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Bat Wing

by Sax Rohmer · English · Gutenberg #6382 · 491,561 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Bat Wing

Author: Sax Rohmer


        
Release date: August 1, 2004 [eBook #6382]
                Most recently updated: October 12, 2016

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BAT WING ***




Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team








BAT WING

By Sax Rohmer




[Illustration: “_When the woman raised her arms in a peculiar fashion,
the shadow on the blind was remarkably like that of a bat_”]




CONTENTS



CHAPTER     I. PAUL HARLEY OF CHANCERY LANE
    II. THE VOODOO SWAMP
   III. THE VAMPIRE BAT
    IV. CRAY’S FOLLY
     V. VAL BEVERLEY
    VI. THE BARRIER
   VII. AT THE LAVENDER ARMS
  VIII. THE CALL OF M’KOMBO
    IX. OBEAH
     X. THE NIGHT WALKER
    XI. THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND
   XII. MORNING MISTS
  XIII. AT THE GUEST HOUSE
   XIV. YSOLA CAMBER
    XV. UNREST
   XVI. RED EVE
  XVII. NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON
 XVIII. INSPECTOR AYLESBURY OF MARKET HILTON
   XIX. COMPLICATIONS.
    XX. A SPANISH CIGARETTE
   XXI. THE WING OF A BAT
  XXII. COLIN CAMBER’S SECRET
 XXIII. INSPECTOR AYLESBURY CROSS-EXAMINES
  XXIV. AN OFFICIAL MOVE
   XXV. AYLESBURY’S THEORY
  XXVI. IN MADAME’S ROOM
 XXVII. AN INSPIRATION
XXVIII. MY THEORY OF THE CRIME  XXIX. A LEE-ENFIELD RIFLE
   XXX. THE SEVENTH YEW TREE
  XXXI. YSOLA CAMBER’S CONFESSION
 XXXII. PAUL HARLEY’S EXPERIMENT
XXXIII. PAUL HARLEY’S EXPERIMENT CONCLUDED XXXIV. THE CREEPING SICKNESS
  XXXV. AN AFTERWORD




CHAPTER I

PAUL HARLEY OF CHANCERY LANE



Toward the hour of six on a hot summer’s evening Mr. Paul Harley was
seated in his private office in Chancery Lane reading through a number
of letters which Innes, his secretary, had placed before him for
signature. Only one more remained to be passed, but it was a long,
confidential report upon a certain matter, which Harley had prepared for
His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department.
He glanced with a sigh of weariness at the little clock upon his table
before commencing to read.

“Shall detain you only a few minutes, now, Knox,” he said.

I nodded, smiling. I was quite content to sit and watch my friend at
work.

Paul Harley occupied a unique place in the maelstrom of vice and
ambition which is sometimes called London life. Whilst at present he
held no official post, some of the most momentous problems of British
policy during the past five years, problems imperilling inter-state
relationships and not infrequently threatening a renewal of the world
war, had owed their solution to the peculiar genius of this man.

No clue to his profession appeared upon the plain brass plate attached
to his door, and little did those who regarded Paul Harley merely as a
successful private detective suspect that he was in the confidence
of some who guided the destinies of the Empire. Paul Harley’s work in
Constantinople during the feverish months preceding hostilities with
Turkey, although unknown to the general public, had been of a
most extraordinary nature. His recommendations were never adopted,
unfortunately. Otherwise, the tragedy of the Dardanelles might have been
averted.

His surroundings as he sat there, gaze bent upon the typewritten pages,
were those of any other professional man. So it would have seemed to the
casual observer. But perhaps there was a quality in the atmosphere of
the office which would have told a more sensitive visitor that it was
the apartment of no ordinary man of business. Whilst there were filing
cabinets and bookshelves laden with works of reference, many of them
legal, a large and handsome Burmese cabinet struck an unexpected note.

On closer inspection, other splashes of significant colour must have
been detected in the scheme, notably a very fine engraving of Edgar
Allan Poe, from the daguerreotype of 1848; and upon the man himself lay
the indelible mark of the tropics. His clean-cut features had that hint
of underlying bronze which tells of years spent beneath a merciless sun,
and the touch of gray at his temples only added to the eager, almost
fierce vitality of the dark face. Paul Harley was notable because of
that intellectual strength which does not strike one immediately,
since it is purely temperamental, but which, nevertheless, invests its
possessor with an aura of distinction.

Writing his name at the bottom of the report, Paul Harley enclosed the
pages in a long envelope and dropped the envelope into a basket which
contained a number of other letters. His work for the day was ended, and
glancing at me with a triumphant smile, he stood up. His office was a
part of a residential suite, but although, like some old-time burgher of
the city, he lived on the premises, the shutting of a door which led to
his private rooms marked the close of the business day. Pressing a bell
which connected with the public office occupied by his secretary, Paul
Harley stood up as Innes entered.

“There’s nothing further, is there, Innes?” he asked.

“Nothing, Mr. Harley, if you have passed the Home Office report?”

Paul Harley laughed shortly.

“There it is,” he replied, pointing to the basket; “a tedious and
thankless job, Innes. It is the fifth draft you have prepared and it
will have to do.”

He took up a letter which lay unsealed upon the table. “This is the
Rokeby affair,” he said. “I have decided to hold it over, after all,
until my return.”

“Ah!” said Innes, quietly glancing at each envelope as he took it from
the basket. “I see you have turned down the little job offered by the
Marquis.”

“I have,” replied Harley, smiling grimly, “and a fee of five hundred
guineas with it. I have also intimated to that distressed nobleman that
this is a business office and that a laundry is the proper place to take
his dirty linen. No, there’s nothing further to-night, Innes. You can
get along now. Has Miss Smith gone?”

But as if in answer to his enquiry the typist, who with Innes made up
the entire staff of the office, came in at that moment, a card in her
hand. Harley glanced across in my direction and then at the card, with a
wry expression.

“Colonel Juan Menendez,” he read aloud, “Cavendish Club,” and glanced
reflectively at Innes. “Do we know the Colonel?”

“I think not,” answered Innes; “the name is unfamiliar to me.”

“I wonder,” murmured Harley. He glanced across at me. “It’s an awful
nuisance, Knox, but just as I thought the decks were clear. Is it
something really interesting, or does he want a woman watched? However,
his name sounds piquant, so perhaps I had better see him. Ask him to
come in, Miss Smith.”

Innes and Miss Smith retiring, there presently entered a man of most
striking and unusual presence. In the first place, Colonel Menendez must
have stood fully six feet in his boots, and he carried himself like a
grandee of the golden days of Spain. His complexion was extraordinarily
dusky, whilst his hair, which was close cropped, was iron gray. His
heavy eyebrows and curling moustache with its little points were equally
black, so that his large teeth gleamed very fiercely when he smiled. His
eyes were large, dark, and brilliant, and although he wore an admirably
cut tweed suit, for some reason I pictured him as habitually wearing
riding kit. Indeed I almost seemed to hear the jingle of his spurs.

He carried an ebony cane for which I mentally substituted a crop, and
his black derby hat I thought hardly as suitable as a sombrero. His age
might have been anything between fifty and fifty-five.

Standing in the doorway he bowed, and if his smile was Mephistophelean,
there was much about Colonel Juan Menendez which commanded respect.

“Mr. Harley,” he began, and his high, thin voice afforded yet
another surprise, “I feel somewhat ill at ease to--how do you say
it?--appropriate your time, as I am by no means sure that what I have to
say justifies my doing so.”

He spoke most fluent, indeed florid, English. But his sentences at times
were oddly constructed; yet, save for a faint accent, and his frequent
interpolation of such expressions as “how do you say?”--a sort of
nervous mannerism--one might have supposed him to be a Britisher who had
lived much abroad. I formed the opinion that he had read extensively,
and this, as I learned later, was indeed the case.

“Sit down, Colonel Menendez,” said Harley with quiet geniality.
“Officially, my working day is ended, I admit, but if you have no
objection to the presence of my friend, Mr. Knox, I shall be most happy
to chat with you.”

He smiled in a way all his own.

“If your business is of a painfully professional nature,” he added,
“I must beg you to excuse me for fourteen days, as I am taking a badly
needed holiday with my friend.”

“Ah, is it so?” replied the Colonel, placing his hat and cane upon the
table, and sitting down rather wearily in a big leathern armchair which
Harley had pushed forward. “If I intrude I am sorry, but indeed my
business is urgent, and I come to you on the recommendation of my
friend, Senor Don Merry del Val, the Spanish Ambassador.”

He raised his eyes to Harley’s face with an expression of peculiar
appeal. I rose to depart, but:

“Sit down, Knox,” said Harley, and turned again to the visitor. “Please
proceed,” he requested. “Mr. Knox has been with me in some of the most
delicate cases which I have ever handled, and you may rely upon his
discretion as you may rely upon mine.” He pushed forward a box of
cigars. “Will you smoke?”

“Thanks, no,” was the answer; “you see, I rarely smoke anything but my
cigarettes.”

Colonel Menendez extracted a slip of rice paper from a little packet
which he carried, next, dipping two long, yellow fingers into his coat
pocket, he brought out a portion of tobacco, laid it in the paper, and
almost in the twinkling of an eye had made, rolled, and lighted a very
creditable cigarette. His dexterity was astonishing, and seeing my
surprise he raised his heavy eyebrows, and:

“Practice makes perfect, is it not said?” he remarked.

