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2200 words
As was my habit of a Friday night, I was relaxing in my favourite chair by the fire of my Gentleman's club, completing the Times crossword, smoking a cheroot and sipping at a large malt scotch. I had dined well and was feeling replete. Friday was, of course, my man's night off. He was by now no doubt attending a cock-fight or a music hall, or whatever was the current fashion with the lower orders.
My peace was disturbed when Tompkins, one of the younger members, came to sit opposite me. He seemed a little agitated, as if wanting to attract my attention but not knowing whether he'd get a favourable response. Quite obviously I ignored him - he was a bright enough chap, some sort of amateur scientist by all accounts, and with a private income to boot. But he just didn't really fit in. Blighter had never even done any military service!
He cleared his throat, noisily, several times. Against my better judgement I glared at him over the top of my newspaper. I couldn't help but notice that his left arm was in a sling.
"Ahh, Major, good evening, ahh..." He ran out of steam at that point. I was in no mood to assist him.
"Evening, Tompkins." I turned back to my newspaper. Unfortunately the young man wasn't going to do the decent thing and leave a man to his crossword. I scowled at him across the correspondence page.
"Young man," I spoke quietly, as befitted the institution, but forcefully. You don't spend ten years in the army in India without learning how to speak quietly but forcefully when required. "Do you know where you are?"
He looked a little confused. "Of... of course... this is the Knightsbridge Club, sir."
At least he had the presence of mind to remember some of his manners. "And where exactly in the Knightsbridge Club are we at this precise moment? Hmm?"
He frowned. "Why, this is the smoking lounge, sir."
"Exactly. This is where gentlemen come after dinner to relax. Do you hear anyone else talking in here, Tompkins? Hmm?"
"No sir." "No sir indeed. I have been a member of this club for thirty-seven years, and in those thirty-seven years nobody - nobody, hmmm? - has spoken to me in this room." I could feel the disapproval from Sir Charles and Greystoke across the room. They were as outraged as I.
"I must apologise, sir, but this really is a pressing matter, I..."
"Very well, follow me." Deeply irritated, I put aside the broadsheet and stumped from the room. I didn't stop until I reached the snooker room, where I immediately collared a waiter for a replacement scotch to help dissipate my anger. I sat down in a quiet corner - I didn't want to advertise the fact that I was speaking to the blighter, for heaven's sake - and Tompkins sat next to me.
"You realise, of course," I fixed him with my most intimidating look, "that this will play merry hell with my digestion. Now tell me, what is this pressing matter, hmmm?"
Tompkins cast his eyes about him warily, and his tone suddenly became conspiratorial. "I believe you still have, um, contacts, ah, in the military, sir." Preposterous! Just how many unwritten rules did the boy intend to break in one evening? I declined to answer.
He reddened slightly. "Yes, well, um, be that as it, ah, may, um..."
"Well spit it out, boy, you've come this far, you might as well finish, hmmm?" Like our dear Queen, I was not overly amused.
It came out finally all of a rush. "I seem to have invented a flying machine but I fear that dark forces may be at work to steal my ideas. I need your help, sir, and that's the truth of it."
I was almost stunned to silence. It was only my years of military service and a public school upbringing that saved me from uttering a profanity. Instead I remained icily calm.
"I see. But the army is experimenting with flight already, you know. Quite successfully I might add."
"Well of course, sir, dirigibles and kites and the like, and a rocket I believe. I have conducted similar experiments, but this is different. Very different. If I could just, um, show you, a practical demonstration..."
"If I were to agree with your request, would you leave me alone to smoke a cheroot and drink my whisky in peace before I retire?"
He produced his card, an address not far from the club. "You have my word, sir. Maybe tomorrow, say, ah, ten o'clock?" I nodded, and with a nervous smile he departed.
I slept uneasily that night in my rooms at the club, and therefore I was more than usually cantankerous in the morning. Breakfast was a dismal affair, the kippers were simply not up to scratch and I had to speak sharply to the waiter. I had to wait for nearly five minutes for the Porter to summon me a hansom cab, and consequently by the time I reached Tompkins' abode I was in a state of high dudgeon.
He answered the door personally - always a bad sign in my book - and the house, although somewhat more grandiose than I might have expected from one such as he, was dirty. The carpets had obviously not been swept for some time, and there was an unpleasant smell to the place.
He seemed quite unabashed by the obvious squalor of his surroundings, and welcomed me in without offering to take my coat. The sling was missing from his arm, but it was still bandaged.
"I'm so glad you came," he gushed, "I was half expecting for you to have, um, forgotten. I really appreciate your interest, I..."
"If we could get to business," I said coldly. "I'm afraid I have other appointments."
"Of course, of course." He led me through the big house and up the servant's stairs to the second floor, and into a large room at the rear of the house. I now knew where the offensive odour was coming from. One wall was lined with cages, each containing a cat. Ginger, tortoiseshell, black, white, and virtually every other permutation. There was another niff in the background, something I hadn't smelt since Krishnapur, and it took me a few moments to pin it down - rancid butter.
Tompkins was running from cage to cage, jollying the cats or whatever one does to keep them kittenish. I could stand it no longer.
