The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

Mr. Van blessed us with one of his ambiguous smiles. “It will sponsor research,” he said. “I want universities to study the highly developed mental perception of the domestic feline and apply the knowledge to the improvement of the human mind. Ladies, there is-s-s nothing better I could do with my fortune. Man is-s-s eons behind the smallest fireside grimalkin.” He gave us a canny look, and his eyes narrowed. “I am in a position to know.”

We witnessed the man’s signature. What else could we do? A few days later we left on vacation and never saw Mr. Van again.

Gertrude and I always went south for three weeks in winter, taking SuSu with us. When we returned, the sorry news about our eccentric neighbor was thrown at us without ceremony.

We met Frank on the elevator as we were taking our luggage upstairs, and for the first time he spoke. That in itself was a shock.

He said simply, without any polite preliminaries: “They took him away.”

“What’s that? What did you say?” we both clamored at once.

“They took him away.” It was surprising to find that the voice of this muscular man was high-pitched and rasping.

“What happened to Mr. Van?” my sister demanded.

“He cracked up. His folks come from Pennsylvania and took him back home. He’s in a nut hospital.”

I saw Gertrude wince, and she said: “Is it serious?”

Frank shrugged.

“What will happen to all his antiques?”

“His folks told me to dump the junk.”

“But they’re valuable things, aren’t they?”

“Nah. Junk. He give everybody that guff about museums and all.” Frank shrugged again and tapped his head. “He was gek.”

In stunned wonderment my sister and I reached our apartment, and I could hardly wait to say it: “I told you your Dutchman was unbalanced.”

“Such a pity,” she murmured.

“What do you think of the sudden change in Frank? He acts like a free man. It must have been terrible living with that old Scrooge.”

“I’ll miss Mr. Van,” Gertrude said softly. “He was very interesting. SuSu will miss him, too.”

But SuSu, we observed later that evening, was not willing to relinquish her friend in the wheelchair as easily as we had done.

We were unpacking the vacation luggage after dinner when SuSu staged her demonstration. She started to gurgle and prance, exactly as she had done all winter whenever Mr. Van was approaching our door. Gertrude and I watched her, waiting for the bell to ring. When SuSu trotted expectantly to the door, we followed. She was behaving in an extraordinary manner. She craned her neck, made weaving motions with her head, rolled over on her back, and stretched luxuriously, all the while purring her heart out; but the doorbell never rang.

Looking at my watch, I said: “It’s eight-thirty. SuSu remembers.”

“It’s quite touching, isn’t it?” Gertrude remarked.

That was not the end of SuSu’s demonstrations. Almost every night at half past eight she performed the same ritual.

I recalled how SuSu had continued to sleep in the guest room long after we had moved her bed to another place. “Cats hate to give up a habit. But she’ll forget Mr. Van’s visits after a while.”

SuSu did not forget. A few weeks passed. Then we had a foretaste of spring and a sudden thaw. People went without coats prematurely, convertibles cruised with the tops down, and a few hopeful fishermen appeared on the wharf at the foot of our street, although the river was still patched with ice.

On one of these warm evenings we walked SuSu down to the park for her first spring outing, expecting her to go after last year’s dried weeds with snapping jaws. Instead, she tugged at her leash, pulling toward the boardwalk. Out of curiosity we let her have her way, and there on the edge of the wharf she staged her weird performance once more—gurgling, arching her back, craning her neck with joy.

“She’s doing it again,” I said. “I wonder what the reason could be.”

Gertrude said, almost in a whisper: “Remember what Mr. Van said about cats and ghosts?”

“Look at that animal! You’d swear she was rubbing against someone’s ankles. I wish she’d stop. It makes me uneasy.”

“I wonder,” said my sister very slowly, “if Mr. Van is really in a mental hospital.”

“What do you mean?”

“Or is he—down there?” Gertrude pointed uncertainly over the edge of the wharf. “I think Mr. Van is dead, and SuSu knows.”

“That’s too fantastic,” I said. “Really, Gertrude!”

“I think Frank pushed the poor man off the wharf, wheelchair and all—perhaps one dark night when Mr. Van couldn’t sleep and insisted on being wheeled to the park.”

“You’re not serious, Gertrude.”

“Can’t you see it? . . . A cold night. The riverfront deserted. Mr. Van trussed in his wheelchair with a blanket. Why, that chair would sink like lead! What a terrible thing! That icy water. That poor helpless man.”

“I just can’t—”

“Now Frank is free, and he has all those antiques, and nobody cares enough to ask questions. He can sell them and be set up for life.”

“And he tears up the will,” I suggested, succumbing to Gertrude’s fantasy.