He shrugged his shoulders and dropped the extinguished match in an ash
tray, whilst I studied him with increasing interest. Some dread, real or
imaginary, was oppressing the man’s mind, I mused. I felt my presence to
be unwelcome, but:

“Very well,” he began, suddenly. “I expect, Mr. Harley, that you will be
disposed to regard what I have to tell you rather as a symptom of what
you call nerves than as evidence of any agency directed against me.”

Paul Harley stared curiously at the speaker. “Do I understand you to
suspect that someone is desirous of harming you?” he enquired.

Colonel Menendez slowly nodded his head.

“Such is my meaning,” he replied.

“You refer to bodily harm?”

“But yes, emphatically.”

“Hm,” said Harley; and taking out a tin of tobacco from a cabinet beside
him he began in leisurely manner to load a briar. “No doubt you have
good reasons for this suspicion?”

“If I had not good reasons, Mr. Harley, nothing could have induced me to
trouble you. Yet, even now that I have compelled myself to come here, I
find it difficult, almost impossible, to explain those reasons to you.”

An expression of embarrassment appeared upon the brown face, and now
Colonel Menendez paused and was plainly at a loss for words with which
to continue.

Harley replaced the tin in the cupboard and struck a match. Lighting his
pipe he nodded good humouredly as if to say, “I quite understand.” As a
matter of fact, he probably thought, as I did, that this was a familiar
case of a man of possibly blameless life who had become subject to
that delusion which leads people to believe themselves threatened by
mysterious and unnameable danger.

Our visitor inhaled deeply.

“You, of course, are waiting for the facts,” he presently resumed,
speaking with a slowness which told of a mind labouring for the right
mode of expression. “These are so scanty, I fear, of so, shall I say,
phantom a kind, that even when they are in your possession you will
consider me to be merely the victim of a delusion. In the first place,
then, I have reason to believe that someone followed me from my home to
your office.”

“Indeed,” said Paul Harley, sympathetically, for this I perceived
was exactly what he had anticipated, and merely tended to confirm his
suspicion. “Some member of your household?”

“Certainly not.”

“Did you actually see this follower?”

“My dear sir,” cried Colonel Menendez, excitement emphasizing his
accent, “if I had seen him, so much would have been made clear, so
much! I have never seen him, but I have heard him and felt him--felt his
presence, I mean.”

“In what way?” asked Harley, leaning back in his chair and studying the
fierce face.

“On several occasions on turning out the light in my bedroom and
looking across the lawn from my window I have observed the shadow of
someone--how do you say?--lurking in the garden.”

“The shadow?”

“Precisely. The person himself was concealed beneath a tree. When he
moved his shadow was visible on the ground.”

“You were not deceived by a waving branch?”

“Certainly not. I speak of a still, moonlight night.”

“Possibly, then, it was the shadow of a tramp,” suggested Harley. “I
gather that you refer to a house in the country?”

“It was not,” declared Colonel Menendez, emphatically; “it was not. I
wish to God I could believe it had been. Then there was, a month ago, an
attempt to enter my house.”

Paul Harley exhibited evidence of a quickening curiosity. He had
perceived, as I had perceived, that the manner of the speaker differed
from that of the ordinary victim of delusion, with whom he had become
professionally familiar.

“You had actual evidence of this?” he suggested.

“It was due to insomnia, sleeplessness, brought about, yes, I will admit
it, by apprehension, that I heard the footsteps of this intruder.”

“But you did not see him?”

“Only his shadow”

“What!”

“You can obtain the evidence of all my household that someone had
actually entered,” declared Colonel Menendez, eagerly. “Of this, at
least, I can give you the certain facts. Whoever it was had obtained
access through a kitchen window, had forced two locks, and was coming
stealthily along the hallway when the sound of his footsteps attracted
my attention.”

“What did you do?”

“I came out on to the landing and looked down the stairs. But even the
slight sound which I made had been sufficient to alarm the midnight
visitor, for I had never a glimpse of him. Only, as he went swiftly
back in the direction from which he had come, the moonlight shining in
through a window in the hall cast his shadow on the carpet.”

“Strange,” murmured Harley. “Very strange, indeed. The shadow told you
nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

Colonel Menendez hesitated momentarily, and glanced swiftly across at
Harley.

“It was just a vague--do you say blur?--and then it was gone. But--”

“Yes,” said Harley. “But?”

“Ah,” Colonel Menendez blew a cloud of smoke into the air, “I come now
to the matter which I find so hard to explain.”

He inhaled again deeply and was silent for a while.

“Nothing was stolen?” asked Harley.

“Nothing whatever.”

“And no clue was left behind?”

“No clue except the filed fastening of a window and two open doors which
had been locked as usual when the household retired.”

“Hm,” mused Harley again; “this incident, of course, may have been an
isolated one and in no way connected with the surveillance of which you
complain. I mean that this person who undoubtedly entered your house
might prove to be an ordinary burglar.”

“On a table in the hallway of Cray’s Folly,” replied Colonel Menendez,
impressively--“so my house is named--stands a case containing
presentation gold plate. The moonlight of which I have spoken was
shining fully upon this case, and does the burglar live who will pass
such a prize and leave it untouched?”

“I quite agree,” said Harley, quietly, “that this is a very big point.”

“You are beginning at last,” suggested the Colonel, “to believe that my
suspicions are not quite groundless?”

“There is a distinct possibility that they are more than suspicions,”
 agreed Harley; “but may I suggest that there is something else? Have you
an enemy?”

“Who that has ever held public office is without enemies?”

“Ah, quite so. Then I suggest again that there is something else.”

He gazed keenly at his visitor, and the latter, whilst meeting the look
unflinchingly with his large dark eyes, was unable to conceal the fact
that he had received a home thrust.

“There are two points, Mr. Harley,” he finally confessed, “almost
certainly associated one with the other, if you understand, but both
these so--shall I say remote?--from my life, that I hesitate to mention
them. It seems fantastic to suppose that they contain a clue.”

“I beg of you,” said Harley, “to keep nothing back, however remote it
may appear to be. It is sometimes the seemingly remote things which
prove upon investigation to be the most intimate.”

“Very well,” resumed Colonel Menendez, beginning to roll a second
cigarette whilst continuing to smoke the first, “I know that you are
right, of course, but it is nevertheless very difficult for me to
explain. I mentioned the attempted burglary, if so I may term it, in
order to clear your mind of the idea that my fears were a myth. The next
point which I have concerns a man, a neighbour of mine in Surrey. Before
I proceed I should like to make it clear that I do not believe for a
moment that he is responsible for this unpleasant business.”

Harley stared at him curiously. “Nevertheless,” he said, “there must be
some data in your possession which suggest to your mind that he has some
connection with it.”

“There are, Mr. Harley, but they belong to things so mystic and far
away from ordinary crime that I fear you will think me,” he shrugged
his great shoulders, “a man haunted by strange superstitions. Do you say
‘haunted?’ Good. You understand. I should tell you, then, that although
of pure Spanish blood, I was born in Cuba. The greater part of my
life has been spent in the West Indies, where prior to ‘98 I held an
appointment under the Spanish Government. I have property, not only in
Cuba, but in some of the smaller islands which formerly were Spanish,
and I shall not conceal from you that during the latter years of my
administration I incurred the enmity of a section of the population. Do
I make myself clear?”

Paul Harley nodded and exchanged a swift glance with me. I formed a
rapid mental picture of native life under the governorship of Colonel
Juan Menendez and I began to consider his story from a new viewpoint.
Seemingly rendered restless by his reflections, he stood up and began
to pace the floor, a tall but curiously graceful figure. I noticed the
bulldog tenacity of his chin, the intense pride in his bearing, and I
wondered what kind of menace had induced him to seek the aid of Paul
Harley; for whatever his failings might be, and I could guess at the
nature of several of them, that this thin-lipped Spanish soldier knew
the meaning of fear I was not prepared to believe.

“Before you proceed further, Colonel Menendez,” said Harley, “might I
ask when you left Cuba?”

“Some three years ago,” was his reply. “Because--” he hesitated
curiously--“of health motives, I leased a property in England, believing
that here I should find peace.”

“In other words, you were afraid of something or someone in Cuba?”

Colonel Menendez turned in a flash, glaring down at the speaker.

“I never feared any man in my life, Mr. Harley,” he said, coldly.

“Then why are you here?”

The Colonel placed the stump of his first cigarette in an ash tray and
lighted that which he had newly made.

“It is true,” he admitted. “Forgive me. Yet what I said was that I never
feared any man.”

He stood squarely in front of the Burmese cabinet, resting one hand upon
his hip. Then he added a remark which surprised me.

“Do you know anything of Voodoo?” he asked.

Paul Harley took his pipe from between his teeth and stared at the
speaker silently for a moment. “Voodoo?” he echoed. “You mean negro
magic?”

“Exactly.”

“My studies have certainly not embraced it,” replied Harley, quietly,
“nor has it hitherto come within my experience. But since I have lived
much in the East, I am prepared to learn that Voodoo may not be a
negligible quantity. There are forces at work in India which we in
England improperly understand. The same may be true of Cuba.”

