The Young Man Who Stroked Cats

Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an English novelist and short story writer. In The Young Man Who Stroked Cats, Thomas Meredith finds himself the recipient of a very mysterious and unexpected gift. A Persian kitten in a basket. More mysterious still, the note accompanying it only reads: For the young man who strokes cats.

Thomas is indeed a cat-lover, and is both delighted and intrigued by his new present. But before long things take another strange turn. He receives a mysterious anonymous phone call from a dying woman...and this turns out to be the start of a bizarre nightly telephone romance.