Restless Earth/Chapter 23

The car was swinging down the winding hill to the small town of Waitotara when James Harley broke the silence which he had maintained ever since ​they had shown their permits for the last time in the patrolled area.

“Which is the best way to kill a cat, Roy?”

The question was so totally unexpected and irrelevant to the driver’s thoughts that he took his gaze from the road for an instant, and the racing vehicle promptly lunged into the grass at the edge of the macadam strip. Roy jerked the car back upon the road without slackening speed.

He had concluded that Harley had relapsed into his former lethargic state.

Roy had commenced the return journey in high spirits. He had been genially loquacious until they had reached Dannevirke. Then Harley’s continued silence had taken effect, and the speed of the car had increased as Roy’s loquacity diminished. Finally he had become silent, too.

There had been no mention of food at Palmerston North, and at Wanganui the silence had been equally discouraging. Roy had shot an imploring glance at his passenger as they passed a brilliantly-illumined restaurant in the Avenue into which theatre-patrons were filing in search of suppers they did not need. He had slowed the car to a walking pace, but Harley had merely shot him an impatient glance of enquiry, and he had tightened his belt and stepped on the accelerator. He had crossed the railway at the foot of St. John's Hill at a speed some twenty miles in excess of the limit, indulging a momentary resentment of Harley’s lack of consideration.

Now the man talked about cats!

“What did you say?” asked Roy incredulously, when he had safely negotiated the bridge and the car was speeding along the few chains of main street in the little town.

“Which is the best way to kill a cat?”

“Why, drown the thing.”

“But, supposing you couldn’t catch it? Supposing it is half-wild?”

“Shoot it. That’s the only way to fix ’em.”

​“That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Silence settled in the car again for a few miles. Roy stole numerous glances at his passenger—suspicious glances, as though he again doubted Harley’s sanity.

“Have you such a thing as a revolver, Roy?” asked Harley as they left Waverley behind.

Roy felt a cold shudder go down his spine.

“A shot-gun is best for cats,” he replied. “Revolver’s no good. Too easy to miss 'em.”

“A shot-gun would make too much of a mess of the verandah, I’m afraid,” mused Harley.

Roy sat up straight behind the wheel and spoke severely.

“Now, you want to get ideas like that out of your head, Mr. Harley.”

“What ideas?” asked Harley, the faintest suggestion of amusement in his tone.

“You’ve got a long way to go, Mr. Harley, and you mustn’t think of hopping off the track just yet. I’ve got an idea how you feel—going home to an empty house; but you mustn’t let it get you down. You can’t do any good for Mrs. Harley, or the kiddie, by doing a thing like that. You’ve got the best part of your life before you. People are beginning to know you. Why, I even read your yarns myself, when they come my way———”

“But there really is a cat———”

“Yes, we know all about that,” interrupted Roy s%?rx}fully. “Now, don’t you go and do anything silly.”

Harley touched the driver’s sleeve, and, in the dim light, Roy saw that he smiled.

“You mustn’t let your imagination run away with you, Roy. We have a cat, and its name is ‘Ginger.’ It sits on the verandah-rail all day. It doesn’t like me, and I don’t like it; but—Grace—Mrs. Harley—was very fond of it. I’ve been thinking over it all the way, and, while I’d like to keep it for her sake, I—well, I couldn’t bear the thing looking at me day ​in and day out, you understand. The thing would blame me—reproach me—Oh, it’s hard to explain———”

His smile had vanished and his expression had become strained.

“But, surely you could get near enough to grab it, if it sits on the verandah-rail as you say,” objected Roy.

“I’m afraid you don’t know this cat.”

“Ten to one, it’s wandered away by this time.”

“I have reason to believe otherwise,” said Harley bitterly.

They drove in silence for another five miles.

“Why not shoo the darned thing away?” asked Roy. “It will go, if you don’t feed it.”

“I couldn’t do that, Roy—decently. You see, the thing, being half-wild, destroys things.”

“Perhaps I could drown it for you?”

“Thanks, all the same, old man; but I’d rather kill the thing myself. I don’t want to act revengefully—if you know what I mean. I could sit just inside my window and pot it clean with a revolver bullet, or with a rifle. I’d like to do it decently—make a clean job of it—for Mrs. Harley’s sake———”

“I think I understand what you mean, but———”

“Oh, never mind. The fellow next door has a rifle. I’ll borrow that.”

No more was said until the car was nearing Stratford. Then Roy, whose suspicions were as lively as at first, spoke casually.

“I’ve got a Fritz automatic in the back of the car, if that’s any use to you.”

“Thanks,” said Harley quietly, after an appreciable pause.

He was glad that Roy did not glance at him at the moment. He felt that the sparkle in his eyes and the flushing of his face must be visible, even in the gloom.

Roy steered with one hand while he reached over into the darkness behind. He fumbled for a few moments, then, with a grunt, produced the pistol.

​“You’ll have to be careful with it,” he warned, as he passed the weapon to Harley. “She’s a tricky bit of ironmongery, and it isn’t registered.”

“I know enough about guns not to shoot myself,” replied Harley, keeping a triumphant note from his tones with an effort. “I’ll let you have the thing tomorrow. Is she loaded.”

“There’s a full clip in her. Watch the safety-catch.”

“I see.”

“She kicks a bit. You want to watch that.”

“Thanks. Do you usually keep this thing in the car?”

“Yes. Very handy in case I pick up a hard shot, like some I saw over in Napier. Besides, you can’t leave things like that around in a boarding-house. The landlady or the housemaid would raise a shriek sometime or other.”

Roy chuckled, and Harley, his hands trembling uncontrollably, slipped the pistol into his coat pocket.

“Bit different, travelling this road now, eh?” asked Roy, driving the car at top speed on the straight stretches between Stratford and Inglewood. “We’ve got it all to ourselves.”

Harley murmured his agreement.

Both men were very tired when at last the car came to a stop before the Harley bungalow. It was shortly after one o’clock in the morning, and a light rain was falling. There were no lights visible in any of the scattered suburban houses.

Harley alighted stiffly.

“I won’t ask you in for a drink, Roy,” he said. “The place will be all———”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Harley,” interrupted the driver heartily. “I’ll be getting home. I’m a bit peckish, and tired to death.”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Harley, in self-reproach. “We haven’t eaten all day!”

“We haven’t,” agreed Roy. “I’m beginning to notice it.”

​“I'm awfully sorry, old man———”

“Don’t mention it. I could have pulled up for a feed if I had wanted one. Good-night.”

The car crept forward.

“Come over in the morning, Roy, will you? I’ll fix up with you then.”

“Suits me. I’ll be over about ten.”

“Good-night, Roy, old man.”

Harley held out his hand, and the driver took it rather diffidently.

“You’ve been a Briton, Roy. I’ve realised that, but I’ve been rather short on words lately. Sorry to have given you all this trouble———”

“Forget it, Mr. Harley. Go and have a good sleep, It will do you all the good in the world. I’ll see you to-morrow. Be careful with that gun.”

“I will. Good-bye.”

Roy looked back as he rounded the corner of the street. He could just distinguish Harley standing still upon the kerb.

“‘Good-bye,’ is it?” he muttered. “What sort of a goat does he think I am?”

He drove to the bottom of the hill, stopped his car, and alighted.