Phenomenal Nonsense
He'd heard the cat or something cat-like the night before and, again, early in the morning. Or so he first thought. It was a scratching, whining sound that he associated with something inanimate--branch on branch or the whistle of a tongue of wind around the corner of the house. An inanimate sound, a wind whistle through one of those invisible cracks in a window or door. Definitely not human, not even animal . . . although animal had first occurred to him. So, he thought it through, carefully, to be sure that his observation and conclusion were based on clear sensory and rational knowledge. It is a logical deduction, he would explain to Muriel. "It was nothing," he would say calmly. "Wind on the shingles. Air escaping somewhere." "Escaping from what?" she would ask. Of course she would. Always the joker, the wit, the teaser, the sceptic.Well, he would feign disgust or, at least, disinterest as he had learned to do. Escaping ...