212
XXII. THE GRAY MIST 225
XXIII. THE INEVITABLE 240
XXIV. A CONFERENCE--INTERRUPTED 251
XXV. STATEMENT OF DAMAR GREEFE, M.D. 263
XXVI. STATEMENT OF DR. DAMAR GREEFE (CONTINUED) 273
XXVII. STATEMENT OF DR. DAMAR GREEFE (CONCLUDED) 285
XXVIII. THE CLAWS OF THE CAT 300
XXIX. AN AFTERWORD 309

THE GREEN EYES OF BAST

CHAPTER I

I SEE THE EYES

"Good evening, sir. A bit gusty?"

"Very much so, sergeant," I replied. "I think I will step into your
hut for a moment and light my pipe if I may."

"Certainly, sir. Matches are too scarce nowadays to take risks with
'em. But it looks as if the storm had blown over."

"I'm not sorry," said I, entering the little hut like a sentry-box
which stands at the entrance to this old village high street for
accommodation of the officer on point duty at that spot. "I have a
longish walk before me."

"Yes. Your place is right off the beat, isn't it?" mused my
acquaintance, as sheltered from the keen wind I began to load my
briar. "Very inconvenient I've always thought it for a gentleman who
gets about as much as you do."

"That's why I like it," I explained. "If I lived anywhere accessible I
should never get a moment's peace, you see. At the same time I have to
be within an hour's journey of Fleet Street."

I often stopped for a chat at this point and I was acquainted with
most of the men of P. division on whom the duty devolved from time to
time. It was a lonely spot at night when the residents in the
neighborhood had retired, so that the darkened houses seemed to
withdraw yet farther into the gardens separating them from the
highroad. A relic of the days when trains and motor-buses were not,
dusk restored something of an old-world atmosphere to the village
street, disguising the red brick and stucco which in many cases had
displaced the half-timbered houses of the past. Yet it was possible in
still weather to hear the muted bombilation of the sleepless city and
when the wind was in the north to count the hammer-strokes of the
great bell of St. Paul's.

Standing in the shelter of the little hut, I listened to the rain
dripping from over-reaching branches and to the gurgling of a turgid
little stream which flowed along the gutter near my feet whilst now