“The same _is_ true of Cuba.”

Colonel Menendez glared almost fiercely across the room at Paul Harley.

“And do I understand,” asked the latter, “that the danger which you
believe to threaten you is associated with Cuba?”

“That, Mr. Harley, is for you to decide when all the facts shall be in
your possession. Do you wish that I proceed?”

“By all means. I must confess that I am intensely interested.”

“Very well, Mr. Harley. I have something to show you.”

From an inside breast pocket Colonel Menendez drew out a gold-mounted
case, and from the case took some flat, irregularly shaped object
wrapped in a piece of tissue paper. Unfolding the paper, he strode
across and laid the object which it had contained upon the blotting pad
in front of my friend.

Impelled by curiosity I stood up and advanced to inspect it. It was of
a dirty brown colour, some five or six inches long, and appeared to
consist of a kind of membrane. Harley, his elbow on the table, was
staring down at it questioningly.

“What is it?” I said; “some kind of leaf?”

“No,” replied Harley, looking up into the dark face of the Spanish
colonel; “I think I know what it is.”

“I, also, know what it is.” declared Colonel Menendez, grimly. “But tell
me what to you it seems like, Mr. Harley?”

Paul Harley’s expression was compounded of incredulity, wonder, and
something else, as, continuing to stare at the speaker, he replied:

“It is the wing of a bat.”




CHAPTER II

THE VOODOO SWAMP



Often enough my memory has recaptured that moment in Paul Harley’s
office, when Harley, myself, and the tall Spaniard stood looking down at
the bat wing lying upon the blotting pad.

My brilliant friend at times displayed a sort of prescience, of which
I may have occasion to speak later, but I, together with the rest of
pur-blind humanity, am commonly immune from the prophetic instinct.
Therefore I chronicle the fact for what it may be worth, that as I gazed
with a sort of disgust at the exhibit lying upon the table I became
possessed of a conviction, which had no logical basis, that a door had
been opened through which I should step into a new avenue of being; I
felt myself to stand upon the threshold of things strange and terrible,
but withal alluring. Perhaps it is true that in the great crises of life
the inner eye becomes momentarily opened.

With intense curiosity I awaited the Colonel’s next words, but, a
cigarette held nervously between his fingers, he stood staring at
Harley, and it was the latter who broke that peculiar silence which had
fallen upon us.

“The wing of a bat,” he murmured, then touched it gingerly. “Of what
kind of bat, Colonel Menendez? Surely not a British species?”

“But emphatically not a British species,” replied the Spaniard. “Yet
even so the matter would be strange.”

“I am all anxiety to learn the remainder of your story, Colonel
Menendez.”

“Good. Your interest comforts me very greatly, Mr. Harley. But when
first I came, you led me to suppose that you were departing from
London?”

“Such, at the time, was my intention, sir.” Paul Harley smiled slightly.
“Accompanied by my friend, Mr. Knox, I had proposed to indulge in a
fortnight’s fishing upon the Norfolk Broads.”

“Fishing?”

“Yes.”

“A peaceful occupation, Mr. Harley, and a great rest-cure for one who
like yourself moves much amid the fiercer passions of life. You were
about to make holiday?”

Paul Harley nodded.

“It is cruel of me to intrude upon such plans,” continued Colonel
Menendez, dexterously rolling his cigarette around between his fingers.
“Yet because of my urgent need I dare to do so. Would yourself and your
friend honour me with your company at Cray’s Folly for a few days? I
can promise you good entertainment, although I regret that there is no
fishing; but it may chance that there will be other and more exciting
sport.”

Harley glanced at me significantly.

“Do I understand you to mean, Colonel Menendez,” he asked, “that you
have reason to believe that this conspiracy directed against you is
about to come to a head?”

Colonel Menendez nodded, at the same time bringing his hand down sharply
upon the table.

“Mr. Harley,” he replied, his high, thin voice sunken almost to a
whisper, “Wednesday night is the night of the full moon.”

“The full moon?”

“It is at the full moon that the danger comes.”

Paul Harley stood up, and watched by the Spanish colonel paced slowly
across the office. At the outer door he paused and turned.

“Colonel Menendez,” he said, “that you would willingly waste the time of
a busy man I do not for a moment believe, therefore I shall ask you as
briefly as possible to state your case in detail. When I have heard it,
if it appears to me that any good purpose can be served by my friend
and myself coming to Cray’s Folly I feel sure that he will be happy to
accept your proffered hospitality.”

“If I am likely to be of the slightest use I shall be delighted,” said
I, which indeed was perfectly true.

Whilst I had willingly agreed to accompany Harley to Norfolk I had
none of his passion for the piscatorial art, and the promise of novel
excitement held out by Colonel Menendez appealed to me more keenly than
the lazy days upon the roads which Harley loved.

“Gentlemen”--the Colonel bowed profoundly--“I am honoured and delighted.
When you shall have heard my story I know what your decision will be.”

He resumed his seat, and began, it seemed almost automatically, to roll
a fresh cigarette.

“I am all attention,” declared Harley, and his glance strayed again in a
wondering fashion to the bat wing lying on his table.

“I will speak briefly,” resumed our visitor, “and any details which
may seem to you to be important can be discussed later when you are
my guests. You must know then that I first became acquainted with the
significance belonging to the term ‘Bat Wing’ and to the object itself
some twenty years ago.”

“But surely,” interrupted Harley, incredulously, “you are not going
to tell me that the menace of which you complain is of twenty years’
standing?”

“At your express request, Mr. Harley,” returned the Colonel a trifle
brusquely, “I am dealing with possibilities which are remote, because
in your own words it is sometimes the remote which proves to be the
intimate. It was then rather more than twenty years ago, at a time when
great political changes were taking place in the West Indies, that my
business interests, which are mainly concerned with sugar, carried me
to one of the smaller islands which had formerly been under--my
jurisdiction, do you say? Here I had a house and estate, and here in the
past I had experienced much trouble with the natives.

“I do not disguise from you that I was unpopular, and on my return I
met with unmistakable signs of hostility. My native workmen were
insubordinate. In fact, it was the reports from my overseers which had
led me to visit the island. I made a tour of the place, believing it to
be necessary to my interests that I should get once more in touch
with negro feeling, since I had returned to my home in Cuba after the
upheavals in ‘98. Very well.

“The manager of my estate, a capable man, was of opinion that
there existed a secret organization amongst the native labourers
operating--you understand?--against my interests. He produced certain
evidences of this. They were not convincing; and all my enquiries and
examinations of certain inhabitants led to no definite results. Yet I
grew more and more to feel that enemies surrounded me.”

He paused to light his third cigarette, and whilst he did so I conjured
up a mental picture of his “examinations of certain inhabitants.” I
recalled hazily those stories of Spanish mismanagement and cruelty which
had directly led to United States interferences in the islands. But
whilst I could well believe that this man’s life had not been safe in
those bad old days in the West Indies, I found it difficult to suppose
that a native plot against his safety could have survived for more than
twenty years and have come to a climax in England. However, I realized
that there was more to follow, and presently, having lighted his
cigarette, the Colonel resumed:

“In the neighbourhood of the hacienda which had once been my official
residence there was a belt of low-lying pest country--you understand
pest country?--which was a hot-bed of poisonous diseases. It followed
the winding course of a nearly stagnant creek. From the earliest
times the Black Belt--it was so called--had been avoided by European
inhabitants, and indeed by the coloured population as well. Apart from
the malaria of the swampy ground it was infested with reptiles and with
poisonous insects of a greater variety and of a more venomous character
than I have ever known in any part of the world.

“I must explain that what I regarded as a weak point in my manager’s
theory was this: Whilst he held that the native labourers to a man were
linked together under some head, or guiding influence, he had never
succeeded in surprising anything in the nature of a negro meeting.
Indeed, he had prohibited all gatherings of this kind. His answer to
my criticism was a curious one. He declared that the members of this
mysterious society met and received their instructions at some place
within the poison area to which I have referred, believing themselves
there to be safe from European interference.

“For a long time I disputed this with poor Valera--for such was my
manager’s name; when one night as I was dismounting from my horse before
the veranda, having returned from a long ride around the estate, a shot
was fired from the border of the Black Belt which at one point crept up
dangerously close to the hacienda.

“The shot was a good one. I had caught my spur in the stirrup in
dismounting, and stumbled. Otherwise I must have been a dead man. The
bullet pierced the crown of my hat, only missing my skull by an inch or
less. The alarm was given. But no search-party could be mustered, do you
say?--which was prepared to explore the poison swamp--or so declared
my native servants. Valera, however, seized upon this incident to
illustrate his theory that there were those in the island who did not
hesitate to enter the Black Belt popularly supposed to cast up noxious
vapours at dusk of a sort fatal to any traveller.

“That night over our wine we discussed the situation, and he pointed
out to me that now was the hour to test his theory. Orders had evidently
been given for my assassination and the attempt had failed.

“‘There will be a meeting,’ said Valera, ‘to discuss the next move. And
it will take place to-morrow night!’

“I challenged him with a glance and I replied:

“‘To-morrow night is a full moon, and if you are agreeable we will make
a secret expedition into the swamp, and endeavour to find the clearing
which you say is there, and which you believe to be the rendezvous of
the conspirators.’

