What was this eerie, mysterious picture book?

This was almost too spooky to be a children's book, but it must have been, because I recall reading it when I was in like 1st grade (7-8 years old). This was in the early 2000's. It was this illustrated picture book where the unseen protagonist is chilling by the fireplace in a low-lit mansion or a log cabin or something. It's nighttime. A series of visitors come and go throughout the night, each visitor larger and more intimidating than the previous- I think they might have been increasingly large cats, or something to that effect. Each time one arrives, the protagonist would ask "Are you Richard?" and the visitor would answer "No, but you should leave, because you don't want to be here when Richard comes" (the name wasn't Richard- I can't recall the actual name but the repeated back-and-forth dialogue took that form.) Then the visitor would leave, the next even-larger visitor would arrive, and so on. Suspense builds as the reader wonders how big this Richard character must be if each subsequent visitor is afraid of him. When Richard finally arrives, we only catch a glimpse of him in a mirror- he's a big and monstrous puma-like thing. Perhaps it turns out the protagonist was Richard all along?