Dr Nikola Returns | Page 7

mine, and regarded me steadfastly with his extraordinary eyes.
"It is not," I answered. "I am an old resident in the East, and I think I may say I know China as well as any living Englishman."
"Quite so. You were present at the meeting at Quong Sha's house in the Wanhsien on the 23rd August, 1907, if I remember aright, and you assisted Mah Poo to evade capture by the mandarins the week following."
"How on earth did you know that?" I asked, my surprise quite getting the better of me, for I had always been convinced that no other soul, save the man himself, was aware of my participation in that affair.
"One becomes aware of many strange things in the East," said Nikola, hugging his knee and looking at me over the top of it, "and yet that little circumstance I have just referred to is apt to teach one how much one might know, and how small after all our knowledge is of each other's lives. One could almost expect as much from brute beasts."
"I am afraid I don't quite follow you," I said simply.
"Don't you?" he answered. "And yet it is very simple after all. Let me give you a practical illustration of my meaning. If you see anything in it other than I intend, the blame must be upon your own head."
Upon a table close to his chair lay a large sheet of white paper. This he placed upon the floor. He then took a stick of charcoal in his hand and presently uttered a long and very peculiar whistle. Next moment, without any warning, an enormous cat, black as his master's coat, leapt down from somewhere on to the floor, and stood swishing his tail before us.
"There are some people in the world," said Nikola calmly, at the same time stroking the great beast's soft back, "who would endeavour to convince you that this cat is my familiar spirit, and that, with his assistance, I work all sorts of extraordinary magic. You, of course, would not be so silly as to believe such idle tales. But to bear out what I was saying just now let us try an experiment with his assistance. It is just possible I may be able to tell you something more of your life."
Here he stooped and wrote a number of figures up to ten with the charcoal upon the paper, duplicating them in a line below. He then took the cat upon his knee, stroked it carefully, and finally whispered something in its ear. Instantly the brute sprang down, placed its right fore-paw on one of the numerals of the top row, while, whether by chance or magic I cannot say, it performed a similar action with its left on the row below.
"Twenty-four," said Nikola, with one of his peculiar smiles.
Then taking the piece of charcoal once more in his hand, and turning the paper over, he wrote upon it the names of the different months of the year. Placing it on the floor he again said something to the cat, who this time stood upon June. The alphabet followed, and letter by letter the uncanny beast spelt out "Apia."
"On the 24th June," said Nikola, "of a year undetermined you were in Apia. Let us see if we can discover the year."
Again he wrote the numerals up to ten, and immediately the cat, with fiendish precision, worked out 1895.
"Is that correct?" asked this extraordinary person when the brute had finished its performance.
It was quite correct, and I told him so.
"I'm glad of that. And now do you want to know any more?" he asked. "If you wish it I might perhaps be able to tell you your business there."
I did not want to know. And I can only ask you to believe that I had very good reasons for not doing so. Nikola laughed softly, and pressed the tips of his long white fingers together as he looked at me.
"Now tell me truthfully what you think of my cat?" said he.
"One might be excused if one endowed him with Satanic attributes," I answered.
"And yet, though you think it so wonderful, it is only because I have subjected him to a curious form of education. There is a power latent in animals, and particularly in cats, which few of us suspect. And if animals have this power, how much more may men be expected to possess it. Do you know, Mr. Brace, I should be very interested to find out exactly how far you think the human intelligence can go; that is to say, how far you think it can penetrate into the regions of what is generally called the occult?"
"Again I must make the excuse," I said, "that I do not follow you."
"Well, then, let me place it before you in