“Even in the light of the lamp I saw Valera turn pale, but he was a
Spaniard and a man of courage.

“‘I agree, señor,’ he replied. ‘If my information is correct we shall
find the way.’

“I must explain that the information to which he referred had been
supplied by a native girl who loved him. That this clearing was a
meeting-place she had denied. But she had admitted that it was possible
to obtain access to it, and had even described the path.” He paused.
“She died of a lingering sickness.”

Colonel Menendez spoke these last words with great deliberation and
treated each of us to a long and significant stare.

“Presently,” he added, “I will tell you what was nailed to the wall of
her hut on the night that she fell ill. But to continue my narrative.
On the following evening, suitably equipped, Valera and myself set out,
leaving by a side door and striking into the woods at a point east of
the hacienda, where, according to his information, a footpath existed,
which would lead us to the clearing we desired to visit. Of that
journey, gentlemen, I have most terrible memories.

“Imagine a dense and poisonous jungle, carpeted by rotten vegetation
in which one’s feet sank deeply and from which arose a visible and
stenching vapour. Imagine living things, slimy things, moving beneath
the tread, sometimes coiling about our riding boots, sometimes making
hissing sounds. Imagine places where the path was overgrown, and we must
thrust our way through bushes where great bloated spiders weaved
their webs, where clammy night things touched us as we passed, where
unfamiliar and venomous insects clung to our garments.

“We proceeded onward for more than half an hour guided by the moonlight,
but this, although tropically brilliant, at some places scarcely
penetrated the thick vapour which arose from the jungle. In those days I
was a young and vigorous man; my companion was several years my senior;
and his sufferings were far greater than my own. But if the jungle was
horrible, worse was yet to come.

“Presently we stumbled upon an open space almost quite bare of
vegetation, a poisonous green carpet spread in the heart of the woods.
Here the vapour was more dense than ever, but I welcomed the sight of
open ground after the reptile-infested thicket. Alas! it was a snare, a
death-trap, a sort of morass, in which we sank up to our knees. Pah!
it was filthy--vile! And I became aware of great--lassitude, do you
say?--whilst Valera’s panting breath told that he had almost reached the
end of his resources.

“A faint breeze moved through the clearing and for a few moments we
were enabled to perceive one another more distinctly. I uttered an
exclamation of horror.

“My companion’s garments were a mass of strange-looking patches.

“Even as I noticed them I glanced rapidly down--and found myself in
similar condition. As I did so one of these patches upon the sleeve of
my tunic intruded coldly upon my bare wrist. At that I cried out aloud
in fear. Valera and I commenced what was literally a fight for life.

“Gentlemen, we were attacked by some kind of blood-red leeches, which
came out of the slime! In detaching them one detached patches of skin,
and they swarmed over our bodies like ants upon carrion.

“They penetrated beneath our garments, these swollen, lustful, unclean
things; and it was whilst we staggered on through the swamp in agony of
mind and body that we saw the light of many torches amid the trees ahead
of us, and in their smoky glare witnessed the flight of hundreds
of bats. The moonlight creeping dimly through the mist, and the
torchlight--how do you say?--enflaming the vegetation, created a scene
like that of Inferno, in which naked figures danced wildly, uttering
animal cries.

“Above the shrieking and howling, which rose and fell in a sort of
unholy chorus, I heard one long, wailing sound, repeated and repeated.
It was an African word. But I knew its meaning.

“It was ‘_Bat Wing_!’

“My doubts were dispersed. This was a meeting-place of
Devil-worshippers, or devotees of the cult of Voodoo! One man only could
I see clearly so as to remember him, a big negro employed upon one of
my estates. He seemed to be a sort of high priest or president of the
orgies. Attached to his arms were giant imitations of bat wings which he
moved grotesquely as if in flight. There were many women in the throng,
which numbered fully I should think a hundred people. But the final
collapse of my brave, unhappy Valera at this point brought home to me
the nature of the peril in which I stood.

“He lay at my feet, moving convulsively, and sinking ever deeper in
the swamp, red leeches moving slowly, slowly over his fast-disappearing
body.”

Colonel Menendez paused in his appalling narrative and wiped his moist
forehead with a silk handkerchief. Neither Harley nor I spoke. I knew
not if my friend believed the Spaniard’s story. For my own part I found
it difficult to do so. But that the narrator was deeply moved was a fact
beyond dispute.

He suddenly commenced again:

“My next recollection is of awakening in my own bed at the hacienda. I
had staggered back as far as the veranda, in raving delirium, and in the
grip of a strange fever which prostrated me for many months, and which
defied the knowledge of all the specialists who could be procured from
Cuba and the United States. My survival was due to an iron constitution;
but I have never been the same man. I was ordered to leave the West
Indies directly it became possible for me to be moved. I arranged my
affairs accordingly, and did not return for many years.

“Finally, however, I again took up my residence in Cuba, and for a time
all went well, and might have continued to do so, but for the following
incident. One night, being troubled by insomnia--sleeplessness--and the
heat, I walked out on to the balcony in front of my bedroom window. As
I did so, a figure which had been--you say lurking?--somewhere under the
veranda ran swiftly off; but not so swiftly that I failed to obtain a
glimpse of the uplifted face.

“It was the big negro! Although many years had elapsed since I had seen
him wearing the bat wings at those unholy rites, I knew him instantly.

“On a little table close behind me where I stood lay a loaded revolver.
I snatched it in a flash and fired shot after shot at the retreating
figure.”

Colonel Menendez shrugged his shoulders and selected a fresh cigarette
paper.

“Gentlemen,” he continued, “from that moment until this I have gone
in hourly peril of my life. Whether I hit my man or missed him, I have
never known to this day. If he lives or is dead I cannot say. But--” he
paused impressively--“I have told you of something that was nailed to
the hut of a certain native girl? Before she died I knew that it was a
death-token.

“On the morning after the episode which I have just related attached to
the main door of the hacienda was found that same token.”

“And it was??” said Harley, eagerly.

“It was the wing of a bat!

“I am perhaps a hasty man. It is in my blood. I tore the unclean thing
from the panel and stamped it under my feet. No one of the servants
who had drawn my attention to its presence would consent to touch
it. Indeed, they all shrank from me as though I, too, were unclean. I
endeavoured to forget it. Who was I to be influenced by the threats of
natives?

“That night, just at the hour of sunset, a shot was fired at me from a
neighbouring clump of trees, only missing me I think by the fraction of
an inch. I realized that the peril was real, and was one against which I
could not fight.

“Permit me to be brief, gentlemen. Six attempts of various kinds
were made upon my life in Cuba. I crossed to the United States. In
Washington, the political capital of the country, an assassin gained
access to my hotel apartment and but for the fact that a friend chanced
to call me up on the telephone at that late hour of the night, thereby
awakening me, I should have received a knife in my heart. I saw the
knife in the dim light; I saw the shadowy figure. I leapt out on the
opposite side of the bed, seized a table-lamp which stood there, and
hurled it at my assailant.

“There was a crash, a stifled exclamation, shuffling, the door opened,
and my would-be assassin was gone. But I had learned something, and to
my old fears a new one was added.”

“What had you learned?” asked Harley, whose interest in the narrative
was displayed by the fact that his pipe had long since gone out.

“Vaguely, vaguely, you understand, for there was little light, I had
seen the face of the man. He wore some kind of black cloak doubtless
to conceal his movements. His silhouette resembled that of a bat. But,
gentlemen, he was neither a negro nor even a half-caste; he was of the
white races, to that I could swear.”

Colonel Menendez lighted the cigarette which he had been busily rolling,
and fixed his dark eyes upon Harley.

“You puzzle me, sir,” said the latter. “Do you wish me to believe that
this cult of Voodoo claims European or American devotees?”

“I wish you to believe,” returned the Colonel, “that although as
the result of the alarm which I gave the hotel was searched and the
Washington police exerted themselves to the utmost, no trace was ever
found of the man who had tried to murder me, except”--he extended a
long, yellow forefinger, and pointed to the wing of the bat lying upon
Harley’s table--“a bat wing was found pinned to my bedroom door.”

Silence fell for a while; an impressive silence. Truly this was the
strangest story to which I had ever listened.

“How long ago was that?” asked Harley.

“Only two years ago. At about the time that the great war terminated. I
came to Europe and believed that at last I had found security. I lived
for a time in London amidst a refreshing peace that was new to me. Then,
chancing to hear of a property in Surrey which was available, I leased
it for a period of years, installing--is it correct?--my cousin, Madame
de Stämer, as housekeeper. Madame, alas, is an invalid, but”--he kissed
his fingers--“a genius. She has with her, as companion, a very
charming English girl, Miss Val Beverley, the orphaned daughter of a
distinguished surgeon of Edinburg. Miss Beverley was with my cousin in
the hospital which she established in France during the war. If you will
honour me with your presence at Cray’s Folly to-morrow, gentlemen, you
will not lack congenial company, I can assure you.”

He raised his heavy eyebrows, looking interrogatively from Harley to
myself.

“For my own part,” said my friend, slowly, “I shall be delighted. What
do you say, Knox?”

“I also.”

“But,” continued Harley, “your presence here today, Colonel Menendez,
suggests to my mind that England has not proved so safe a haven as you
had anticipated?”

