evening paper from his pocket--"the press has agreed to entitle the
case, I should have suggested that your peculiar studies had begun to
tell upon your nerves; but this voice on the 'phone and this empty
house in which only one room was furnished, finally the green cat
painted on the packing-case and the green cat which stands there upon
the table have prepared me for even stranger things than your
adventure of last night."

"Yet," I urged, "there is no visible connection between the episodes
of the case and this strange apparition which I saw in the garden last
night."

"There was no visible connection between Sir Marcus's body in a
packing-case in the hold of the _Oritoga_ and the garage of the house
in College Road until we found one," retorted Gatton. "Anyway I am
glad you mentioned the matter to me; I will take a note of it, for it
may prove to provide a link in the chain. And now"--taking out a
note-book and pencil--"for the history of these cat things."

I sighed rather wearily as I crossed the room to my bookcase and took
down the volume of Gaston Maspero, the same which I had been reading
but had returned to its shelf as Gatton had been admitted.

"We have it here in a nutshell," I said.

Gatton methodically noted the passages which I read to him. The task
concluded:

"H'm," he muttered, scanning his notes, "very strange, very strange
indeed. 'She had also her hours of treacherous perversity, during