saw three in the hall as I came in.'There are lots of them,' she answered. 'I sometimes don't knowwhether I am in a private house or the British Museum. But Silvio neverconcerns himself about any of them except that particular one. Isuppose it must be because it is of an animal, not a man or a woman.''Perhaps it is of a cat!' said the Doctor as he started up and wentacross the room to look at the mummy more closely. 'Yes,' he went on,'it is the mummy of a cat; and a very fine one, too. If it hadn't beena special favourite of some very special person it would never havereceived so much honour. See! A painted case and obsidian eyes--justlike a human mummy. It is an extraordinary thing, that knowledge ofkind to kind. Here is a dead cat--that is all; it is perhaps four orfive thousand years old--and another cat of another breed, in what ispractically another world, is ready to fly at it, just as it would ifit were not dead. I should like to experiment a bit about that cat ifyou don't mind, Miss Trelawny.' She hesitated before replying:'Of course, do anything you may think necessary or wise; but I hopeit will not be anything to hurt or worry my poor Silvio.' The Doctorsmiled as he answered:'Oh, Silvio would be all right: it is the other one that mysympathies would be reserved for?''How do you mean?''Master Silvio will do the attacking, the other one will do thesuffering.''Suffering?' There was a note of pain in her voice. The Doctorsmiled more broadly:'Oh, please make your mind easy as to that. The other won't sufferas we understand it; except perhaps in his structure and outfit.''What on earth do you mean?''Simply this, my dear young lady, that the antagonist will be amummy cat like this one. There are, I take it, plenty of them to be hadin Museum Street. I shall get one and place it here instead of thatone--you won't think that a temporary exchange will violate yourFather's instructions, I hope. We shall then find out, to begin with,whether Silvio objects to all mummy cats, or only to this one inparticular.' )'I don't know,' she said doubtfully. 'Father's instructions | seemvery uncompromising.' Then after a pause she went on: 'But ofcourse under the circumstances anything that is to be ultimately forhis good must be done. I suppose there ; can't be anything veryparticular about the mummy of a cat'Doctor Winchester said nothing. He sat rigid, with so grave a lookon his face that his extra gravity passed on to me; and in itsenlightening perturbation I began to realize more than I had yet donethe strangeness of the case in which I was now so deeply concerned.When once this ; thought had begun there was no end to it. Indeed itgrew, and blossomed, and reproduced itself in a thousand differentways. The room and all in it gave grounds for strange thoughts. Therewere so many ancient relics that unconsciously one was taken back tostrange lands and strange times. There were so many mummies or mummyobjects, round which there seems to cling for ever the penetratingodours of bitumen, and spices and gums--'Nard and Cir-cassia's balmysmells'--that one was unable to forget the past. Of course, there wasbut little light in the room, and that carefully shaded; so that therewas no glare anywhere. None of that direct-light which can manifestitself as a power or an entity, and so make for companionship. The roomwas a large one, and lofty in proportion to its size.In its vastness was place for a multitude of things not often foundin a bedchamber. In far corners of the room were shadows of uncannyshape. More than once as I thought, the multitudinous presence of thedead and the past took such hold on me that I caught myself lookinground fearfully as though some strange personality or influence waspresent. Even the manifest presence of Doctor Winchester and MissTrelawny could not altogether comfort or satisfy me at such moments. Itwas with a distinct sense of relief that I saw a new personality in theroom in the shape of Nurse Kennedy. There was no doubt that thatbusinesslike, self-reliant, capable young woman added an element ofsecurity to such wild imaginings as my own. She had a quality ofcommon-sense that seemed to pervade everything around her, as though itwere some kind of emanation. Up to that moment I had been buildingfancies around the sick man; so that finally all about him, includingmyself, had become involved in them, or enmeshed, or saturated, or...But now that she had come, he relapsed into his proper perspective as apatient; the room was a sick-room, and the shadows lost their fearsomequality. The only thing which it could not altogether abrogate was thestrange Egyptian smell. You may put a mummy in a glass case andhermetically seal it so that no corroding air can get within; but allthe same it will exhale its odour. One might think that four or fivethousand years would exhaust the olfactory qualities of anything; butexperience teaches us that these smells remain, and that their secretsare unknown to us. Today they are as much mysteries as they were whenthe embalmers put the body in the bath of matron.All at once I sat up. I had become lost in an absorbing reverie. TheEgyptian smell had seemed to' get on my nerves--on my memory--on myvery will.At that moment I had a