Colonel Menendez crossed the room and stood once more before the Burmese
cabinet, one hand resting upon his hip; a massive yet graceful figure.

“Mr. Harley,” he replied, “four days ago my butler, who is a Spaniard,
brought me--” He pointed to the bat wing lying upon the blotting pad.
“He had found it pinned to an oaken panel of the main entrance door.”

“Was it prior to this discovery, or after it,” asked Harley, “that you
detected the presence of someone lurking in the neighbourhood of the
house?”

“Before it.”

“And the burglarious entrance?”

“That took place rather less than a month ago. On the eve of the full
moon.”

Paul Harley stood up and relighted his pipe.

“There are quite a number of other details, Colonel,” he said, “which I
shall require you to place in my possession. Since I have determined
to visit Cray’s Folly, these can wait until my arrival. I particularly
refer to a remark concerning a neighbour of yours in Surrey.”

Colonel Menendez nodded, twirling his cigarette between his long, yellow
fingers.

“It is a delicate matter, gentlemen,” he confessed.

“I must take time to consider how I shall place it before you. But I may
count upon your arrival tomorrow?”

“Certainly. I am looking forward to the visit with keen interest.”

“It is important,” declared our visitor; “for on Wednesday is the full
moon, and the full moon is in some way associated with the sacrificial
rites of Voodoo.”




CHAPTER III

THE VAMPIRE BAT



An hour had elapsed since the departure of our visitor, and Paul Harley
and I sat in the cosy, book-lined study discussing the strange story
which had been related to us. Harley, who had a friend attached to
the Spanish Embassy, had succeeded in getting in touch with him at his
chambers, and had obtained some few particulars of interest concerning
Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez, for such were the full names and
titles of our late caller.

He was apparently the last representative of a once great Spanish
family, established for many generations in Cuba. His wealth was
incalculable, although the value of his numerous estates had depreciated
in recent years. His family had produced many men of subtle intellect
and powerful administrative qualities; but allied to this they had all
possessed traits of cruelty and debauchery which at one time had made
the name of Menendez a by-word in the West Indies. That there were many
people in that part of the world who would gladly have assassinated
the Colonel, Paul Harley’s informant did not deny. But although this
information somewhat enlarged our knowledge of my friend’s newest
client, it threw no fresh light upon that side of his story which
related to Voodoo and the extraordinary bat wing episodes.

“Of course,” said Harley, after a long silence, “there is one
possibility of which we must not lose sight.”

“What possibility is that?” I asked.

“That Menendez may be mad. Remorse for crimes of cruelty committed in
his youth, and beyond doubt he has been guilty of many, may have led to
a sort of obsession. I have known such cases.”

“That was my first impression,” I confessed, “but it faded somewhat as
the Colonel’s story proceeded. I don’t think any such explanation would
cover the facts.”

“Neither do I,” agreed my friend; “but it is distinctly possible that
such an obsession exists, and that someone is deliberately playing upon
it for his own ends.”

“You mean that someone who knows of these episodes in the earlier life
of Menendez is employing them now for a secret purpose of his own?”

“Exactly.”

“It renders the case none the less interesting.”

“I quite agree, Knox. With you, I believe, that even if the Colonel is
not quite sane, at the same time his fears are by no means imaginary.”

He gingerly took up the bat wing from the arm of his chair where he had
placed it after a detailed examination.

“It seems to be pretty certain,” he said, “that this thing is the wing
of a Desmodus or Vampire Bat. Now, according to our authority”--he
touched a work which lay open on the other arm of his chair--“these are
natives of tropical America, therefore the presence of a living vampire
bat in Surrey is not to be anticipated. I am personally satisfied,
however, that this unpleasant fragment has been preserved in some way.”

“You mean that it is part of a specimen from someone’s collection?”

“Quite possibly. But even a collection of such bats would be quite a
novelty. I don’t know that I can recollect one outside the Museums. To
follow this bat wing business further: there was one very curious point
in the Colonel’s narrative. You recollect his reference to a native girl
who had betrayed certain information to the manager of the estate?”

I nodded rapidly.

“A bat wing was affixed to the wall of her hut and she died, according
to our informant, of a lingering sickness. Now this lingering sickness
might have been anæmia, and anæmia may be induced, either in man or
beast, by frequent but unsuspected visits of a Vampire Bat.”

“Good heavens, Harley!” I exclaimed, “what a horrible idea.”

“It _is_ a horrible idea, but in countries infested by these creatures
such things happen occasionally. I distinctly recollect a story which
I once heard, of a little girl in some district of tropical America
falling into such a decline, from which she was only rescued in the nick
of time by the discovery that one of these Vampire Bats, a particularly
large one, had formed the habit of flying into her room at night and
attaching itself to her bare arm which lay outside the coverlet.”

“How did it penetrate the mosquito curtains?” I enquired, incredulously.

“The very point, Knox, which led to the discovery of the truth. The
thing, exhibiting a sort of uncanny intelligence, used to work its way
up under the edge of the netting. This disturbance of the curtains was
noticed on several occasions by the nurse who occupied an adjoining
room, and finally led to the detection of the bat!”

“But surely,” I said, “such a visitation would awaken any sleeper?”

“On the contrary, it induces deeper sleep. But I have not yet come to my
point, Knox. The vengeance of the High Priest of Voodoo, who figured in
the Colonel’s narrative, was characteristic in the case of the native
woman, since her symptoms at least simulated those which would result
from the visits of a Vampire Bat, although of course they may have been
due to a slow poison. But you will not have failed to note that the
several attacks upon the Colonel personally were made with more ordinary
weapons. On two occasions at least a rifle was employed.”

“Yes,” I replied, slowly. “You are wondering why the lingering sickness
did not visit him?”

“I am, Knox. I can only suppose that he proved to be immune. You recall
his statement that he made an almost miraculous recovery from the fever
which attacked him after his visit to the Black Belt? This would seem to
point to the fact that he possesses that rare type of constitution which
almost defies organisms deadly to ordinary men.”

“I see. Hence the dagger and the rifle?”

“So it would appear.”

“But, Harley,” I cried, “what appalling crime can the man have committed
to call down upon his head a vengeance which has survived for so many
years?”

Paul Harley shrugged his shoulders in a whimsical imitation of the
Spaniard.

“I doubt if the feud dates any earlier,” he replied, “than the time of
Menendez’s last return to Cuba. On that occasion he evidently killed the
High Priest of Voodoo.”

I uttered an exclamation of scorn.

“My dear Harley,” I said, “the whole thing is too utterly fantastic. I
begin to believe again that we are dealing with a madman.”

Harley glanced down at the wing of the bat.

“We shall see,” he murmured. “Even if the only result of our visit is to
make the acquaintance of the Colonel’s household our time will not have
been wasted.”

“No,” said I, “that is true enough. I am looking forward to meeting
Madame de Stämer--”

“The Colonel’s invalid cousin,” added Harley, tonelessly.

“And her companion, Miss Beverley.”

“Quite so. Nor must we forget the Spanish butler, and the Colonel
himself, whose acquaintance I am extremely anxious to renew.”

“The whole thing is wildly bizarre, Harley.”

“My dear Knox,” he replied, stretching himself luxuriously in the long
lounge chair, “the most commonplace life hovers on the edge of the
bizarre. But those of us who overstep the border become preposterous
in the eyes of those who have never done so. This is not because the
unusual is necessarily the untrue, but because writers of fiction have
claimed the unusual as their particular province, and in doing so have
divorced it from fact in the public eye. Thus I, myself, am a myth, and
so are you, Knox!”

He raised his hand and pointed to the doorway communicating with the
office.

“We owe our mythological existence to that American genius whose
portrait hangs beside the Burmese cabinet and who indiscreetly
created the character of C. Auguste Dupin. The doings of this amateur
investigator were chronicled by an admirer, you may remember, since
when no private detective has been allowed to exist outside the pages of
fiction. My most trivial habits confirm my unreality.

“For instance, I have a friend who is good enough sometimes to record
my movements. So had Dupin. I smoke a pipe. So did Dupin. I investigate
crime, and I am sometimes successful. Here I differ from Dupin. Dupin
was always successful. But my argument is this--you complain that the
life of Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez, on his own showing,
has been at least as romantic as his name. It would not be accounted
romantic by the adventurous, Knox; it is only romantic to the prosaic
mind. In the same way his name is only unusual to our English ears. In
Spain it would pass unnoticed.”

“I see your point,” I said, grudgingly; “but think of I Voodoo in the
Surrey Hills.”

“I am thinking of it, Knox, and it affords me much delight to think of
it. You have placed your finger I upon the very point I was endeavouring
to make. Voodoo in the Surrey Hills! Quite so. Voodoo in some island
of the Caribbean Seas, yes, but Voodoo in the Surrey Hills, no. Yet, my
dear fellow, there is a regular steamer service between South America
and England. Or one may embark at Liverpool and disembark in the Spanish
Main. Why, then, may not one embark in the West Indies and disembark
at Liverpool? This granted, you will also grant that from Liverpool to
Surrey is a feasible journey. Why, then, should you exclaim, ‘but Voodoo
in the Surrey Hills!’ You would be surprised to meet an Esquimaux in
the Strand, but there is no reason why an Esquimaux should not visit the
Strand. In short, the most annoying thing about fact is its resemblance
to fiction. I am looking forward to the day, Knox, when I can retire
from my present fictitious profession and become a recognized member
of the community; such as a press agent, a theatrical manager, or some
other dealer in Fact!”