"Now look, Tompkins," I said, "I'm sure you have a wonderful menagerie here, hmmm? But I really have to be elsewhere. You'll forgive me?" I headed for the door.
Tompkins rushed to my side. "But you haven't seen what I invited you here for. The secret of flight!"
"But all I've seen so far, my boy, is a large selection of cats," I raised the lid of a dustbin with the tip of my cane, then dropped it again hurriedly, "and a large tub of butter that should be ashamed of itself. Does this have anything to do with flight?"
"But of course," He cried excitedly, "They are fundamental to my work! Let me explain - it's so simple, it's almost beyond belief! Two scientifically proven constants - the first..." He reached into a cage and pulled out a smallish brownish cat, and threw it into the air. "The first, that cats always land on their feet." The cat willingly obliged. I nodded.
"The second..." He rummaged around in a corner of the room, and emerged a few moments later with a mouldering slice of toast, dipped his finger in the dustbin and smeared some butter on one side. I interrupted the charade.
"Yes, the toast will always land butter side down. I have read Professor Murphy's papers on the subject. It's a proven principle, of course. Please get to the point." I examined my pocketwatch pointedly.
"But that is the point, the whole point!" He was capering like a loon now, and I feared that I would have to restrain him and summon a doctor.
"Look! Watch!" He retrieved the cat from the floor and dipped his hand into the dustbin, then liberally daubed the yellow mess over the poor creature's back. "Watch!" He raced to the window, threw it open and, before I had chance to stop him, flung the unfortunate brute out.
"Tompkins," I cried, "Have you taken leave of your senses, you bloody fool?" I raced to the window, expecting to see it's broken body laying below. I was shocked - stunned - to see it floating just a few feet away, blinking back at me, with no visible means of support.
"Paradox," Tompkins whispered. "Works every time. Science dictates that the cat has to land feet down..."
"But also states that the butter must land first! The conflict caused by the two immutable laws means that the cat cannot land! My dear boy, it's nothing short of genius!" I grasped his hand and pumped his arm vigorously. "The possibilities are endless. Quick, get the beast back in, I must examine it."
"Ahh." He pointed to the window. The cat was drifting away, carried off on the breeze. "I lose so many cats that way..."
I fixed him with my favourite stare. "Tompkins... I was reading in the newspaper the other day of sightings of giant... bats... over London. Could it be... hmmm?"
He nodded soundlessly.
"So what happens to them?" I asked.
Tompkins swallowed. "I appear to have proved another principle. I followed the first couple. They float around for a while, then seem to start worrying about why they're flying. And once they start to wonder, they, um, fall."
"Fall?"
"Plummet. It seems that curiosity really does kill cats."
"Please Tompkins, next time you conduct such an experiment such as this, put the damn things on leads, hmmm?"
As I left the house I could not help but notice the agent of a foreign power lurking in a doorway across the street. The black cloak always gave the cads away every time. I would have to speak to my friends at the War Office at once.
I arrived at Tompkins' home the next day just as the becloaked devil was being bundled unceremoniously into an unmarked police carriage. I congratulated the officers on the way they had discharged their duty, and then addressed the spy.
"If you escape a lengthy prison sentence, kindly report back to your masters that we British will not tolerate this kind of behaviour!"
Tompkins took a little time answering the door, and when he did I noted with some surprise that his left leg was in plaster. I raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Ah, the um," he looked down at his leg. "I thought it was time to test the, um principle of, ah, manned flight."
I ushered him inside. The secret agent may have been removed, but the street is no place to discuss matters of national importance.
"You jumped with a cat? Wasn't that a bit foolhardy, hmmm?"
"Several cats. Ten, actually. All extremely well buttered. But they started to fight, and, um... well, they broke my fall, at least. Well, mostly." I advised him to rest his leg for a few days, and on no account to go jumping out of windows until he'd located a bigger cat. I am, by nature, a humorous cove after all. I didn't immediately identify the thoughtful look in his eye as I said my goodbyes. If I had, things may have turned out differently.
It was Thursday when I read of the daring theft, from London Zoo, of a Siberian Tiger. It wasn't until Friday, sat once again in the smoking room of my club, that I connected the threads together. I immediately set out for Tompkins' home.
There was no answer when I rang the bell, and there were no lights showing. With a growing feeling of disquiet, I found my way to the tradesmen's entrance and broke a window to let myself in. The house was in darkness, and I stumbled around for a while before I found a lamp and some matches. After a couple of false starts I located the servants stairs and made my way fearfully to the second floor room.
The door was ajar, and I entered cautiously. It wasn't until I'd lit the gas lights that I realised that my fears were well founded. The cages were all smashed, and the cats gone. The walls and floor, and even the ceiling, were coated with a mixture of butter and blood. I was too late. Poor Tompkins. He'd obviously taken my jest to heart, the young fool.
His remains were found, days later, in a field in Essex, many miles away. And local newspapers have started to report on stories from the local peasantry of a giant white cat that swoops from the air, like an eagle, and carries away sheep and occasionally a calf.
So far these stories have been written off by the Constabulary as being nothing more than simple rustic superstition, and I see no reason to tell them any different, hmmm?
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