thought which was like an inspiration. If Iwas influenced in such a manner by the smell, might it not bethat the sick man, who lived half his life or more in the atmosphere,had gradually and by slow but sure process taken into his systemsomething which had permeated him to such degree that it had a newpower derived from quantity--or strength--or...I was becoming lost again in a reverie. This would not do. I musttake such precaution that I could remain awake, or free from suchentrancing thought. I had had but half a night's sleep last night; andthis night I must remain awake. Without stating my intention, for Ifeared that I might add to the trouble and uneasiness of Miss Trelawny,I went downstairs and out of the house. I soon found a chemist's shop,and came away with a respirator. When I got back, it was ten o'clock;the Doctor was going for the night. The Nurse came with him to the doorof the sick-room, taking her last instructions. Miss Trelawny sat stillbeside the bed. Sergeant Daw, who had entered as the Doctor went out,was some little distance off.When Nurse Kennedy joined us, we arranged that she should sit uptill two o'clock, when Miss Trelawny would relieve her. Thus, inaccordance with Mr. Trelawny's instructions, there would always be aman and a woman in the room; and each one of us would overlap, so thatat no time would a new set of watchers come on duty without someone totell of what--if anything--had occurred. I lay down on a sofa in my ownroom, having arranged that one of the servants should call me a littlebefore twelve. In a few moments I was asleep.When I was waked, it took me several seconds to get back my thoughtsso as to recognize my own identity and surroundings. The short sleephad, however, done me good, and I could look on things around me in amore practical light than I had been able to do earlier in the evening.I bathed my face, and thus refreshed went into the sick-room. I movedvery softly. The Nurse was sitting by the bed, quiet and alert; theDetective sat in an armchair across the room in deep shadow. He did notmove when I crossed, until I got close to him, when he said in a dullwhisper.'It is all right; I have not been asleep!' An unnecessary thing tosay, I thought--it always is, unless it be untrue in spirit. When Itold him that his watch was over, that he might go to bed till I shouldcall him at six o'clock, he seemed relieved and went with alacrity. Atthe door he turned and, coming back to me, said in a whisper.'I sleep lightly and I shall have my pistols with me. I won't feelso heavy-headed when I get out of this mummy smell.'He too, then, had shared my experience of drowsiness!I asked the Nurse if she wanted anything. I noticed that she had avinaigrette in her lap. Doubtless she, too, had felt some of theinfluence which had so affected me. She said that she had all sherequired,, but that if she should want anything she would at once letme know. I wished to keep her from noticing my respirator, so I went tothe chair in the shadow where her back was toward me. Here I quietlyput it on, and made myself comfortable.For what seemed a long time, I sat and thought and thought. It was awild medley of thoughts, as might have been expected from theexperiences of the previous day and night. Again I found myselfthinking of the Egyptian smell; and I remember that I felt a delicioussatisfaction that I did not experience it as I had done. The respiratorwas doing its work.It must have been that the passing of this disturbing thought madefor repose of mind, which is the corollary of bodily rest, for, thoughI really cannot remember being asleep or waking from it, I saw avision--I dreamed a dream. I scarcely know which.I was still in the room, seated in the chair. I had on my respiratorand knew that I breathed freely. The Nurse sat in her chair with herback toward me. She sat quite still. The sick man lay as still as thedead. It was rather like the picture of a scene than the reality; allwere still and silent; and the stillness and silence were continuous.Outside, in the distance I could hear the sounds of a city, theoccasional roll of wheels, the shout of a reveller, the far-away echoof whistles and the rumbling of trains. The light was very, very low;the reflection of it under the green-shaded lamp was a dim relief tothe darkness, rather than light. The green silk fringe of the lamp hadmerely the colour of an emerald seen in the moonlight. The room, forall its darkness, was full of shadows. It seemed in my whirlingthoughts as though all the real things had become shadows--shadowswhich moved, for they passed the dim outline of the high windows.Shadows which had sentience. I even thought there was sound, a faintsound as of the mew of a cat--the rustle of drapery and a metallicclink as of metal faintly touching metal. I sat as one entranced. Atlast I felt, as in nightmare, that this was sleep, and that in thepassing of its portals all my will had gone.All at once my senses were full awake. A shriek rang in my ears. Theroom was filled suddenly with a blaze of light. There was the sound ofpistol shots--one, two; and a haze of white smoke in the room. When mywaking eyes regained their power, I could have shrieked with horrormyself at what I saw before me.