He burst out laughing, and reaching over to a side-table refilled my
glass and his own.

“There lies the wing of a Vampire Bat,” he said, pointing, “in Chancery
Lane. It is impossible. Yet,” he raised his glass, “‘Pussyfoot’ Johnson
has visited Scotland, the home of Whisky!”

We were silent for a while, whilst I considered his remarks.

“The conclusion to which I have come,” declared Harley, “is that nothing
is so strange as the commonplace. A rod and line, a boat, a luncheon
hamper, a jar of good ale, and the peculiar peace of a Norfolk
river--these joys I willingly curtail in favour of the unknown things
which await us at Cray’s Folly. Remember, Knox,” he stared at me
queerly, “Wednesday is the night of the full moon.”




CHAPTER IV

CRAY’S FOLLY



Paul Harley lay back upon the cushions and glanced at me with a
quizzical smile. The big, up-to-date car which Colonel Menendez had
placed at our disposal was surmounting a steep Surrey lane as though no
gradient had existed.

“Some engine!” he said, approvingly.

I nodded in agreement, but felt disinclined for conversation, being
absorbed in watching the characteristically English scenery. This,
indeed, was very beautiful. The lane along which we were speeding was
narrow, winding, and over-arched by trees. Here and there sunlight
penetrated to spread a golden carpet before us, but for the most part
the way lay in cool and grateful shadow.

On one side a wooded slope hemmed us in blackly, on the other lay dell
after dell down into the cradle of the valley. It was a poetic corner of
England, and I thought it almost unbelievable that London was only some
twenty miles behind. A fit place this for elves and fairies to
survive, a spot in which the presence of a modern automobile seemed a
desecration. Higher we mounted and higher, the engine running strongly
and smoothly; then, presently, we were out upon a narrow open road with
the crescent of the hills sweeping away on the right and dense woods
dipping valleyward to the left and behind us.

The chauffeur turned, and, meeting my glance:

“Cray’s Folly, sir,” he said.

He jerked his hand in the direction of a square, gray-stone tower
somewhat resembling a campanile, which uprose from a distant clump of
woods cresting a greater eminence.

“Ah,” murmured Harley, “the famous tower.”

Following the departure of the Colonel on the previous evening, he had
looked up Cray’s Folly and had found it to be one of a series of houses
erected by the eccentric and wealthy man whose name it bore. He had
had a mania for building houses with towers, in which his rival--and
contemporary--had been William Beckford, the author of “Vathek,” a work
which for some obscure reason has survived as well as two of the three
towers erected by its writer.

I became conscious of a keen sense of anticipation. In this, I think,
the figure of Miss Val Beverley played a leading part. There was
something pathetic in the presence of this lonely English girl in so
singular a household; for if the menage at Cray’s Folly should prove
half so strange as Colonel Menendez had led us to believe, then truly we
were about to find ourselves amid unusual people.

Presently the road inclined southward somewhat and we entered the fringe
of the trees. I noticed one or two very ancient cottages, but no trace
of the modern builder. This was a fragment of real Old England, and
I was not sorry when presently we lost sight of the square tower; for
amidst such scenery it was an anomaly and a rebuke.

What Paul Harley’s thoughts may have been I cannot say, but he preserved
an unbroken silence up to the very moment that we came to the gate
lodge.

The gates were monstrosities of elaborate iron scrollwork, craftsmanship
clever enough in its way, but of an ornate kind more in keeping with the
orange trees of the South than with this wooded Surrey countryside.

A very surly-looking girl, quite obviously un-English (a daughter of
Pedro, the butler, I learned later), opened the gates, and we entered
upon a winding drive literally tunnelled through the trees. Of the house
we had never a glimpse until we were right under its walls, nor should
I have known that we were come to the main entrance if the car had not
stopped.

“Looks like a monastery,” muttered Harley.

Indeed that part of the building--the north front--which was visible
from this point had a strangely monastic appearance, being built of
solid gray blocks and boasting only a few small, heavily barred windows.
The eccentricity of the Victorian gentleman who had expended thousands
of pounds upon erecting this house was only equalled, I thought, by that
of Colonel Menendez, who had chosen it for a home. An out-jutting wing
shut us in on the west, and to the east the prospect was closed by the
tallest and most densely grown box hedge I had ever seen, trimmed most
perfectly and having an arched opening in the centre. Thus, the entrance
to Cray’s Folly lay in a sort of bay.

But even as we stepped from the car, the great church-like oaken doors
were thrown open, and there, framed in the monkish porch, stood the
tall, elegant figure of the Colonel.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, “welcome to Cray’s Folly.”

He advanced smiling, and in the bright sunlight seemed even more
Mephistophelean than he had seemed in Harley’s office.

“Pedro,” he called, and a strange-looking Spanish butler who wore his
side-whiskers like a bull fighter appeared behind his master; a sallow,
furtive fellow with whom I determined I should never feel at ease.

However, the Colonel greeted us heartily enough, and conducted us
through a kind of paved, covered courtyard into a great lofty hall.
Indeed it more closely resembled a studio, being partly lighted by a
most curious dome. It was furnished in a manner quite un-English, but
very luxuriously. A magnificent oaken staircase communicated with a
gallery on the left, and at the foot of this staircase, in a mechanical
chair which she managed with astonishing dexterity, sat Madame de
Stämer.

She had snow-white hair crowning the face of a comparatively young
woman, and large, dark-brown eyes which reminded me strangely of the
eyes of some animal although in the first moment of meeting I could not
identify the resemblance. Her hands were very slender and beautiful, and
when, as the Colonel presented us, she extended her fingers, I was not
surprised to see Harley stoop and kiss them in Continental fashion;
for this Madame evidently expected. I followed suit; but truth to tell,
after that first glance at the masterful figure in the invalid chair I
had had no eyes for Madame de Stämer, being fully employed in gazing at
someone who stood beside her.

This was an evasively pretty girl, or such was my first impression. That
is to say, that whilst her attractiveness was beyond dispute, analysis
of her small features failed to detect from which particular quality
this charm was derived. The contour of her face certainly formed a
delightful oval, and there was a wistful look in her eyes which was half
appealing and half impish. Her demure expression was not convincing, and
there rested a vague smile, or promise of a smile, upon lips which were
perfectly moulded, and indeed the only strictly regular feature of a
nevertheless bewitching face. She had slightly curling hair and the line
of her neck and shoulder was most graceful and charming. Of one thing I
was sure: She was glad to see visitors at Cray’s Folly.

“And now, gentlemen,” said Colonel Menendez, “having presented you to
Madame, my cousin, permit me to present you to Miss Val Beverley, my
cousin’s companion, and our very dear friend.”

The girl bowed in a formal English fashion, which contrasted sharply
with the Continental manner of Madame. Her face flushed slightly, and as
I met her glance she lowered her eyes.

“Now M. Harley and M. Knox,” said Madame, vivaciously, “you are quite at
home. Pedro will show you to your rooms and lunch will be ready in half
an hour.”

She waved her white hand coquettishly, and ignoring the proffered aid
of Miss Beverley, wheeled her chair away at a great rate under a sort
of arch on the right of the hall, which communicated with the domestic
offices of the establishment.

“Is she not wonderful?” exclaimed Colonel Menendez, taking Harley’s
left arm and my right and guiding us upstairs followed by Pedro and
the chauffeur, the latter carrying our grips. “Many women would be
prostrated by such an affliction, but she--” he shrugged his shoulders.

Harley and I had been placed in adjoining rooms. I had never seen such
rooms as those in Cray’s Folly. The place contained enough oak to have
driven a modern builder crazy. Oak had simply been lavished upon it. My
own room, which was almost directly above the box hedge to which I have
referred, had a beautiful carved ceiling and a floor as highly polished
as that of a ballroom. It was tastefully furnished, but the foreign note
was perceptible everywhere.

“We have here some grand prospects,” said the Colonel, and truly enough
the view from the great, high, wide window was a very fine one.

I perceived that the grounds of Cray’s Folly were extensive and
carefully cultivated. I had a glimpse of a Tudor sunken garden, but the
best view of this was from the window of Harley’s room, which because
it was the end room on the north front overlooked another part of the
grounds, and offered a prospect of the east lawns and distant park land.

When presently Colonel Menendez and I accompanied my friend there I
was charmed by the picturesque scene below. Here was a real old herbal
garden, gay with flowers and intersected by tiled moss-grown paths.
There were bushes exhibiting fantastic examples of the topiary art, and
here, too, was a sun-dial. My first impression of this beautiful spot
was one of delight. Later I was to regard that enchanted demesne with
something akin to horror; but as we stood there watching a gardener
clipping the bushes I thought that although Cray’s Folly might be
adjudged ugly, its grounds were delightful.

Suddenly Harley turned to our host. “Where is the famous tower?” he
enquired. “It is not visible from the front of the house, nor from the
drive.”

