By the way, have you any strange pets here in the house;
anything of an exceptional kind, such as a tiger-cat or anything out of
the common?” Miss Trelawny smiled a sad smile which made my heart ache,
as she made answer:

“Oh no! Father does not like animals about the house, unless they are
dead and mummied.”  This was said with a touch of bitterness—or
jealousy, I could hardly tell which. “Even my poor kitten was only
allowed in the house on sufferance; and though he is the dearest and
best-conducted cat in the world, he is now on a sort of parole, and is
not allowed into this room.”

As she was speaking a faint rattling of the door handle was heard. Instantly Miss Trelawny’s face brightened. She sprang up and went over
to the door, saying as she went:

“There he is! That is my Silvio. He stands on his hind legs and
rattles the door handle when he wants to come into a room.”  She opened
the door, speaking to the cat as though he were a baby:  “Did him want
his movver? Come then; but he must stay with her!”  She lifted the
cat, and came back with him in her arms. He was certainly a
magnificent animal. A chinchilla grey Persian with long silky hair; a
really lordly animal with a haughty bearing despite his gentleness; and
with great paws which spread out as he placed them on the ground. Whilst she was fondling him, he suddenly gave a wriggle like an eel and
slipped out of her arms. He ran across the room and stood opposite a
low table on which stood the mummy of an animal, and began to mew and
snarl. Miss Trelawny was after him in an instant and lifted him in her
arms, kicking and struggling and wriggling to get away; but not biting
or scratching, for evidently he loved his beautiful mistress. He
ceased to make a noise the moment he was in her arms; in a whisper she
admonished him:

“O you naughty Silvio! You have broken your parole that mother gave
for you. Now, say goodnight to the gentlemen, and come away to
mother’s room!”  As she was speaking she held out the cat’s paw to me
to shake. As I did so I could not but admire its size and beauty. “Why,” said I, “his paw seems like a little boxing-glove full of
claws.”  She smiled:

“So it ought to. Don’t you notice that my Silvio has seven toes, see!”
she opened the paw; and surely enough there were seven separate claws,
each of them sheathed in a delicate, fine, shell-like case. As I
gently stroked the foot the claws emerged and one of them
accidentally—there was no anger now and the cat was purring—stuck
into my hand. Instinctively I said as I drew back:

“Why, his claws are like razors!”

Doctor Winchester had come close to us and was bending over looking at
the cat’s claws; as I spoke he said in a quick, sharp way:

“Eh!”  I could hear the quick intake of his breath. Whilst I was
stroking the now quiescent cat, the Doctor went to the table and tore
off a piece of blotting-paper from the writing-pad and came back. He
laid the paper on his palm and, with a simple “pardon me!” to Miss
Trelawny, placed the cat’s paw on it and pressed it down with his other
hand. The haughty cat seemed to resent somewhat the familiarity, and
tried to draw its foot away. This was plainly what the Doctor wanted,
for in the act the cat opened the sheaths of its claws and made
several reefs in the soft paper. Then Miss Trelawny took her pet away. She returned in a couple of minutes; as she came in she said:

“It is most odd about that mummy! When Silvio came into the room
first—indeed I took him in as a kitten to show to Father—he went on
just the same way. He jumped up on the table, and tried to scratch and
bite the mummy. That was what made Father so angry, and brought the
decree of banishment on poor Silvio. Only his parole, given through
me, kept him in the house.”

Whilst she had been gone, Doctor Winchester had taken the bandage from
her father’s wrist. The wound was now quite clear, as the separate
cuts showed out in fierce red lines. The Doctor folded the
blotting-paper across the line of punctures made by the cat’s claws,
and held it down close to the wound. As he did so, he looked up
triumphantly and beckoned us over to him. The cuts in the paper corresponded with the wounds in the wrist! No
explanation was needed, as he said:

“It would have been better if master Silvio had not broken his parole!”

We were all silent for a little while. Suddenly Miss Trelawny said:

“But Silvio was not in here last night!”

“Are you sure? Could you prove that if necessary?”  She hesitated
before replying:

“I am certain of it; but I fear it would be difficult to prove. Silvio
sleeps in a basket in my room. I certainly put him to bed last night;
I remember distinctly laying his little blanket over him, and tucking
him in. This morning I took him out of the basket myself. I certainly
never noticed him in here; though, of course, that would not mean much,
for I was too concerned about poor father, and too much occupied with
him, to notice even Silvio.”

The Doctor shook his head as he said with a certain sadness:

“Well, at any rate it is no use trying to prove anything now. Any cat
in the world would have cleaned blood-marks—did any exist—from his
paws in a hundredth part of the time that has elapsed.”

Again we were all silent; and again the silence was broken by Miss
Trelawny:

“But now that I think of it, it could not have been poor Silvio that
injured Father. My door was shut when I first heard the sound; and
Father’s was shut when I listened at it. When I went in, the injury
had been done; so that it must have been before Silvio could possibly
have got in.”  This reasoning commended itself, especially to me as a
barrister, for it was proof to satisfy a jury. It gave me a distinct
pleasure to have Silvio acquitted of the crime—possibly because he was
Miss Trelawny’s cat and was loved by her. Happy cat! Silvio’s
mistress was manifestly pleased as I said:

“Verdict, ‘not guilty!’”  Doctor Winchester after a pause observed:

“My apologies to master Silvio on this occasion; but I am still puzzled
to know why he is so keen against that mummy. Is he the same toward
the other mummies in the house? There are, I suppose, a lot of them. I saw three in the hall as I came in.”

“There are lots of them,” she answered. “I sometimes don’t know
whether I am in a private house or the British Museum. But Silvio
never concerns himself about any of them except that particular one. I
suppose it must be because it is of an animal, not a man or a woman.”

“Perhaps it is of a cat!” said the Doctor as he started up and went
across the room to look at the mummy more closely. “Yes,” he went on,
“it is the mummy of a cat; and a very fine one, too. If it hadn’t been
a special favourite of some very special person it would never have
received so much honour. See! A painted case and obsidian eyes—just
like a human mummy. It is an extraordinary thing, that knowledge of
kind to kind.