His picture hung between the windows, looking straight across the room
to the other portrait, which hung at the side of the bed. At that I
looked next, and as I looked I felt once more the horror of nightmare
seize me. It represented Mrs Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams: old and
withered and white haired. But in spite of the evident feebleness of
body, a dreadful exuberance and vitality shone through the envelope of
flesh, an exuberance wholly malign, a vitality that foamed and frothed
with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed from the narrow, leering eyes; it
laughed in the demon-like mouth. The whole face was instinct with some
secret and appalling mirth; the hands, clasped together on the knee,
seemed shaking with suppressed and nameless glee. Then I saw also that
it was signed in the left-hand bottom corner, and wondering who the
artist could be, I looked more closely, and read the inscription, “Julia
Stone by Julia Stone.”

There came a tap at the door, and John Clinton entered. “Got everything you want?” he asked. “Rather more than I want,” said I, pointing to the picture. He laughed. “Hard-featured old lady,” he said. “By herself, too, I remember. Anyhow
she can’t have flattered herself much.”

“But don’t you see?” said I. “It’s scarcely a human face at all. It’s
the face of some witch, of some devil.”

He looked at it more closely. “Yes; it isn’t very pleasant,” he said. “Scarcely a bedside manner, eh? Yes; I can imagine getting the nightmare if I went to sleep with that
close by my bed. I’ll have it taken down if you like.”

“I really wish you would,” I said. He rang the bell, and with the help of a servant we detached the
picture and carried it out on to the landing, and put it with its face
to the wall. “By Jove, the old lady is a weight,” said John, mopping his forehead. “I
wonder if she had something on her mind.”

The extraordinary weight of the picture had struck me too. I was about
to reply, when I caught sight of my own hand. There was blood on it, in
considerable quantities, covering the whole palm. “I’ve cut myself somehow,” said I.

John gave a little startled exclamation. “Why, I have too,” he said. Simultaneously the footman took out his handkerchief and wiped his hand
with it. I saw that there was blood also on his handkerchief. John and I went back into the tower room and washed the blood off; but
neither on his hand nor on mine was there the slightest trace of a
scratch or cut. It seemed to me that, having ascertained this, we both,
by a sort of tacit consent, did not allude to it again. Something in my
case had dimly occurred to me that I did not wish to think about. It was
but a conjecture, but I fancied that I knew the same thing had occurred
to him. The heat and oppression of the air, for the storm we had expected was
still undischarged, increased very much after dinner, and for some time
most of the party, among whom were John Clinton and myself, sat outside
on the path bounding the lawn, where we had had tea. The night was
absolutely dark, and no twinkle of star or moon ray could penetrate the
pall of cloud that overset the sky. By degrees our assembly thinned, the
women went up to bed, men dispersed to the smoking or billiard room, and
by eleven o’clock my host and I were the only two left. All the evening
I thought that he had something on his mind, and as soon as we were
alone he spoke. “The man who helped us with the picture had blood on his hand, too, did
you notice?” he said. “I asked him just now if he had cut himself, and
he said he supposed he had, but that he could find no mark of it. Now
where did that blood come from?”

By dint of telling myself that I was not going to think about it, I had
succeeded in not doing so, and I did not want, especially just at
bedtime, to be reminded of it. “I don’t know,” said I, “and I don’t really care so long as the picture
of Mrs Julia Stone is not by my bed.”

He got up. “But it’s odd,” he said. “Ha! Now you’ll see another odd thing.”

A dog of his, an Irish terrier by breed, had come out of the house as we
talked. The door behind us into the hall was open, and a bright oblong
of light shone across the lawn to the iron gate which led on to the
rough grass outside, where the walnut tree stood. I saw that the dog
had all his hackles up, bristling with rage and fright; his lips were
curled back from his teeth, as if he was ready to spring at something,
and he was growling to himself. He took not the slightest notice of his
master or me, but stiffly and tensely walked across the grass to the
iron gate. There he stood for a moment, looking through the bars and
still growling. Then of a sudden his courage seemed to desert him: he
gave one long howl, and scuttled back to the house with a curious
crouching sort of movement. “He does that half-a-dozen times a day,” said John. “He sees something
which he both hates and fears.”

I walked to the gate and looked over it. Something was moving on the
grass outside, and soon a sound which I could not instantly identify
came to my ears. Then I remembered what it was: it was the purring of a
cat. I lit a match, and saw the purrer, a big blue Persian, walking
round and round in a little circle just outside the gate, stepping high
and ecstatically, with tail carried aloft like a banner. Its eyes were
bright and shining, and every now and then it put its head down and
sniffed at the grass. I laughed. “The end of that mystery, I am afraid,” I said. “Here’s a large cat
having Walpurgis night all alone.”

“Yes, that’s Darius,” said John. “He spends half the day and all night
there. But that’s not the end of the dog mystery, for Toby and he are
the best of friends, but the beginning of the cat mystery. What’s the
cat doing there? And why is Darius pleased, while Toby is
terror-stricken?”

At that moment I remembered the rather horrible detail of my dreams when
I saw through the gate, just where the cat was now, the white tombstone
with the sinister inscription. But before I could answer the rain began,
as suddenly and heavily as if a tap had been turned on, and
simultaneously the big cat squeezed through the bars of the gate, and
came leaping across the lawn to the house for shelter. Then it sat in
the doorway, looking out eagerly into the dark. It spat and struck at
John with its paw, as he pushed it in, in order to close the door. Somehow, with the portrait of Julia Stone in the passage outside, the
room in the tower had absolutely no alarm for me, and as I went to bed,
feeling very sleepy and heavy, I had nothing more than interest for the
curious incident about our bleeding hands, and the conduct of the cat
and dog. The last thing I looked at before I put out my light was the
square empty space by my bed where the portrait had been. Here the paper
was of its original full tint of dark red: over the rest of the walls it
had faded. Then I blew out my candle and instantly fell asleep.