“No, no,” replied the Colonel, “it is right out at the end of the east
wing, which is disused. I keep it locked up. There are four rooms in
the tower and a staircase, of course, but it is inconvenient. I cannot
imagine why it was built.”

“The architect may have had some definite object in view,” said Harley,
“or it may have been merely a freak of his client. Is there anything
characteristic about the topmost room, for instance?”

Colonel Menendez shrugged his massive shoulders. “Nothing,” he replied.
“It is the same as the others below, except that there is a stair
leading to a gallery on the roof. Presently I will take you up, if you
wish.”

“I should be interested,” murmured Harley, and tactfully changed the
subject, which evidently was not altogether pleasing to our host. I
concluded that he had found the east wing of the house something of a
white elephant, and was accordingly sensitive upon the point.

Presently, then, he left us and I returned to my own room, but before
long I rejoined Harley. I did not knock but entered unceremoniously.

“Halloa!” I exclaimed. “What have you seen?”

He was standing staring out of the window, nor did he turn as I entered.

“What is it?” I said, joining him.

He glanced at me oddly.

“An impression,” he replied; “but it has gone now.”

“I understand,” I said, quietly.

Familiarity with crime in many guises and under many skies had developed
in Paul Harley a sort of sixth sense. It was a fugitive, fickle
thing, as are all the powers which belong to the realm of genius or
inspiration. Often enough it failed him entirely, he had assured me,
that odd, sudden chill as of an abrupt lowering of the temperature,
which, I understood, often advised him of the nearness of enmity
actively malignant.

Now, standing at the window, looking down into that old-world garden, he
was “sensing” the atmosphere keenly, seeking for the note of danger. It
was sheer intuition, perhaps, but whilst he could never rely upon its
answering his summons, once active it never misled him.

“You think some real menace overhangs Colonel Menendez?”

“I am sure of it.” He stared into my face. “There is something very,
very strange about this bat wing business.”

“Do you still incline to the idea that he has been followed to England?”

Paul Harley reflected for a moment, then:

“That explanation would be almost too simple,” he said. “There is
something bizarre, something unclean--I had almost said unholy--at work
in this house, Knox.”

“He has foreign servants.”

Harley shook his head.

“I shall make it my business to become acquainted with all of them,”
 he replied, “but the danger does not come from there. Let us go down to
lunch.”




CHAPTER V

VAL BEVERLEY



The luncheon was so good as to be almost ostentatious. One could not
have lunched better at the Carlton. Yet, since this luxurious living was
evidently customary in the colonel’s household, a charge of ostentation
would not have been deserved. The sinister-looking Pedro proved to be
an excellent servant; and because of the excitement of feeling myself
to stand upon the edge of unusual things, the enjoyment of a perfectly
served repast, and the sheer delight which I experienced in watching the
play of expression upon the face of Miss Beverley, I count that luncheon
at Cray’s Folly a memorable hour of my life.

Frankly, Val Beverley puzzled me. It may or may not have been curious,
that amidst such singular company I selected for my especial study a
girl so freshly and typically English. I had thought at the moment of
meeting her that she was provokingly pretty; I determined, as the lunch
proceeded, that she was beautiful. Once I caught Harley smiling at me in
his quizzical fashion, and I wondered guiltily if I were displaying an
undue interest in the companion of Madame.

Many topics were discussed, I remember, and beyond doubt the colonel’s
cousin-housekeeper dominated the debate. She possessed extraordinary
force of personality. Her English was not nearly so fluent as that
spoken by the colonel, but this handicap only served to emphasize the
masculine strength of her intellect. Truly she was a remarkable woman.
With her blanched hair and her young face, and those fine, velvety eyes
which possessed a quality almost hypnotic, she might have posed for the
figure of a sorceress. She had unfamiliar gestures and employed her long
white hands in a manner that was new to me and utterly strange.

I could detect no family resemblance between the cousins, and I wondered
if their kinship were very distant. One thing was evident enough: Madame
de Stämer was devoted to the Colonel. Her expression when she looked at
him changed entirely. For a woman of such intense vitality her eyes were
uncannily still; that is to say that whilst she frequently moved her
head she rarely moved her eyes. Again and again I found myself wondering
where I had seen such eyes before. I lived to identify that memory, as I
shall presently relate.

In vain I endeavoured to define the relationship between these three
people, so incongruously set beneath one roof. Of the fact that Miss
Beverly was not happy I became assured. But respecting her exact
position in the household I was reduced to surmises.

The Colonel improved on acquaintance. I decided that he belonged to an
order of Spanish grandees now almost extinct. I believed he would have
made a very staunch friend; I felt sure he would have proved a most
implacable enemy. Altogether, it was a memorable meal, and one notable
result of that brief companionship was a kind of link of understanding
between myself and Miss Beverley.

Once, when I had been studying Madame de Stämer, and again, as I removed
my glance from the dark face of Colonel Menendez, I detected the girl
watching me; and her eyes said, “You understand; so do I.”

Some things perhaps I did understand, but how few the near future was to
show.

The signal for our departure from table was given by Madame de Stämer.
She whisked her chair back with extraordinary rapidity, the contrast
between her swift, nervous movements and those still, basilisk eyes
being almost uncanny.

“Off you go, Juan,” she said; “your visitors would like to see the
garden, no doubt. I must be away for my afternoon siesta. Come, my
dear”--to the girl--“smoke one little cigarette with me, then I will let
you go.”

She retired, wheeling herself rapidly out of the room, and my glance
lingered upon the graceful figure of Val Beverley until both she and
Madame were out of sight.

“Now, gentlemen,” said the Colonel, resuming his seat and pushing the
decanter toward Paul Harley, “I am at your service either for business
or amusement. I think”--to Harley--“you expressed a desire to see the
tower?”

“I did,” my friend replied, lighting his cigar, “but only if it would
amuse you to show me.”

“Decidedly. Mr. Knox will join us?”

Harley, unseen by the Colonel, glanced at me in a way which I knew.

“Thanks all the same,” I said, smiling, “but following a perfect
luncheon I should much prefer to loll upon the lawn, if you don’t mind.”

“But certainly I do not mind,” cried the Colonel. “I wish you to be
happy.”

“Join you in a few minutes, Knox,” said Harley as he went out with our
host.

“All right,” I replied, “I should like to take a stroll around the
gardens. You will join me there later, no doubt.”

As I walked out into the bright sunshine I wondered why Paul Harley had
wished to be left alone with Colonel Menendez, but knowing that I should
learn his motive later, I strolled on through the gardens, my mind
filled with speculations respecting these unusual people with whom Fate
had brought me in contact. I felt that Miss Beverley needed protection
of some kind, and I was conscious of a keen desire to afford her that
protection. In her glance I had read, or thought I had read, an appeal
for sympathy.

Not the least mystery of Cray’s Folly was the presence of this girl.
Only toward the end of luncheon had I made up my mind upon a point which
had been puzzling me. Val Beverley’s gaiety was a cloak. Once I had
detected her watching Madame de Stämer with a look strangely like that
of fear.

Puffing contentedly at my cigar I proceeded to make a tour of the house.
It was constructed irregularly. Practically the entire building was
of gray stone, which created a depressing effect even in the blazing
sunlight, lending Cray’s Folly something of an austere aspect. There
were fine lofty windows, however, to most of the ground-floor rooms
overlooking the lawns, and some of those above had balconies of the same
gray stone. Quite an extensive kitchen garden and a line of glasshouses
adjoined the west wing, and here were outbuildings, coach-houses and a
garage, all connected by a covered passage with the servants’ quarters.

Pursuing my enquiries, I proceeded to the north front of the building,
which was closely hemmed in by trees, and which as we had observed on
our arrival resembled the entrance to a monastery.

Passing the massive oaken door by which we had entered and which was now
closed again, I walked on through the opening in the box hedge into a
part of the grounds which was not so sprucely groomed as the rest. On
one side were the yews flanking the Tudor garden and before me uprose
the famous tower. As I stared up at the square structure, with its
uncurtained windows, I wondered, as others had wondered before me, what
could have ever possessed any man to build it.

Visible at points for many miles around, it undoubtedly disfigured an
otherwise beautiful landscape.

I pressed on, noting that the windows of the rooms in the east wing were
shuttered and the apartments evidently disused. I came to the base of
the tower, To the south, the country rose up to the highest point in
the crescent of hills, and peeping above the trees at no great distance
away, I detected the red brick chimneys of some old house in the woods.
North and east, velvet sward swept down to the park.

As I stood there admiring the prospect and telling myself that no
Voodoo devilry could find a home in this peaceful English countryside,
I detected a faint sound of voices far above. Someone had evidently come
out upon the gallery of the tower. I looked upward, but I could not see
the speakers. I pursued my stroll, until, near the eastern base of the
tower, I encountered a perfect thicket of rhododendrons. Finding no
path through this shrubbery, I retraced my steps, presently entering
the Tudor garden; and there strolling toward me, a book in her hand, was
Miss Beverley.

“Holloa, Mr. Knox,” she called; “I thought you had gone up the tower?”

“No,” I replied, laughing, “I lack the energy.”

“Do you?” she said, softly, “then sit down and talk to me.”

She dropped down upon a grassy bank, looking up at me invitingly, and I
accepted the invitation without demur.

