<P> From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach . At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty . "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation . And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness ." He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and ties a noose around its neck, hanging it from a tree where it dies . That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee the premises . </P> <P> The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the apparition of a gigantic cat, with a rope around the animal's neck . </P> <P> At first, this image deeply disturbs the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had cut the cat from the tree and thrown the dead creature into the bedroom to wake him during the fire . The narrator begins to miss Pluto, feeling guilty . Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern . It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye . The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest . The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature . After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows . This terrifies and angers him more, and he avoids the cat whenever possible . Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs . Enraged, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife − whom, out of fury, he kills instead . To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole . A few days later, when the police show up at the house to investigate the wife's disappearance, they find nothing and the narrator goes free . The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has also gone missing . This grants him the freedom to sleep, even with the burden of murder . </P> <P> On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar . They still find nothing significant . Then, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body . A loud, inhuman wailing sound fills the room . The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife's corpse, and on its rotting head, to the utter horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat . As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!" </P>

When did the action in the story the cask of amontillado take place