"Get out!" he rasped. "Scat!"
The cat slunk back, eyes slitted warily, but did not leave the room.
It was a standard living-room in a standard small bungalow. An over-stuffed chair stood in a corner with a floor-lamp beside it. Opposite the chair, along one wall, was a divan to match. A gate-legged table stood between the front windows—the blinds of which were very carefully drawn. More furniture, decorous, showing modest prosperity, was piled along the walls, leaving the center of the room clear.
The rugs had been rolled back from the center of the room. In their place was a large, waterproof blanket. On the blanket was the body.
George Opper ducked his head to wipe perspiration from his face onto the sleeve of his shirt. He was a big man, a bit too heavy, with a face that was normally florid. It was very pale, now.
The cat, a sleek white animal, sidled toward the body on the waterproof blanket. With almost a sob, George Opper raised his hand to throw his gun at it. But he stayed the impulse. The gun, perhaps striking wall or floor, might leave a trace of violence for later investigators to seize upon. He didn't want that.
He had been very careful about that so far. He mustn't let his unstrung nerves give him away now.
He had been very careful about the whole thing, as far as that went. Martia, his wife, had come home secretly at midnight, from the next state where she had been visiting her mother. It had not been hard to do. A wire, given a messenger boy on the street by a man whose hat was pulled down and collar pulled up so that recognition was impossible.
MARTIA. I AM IN TROUBLE STOP COME BACK BUT LET NO ONE KNOW YOU ARE COMING STOP EXPLAIN LATER.
The wire might come out afterward, but it was improbable. In any event, it couldn't hurt him much. As far as the world knew, his wife had simply left her mother's home—and disappeared. He would let a year go by, however, before he married Lois Blye. Too much hurry would look suspicious.
He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve again, and stared at the thing on the blanket. Pretty soon it would be sunk for ever from the world of men. And then he would be safe. No body, no crime. . . .
"Scat!" he almost screamed.
The sleek white cat was back at the blanket, whiskers almost touching the body of its mistress. Devoted to Martia, the cat had been. The dumb brute didn't seem to sense the change wrought by death; seemed sidling up for caresses from the still white hand.
Opper leaped toward the thing, and kicked out at it. The cat jumped for the doorway, but stayed there, staring out of green eyes, tongue going over its chops.
Opper composed his quivering, raw nerves, and approached the blanket. Time to get going. Time to get this thing out of here. The cat was just behind him. He took a quick step backward and nearly tripped over the animal.
He stood still, hands clenched till the nails drew blood, yelling, screaming behind closed lips so that only a curious small whimpering noise came from his mouth. But he stopped that in a hurry. That was actually horrifying. Martia had whimpered like that just before he killed her.
A queerly terrifying thing, that al-
