At his wife's funeral Henry Auden seems distant. At home he is relieved and tries to relax when he is visited by Barbara, a friend of the family. Barbara gives several hints, all suggesting that he must be quite relieved about the death of his wife.  He had nursed the sick woman for a long time and she seemed to have been a demanding person. Barbara promises Henry to send him a kitten: " She will be company for you". After the kitten has arrived in a basket, Henry begins to hear the bell his wife had used to call for him. Upstairs in his wife's room the bell is still standing at the side of his late wife’s bed, but there is no one else in the room who could have rung the bell. 

Neither the cat nor Henry seem to be very interested in each other's company, but they eye each other frequently. It is obvious that the wife had called him often by the bell. Henry seems to try to get used to the idea that this will not happen any more. He seems to wonder whether his imagination has played with him – on the other side he knows he has heard it. At his work in the office he his still haunted by the experiences he had all night. A postcard raises questions and his secretary is disappointed that he does not take her home, indicating that he has to sort things out, leaving her disappointed. Back in the house he hears the roars outside as the cat is outside. Like the roars of a tiger. The first time he looks outside he does not see anything strange. 

As the bell is heard frequently every night and the roars go on every night, too, he goes after it and sees the shadow of a huge cat. He takes a swordlike knife and cuts off the big plants in the garden behind which the roars seem to come from. Most of the plants cut down he hears the bell again. And again. Rushing upstairs, the ringing stops just before he enters and again, no one is in the room. He definitely does not trust his senses any more. The confused man becomes more and more frightened. Hearing the roars of the tiger again he rushes out and sees the big tiger in his garden. The animal approaches and Henry rescues himself into the house. Now he hears the bell ringing again. Having been exhausted for so long and not trusting his senses any more, the man is finished. He heavily ascends the stairs, gives up trying to understand or fight what happens and enters his wife’s room. As Barbara is back from her vacation she enters and finds a devastated house and garden. While she is calling for Henry, the door of Henry's wife room is seen in the background: with large bloody marks of a huge cat's paw scratched into the door and Henry's bloody arm is seen hanging from the bed.