But, alas, to this very hour she sometimes awakes shrieking in the
night. And her terrified cry is always the same: "The green eyes of
Bast!... the green-eyes of Bast!"
CHAPTER XXIX
AN AFTERWORD
I wish it lay in my power to satisfy the curiosity in all quarters
expressed respecting the identity of "Nahemah"--the cat-woman, or
_psycho-hybrid_, who figured in Dr. Damar Greefe's statement. But it
is my duty, as chronicler of the strange and awful occurrences which
at this period disturbed the even tenor of my existence, to state that
from the moment in which she leaped from the window of Mrs.
Wentworth's house to the path below, neither I nor any other witness
who ever came forward _beheld her again_.
At the end of a quest which exercised the intricate machinery of New
Scotland Yard throughout the length and breadth of the land, Inspector
Gatton was compelled to admit himself defeated in this particular. And
his explanation of the failure to apprehend the central figure of the
tragedies which had exterminated the house of Coverly was a curious
one.
"You know, Mr. Addison," he said to me one evening, "the more I think
of this Nahemah the more I wonder if such a person ever really
existed!"
"What do you mean, Gatton?" I asked.
"Well," he replied, "I mean that although you and I and others are
prepared to testify to the existence of a woman in the case, what do
we really know about her (leaving Damar Greefe's statement out of the
question) except that she possessed very remarkable eyes?"
"And very remarkable agility," I interrupted.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293