“I love this old garden,” she declared, “although of course it is really
no older than the rest of the place. I always think there should be
peacocks, though.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “peacocks would be appropriate.”

“And little pages dressed in yellow velvet.”

She met my glance soberly for a moment and then burst into a peal of
merry laughter.

“Do you know, Miss Beverley,” I said, watching her, “I find it hard to
place you in the household of the Colonel.”

“Yes?” she said simply; “you must.”

“Oh, then you realize that you are--”

“Out of place here?”

“Quite.”

“Of course I am.”

She smiled, shook her head, and changed the subject.

“I am so glad Mr. Paul Harley has come down,” she confessed.

“You know my friend by name, then?”

“Yes,” she replied, “someone I met in Nice spoke of him, and I know he
is very clever.”

“In Nice? Did you live in Nice before you came here?”

Val Beverley nodded slowly, and her glance grew oddly retrospective.

“I lived for over a year with Madame de Stämer in a little villa on
the Promenade des Anglaise,” she replied. “That was after Madame was
injured.”

“She sustained her injuries during the war, I understand?”

“Yes. Poor Madame. The hospital of which she was in charge was bombed
and the shock left her as you see her. I was there, too, but I luckily
escaped without injury.”

“What, you were there?”

“Yes. That was where I first met Madame de Stämer. She used to be very
wealthy, you see, and she established this hospital in France at her own
expense, and I was one of her assistants for a time. She lost both her
husband and her fortune in the war, and as if that were not bad enough,
lost the use of her limbs, too.”

“Poor woman,” I said. “I had no idea her life had been so tragic. She
has wonderful courage.”

“Courage!” exclaimed the girl, “if you knew all that I know about her.”

Her face grew sweetly animated as she bent toward me excitedly and
confidentially.

“Really, she is simply wonderful. I learned to respect her in those days
as I have never respected any other woman in the world; and when, after
all her splendid work, she, so vital and active, was stricken down like
that, I felt that I simply could not leave her, especially as she asked
me to stay.”

“So you went with her to Nice?”

“Yes. Then the Colonel took this house, and we came here, but--”

She hesitated, and glanced at me curiously.

“Perhaps you are not quite happy?”

“No,” she said, “I am not. You see it was different in France. I knew so
many people. But here at Cray’s Folly it is so lonely, and Madame is--”

Again she hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Well,” she laughed in an embarrassed fashion, “I am afraid of her at
times.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, in a silly, womanish sort of way. Of course she is a wonderful
manager; she rules the house with a rod of iron. But really I haven’t
anything to do here, and I feel frightfully out of place sometimes. Then
the Colonel--Oh, but what am I talking about?”

“Won’t you tell me what it is that the Colonel fears?”

“You know that he fears something, then?”

“Of course. That is why Paul Harley is here.”

A change came over the girl’s face; a look almost of dread.

“I wish I knew what it all meant.”

“You are aware, then, that there is something wrong?”

“Naturally I am. Sometimes I have been so frightened that I have made up
my mind to leave the very next day.”

“You mean that you have been frightened at night?” I asked with
curiosity.

“Dreadfully frightened.”

“Won’t you tell me in what way?”

She looked up at me swiftly, then turned her head aside, and bit her
lip.

“No, not now,” she replied. “I can’t very well.”

“Then at least tell me why you stayed?”

“Well,” she smiled rather pathetically, “for one thing, I haven’t
anywhere else to go.”

“Have you no friends in England?”

She shook her head.

“No. There was only poor daddy, and he died over two years ago. That was
when I went to Nice.”

“Poor little girl,” I said; and the words were spoken before I realized
their undue familiarity.

An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but Miss Beverley did not seem
to have noticed the indiscretion. Indeed my sympathy was sincere, and I
think she had appreciated the fact.

She looked up again with a bright smile.

“Why are we talking about such depressing things on this simply heavenly
day?” she exclaimed.

“Goodness knows,” said I. “Will you show me round these lovely gardens?”

“Delighted, sir!” replied the girl, rising and sweeping me a mocking
curtsey.

Thereupon we set out, and at every step I found a new delight in some
wayward curl, in a gesture, in the sweet voice of my companion. Her
merry laugh was music, but in wistful mood I think she was even more
alluring.

The menace, if menace there were, which overhung Cray’s Folly, ceased to
exist--for me, at least, and I blessed the lucky chance which had led to
my presence there.

We were presently rejoined by Colonel Menendez and Paul Harley, and I
gathered that my surmise that it had been their voices which I had heard
proceeding from the top of the tower to have been only partly accurate.

“I know you will excuse me, Mr. Harley,” said the Colonel, “for
detailing the duty to Pedro, but my wind is not good enough for the
stairs.”

He used idiomatic English at times with that facility which some
foreigners acquire, but always smiled in a self-satisfied way when he
had employed a slang term.

“I quite understand, Colonel,” replied Harley. “The view from the top
was very fine.”

“And now, gentlemen,” continued the Colonel, “if Miss Beverley will
excuse us, we will retire to the library and discuss business.”

“As you wish,” said Harley; “but I have an idea that it is your custom
to rest in the afternoon.”

Colonel Menendez shrugged his shoulders. “It used to be,” he admitted,
“but I have too much to think about in these days.”

“I can see that you have much to tell me,” admitted Harley; “and
therefore I am entirely at your service.”

Val Beverley smiled and walked away swinging her book, at the same time
treating me to a glance which puzzled me considerably. I wondered if I
had mistaken its significance, for it had seemed to imply that she had
accepted me as an ally. Certainly it served to awaken me to the fact
that I had discovered a keen personal interest in the mystery which hung
over this queerly assorted household.

I glanced at my friend as the Colonel led the way into the house. I
saw him staring upward with a peculiar expression upon his face, and
following the direction of his glance I could see an awning spread over
one of the gray-stone balconies. Beneath it, reclining in a long cane
chair, lay Madame de Stämer. I think she was asleep; at any rate,
she gave no sign, but lay there motionless, as Harley and I walked in
through the open French window followed by Colonel Menendez.

Odd and unimportant details sometimes linger long in the memory. And
I remember noticing that a needle of sunlight, piercing a crack in the
gaily-striped awning rested upon a ring which Madame wore, so that the
diamonds glittered like sparks of white-hot fire.




CHAPTER VI

THE BARRIER



Colonel Menendez conducted us to a long, lofty library in which might
be detected the same note of un-English luxury manifested in the other
appointments of the house. The room, in common with every other which
I had visited in Cray’s Folly, was carried out in oak: doors, window
frames, mantelpiece, and ceiling representing fine examples of this
massive woodwork. Indeed, if the eccentricity of the designer of Cray’s
Folly were not sufficiently demonstrated by the peculiar plan of the
building, its construction wholly of granite and oak must have remarked
him a man of unusual if substantial ideas.

There were four long windows opening on to a veranda which commanded a
view of part of the rose garden and of three terraced lawns descending
to a lake upon which I perceived a number of swans. Beyond, in the
valley, lay verdant pastures, where cattle grazed. A lark hung carolling
blithely far above, and the sky was almost cloudless. I could hear a
steam reaper at work somewhere in the distance. This, with the more
intimate rattle of a lawn-mower wielded by a gardener who was not
visible from where I stood, alone disturbed the serene silence, except
that presently I detected the droning of many bees among the roses.
Sunlight flooded the prospect; but the veranda lay in shadow, and that
long, oaken room was refreshingly cool and laden with the heavy perfume
of the flowers.

From the windows, then, one beheld a typical English summer-scape, but
the library itself struck an altogether more exotic note. There were
many glazed bookcases of a garish design in ebony and gilt, and these
were laden with a vast collection of works in almost every European
language, reflecting perhaps the cosmopolitan character of the colonel’s
household. There was strange Spanish furniture upholstered in perforated
leather and again displaying much gilt. There were suits of black armour
and a great number of Moorish ornaments. The pictures were fine but
sombre, and all of the Spanish school.

One Velasquez in particular I noted with surprise, reflecting that,
assuming it to be an authentic work of the master, my entire worldly
possessions could not have enabled me to buy it. It was the portrait
of a typical Spanish cavalier and beyond doubt a Menendez. In fact, the
resemblance between the haughty Spanish grandee, who seemed about
to step out of the canvas and pick a quarrel with the spectator, and
Colonel Don Juan himself was almost startling. Evidently, our host had
imported most of his belongings from Cuba.

“Gentlemen,” he said, as we entered, “make yourselves quite at home, I
beg. All my poor establishment contains is for your entertainment and
service.”

He drew up two long, low lounge chairs, the arms provided with
receptacles to contain cooling drinks; and the mere sight of these
chairs mentally translated me to the Spanish Main, where I pictured them
set upon the veranda of that hacienda which had formerly been our host’s
residence.

Harley and I became seated and Colonel Menendez disposed himself upon a
leather-covered couch, nodding apologetically as he did so.

“My health requires that I should recline for a certain number of hours
every day,” he explained. “So you will please forgive me.”

“My dear Colonel Menendez,” said Harley, “I feel sure that you are
interrupting your siesta in order to discuss the unpleasant business
which finds us in such pleasant surroundings. Allow me once again to
suggest that we postpone this matter until, shall we say, after dinner?”

“No, no! No, no,” protested the Colonel, waving his hand deprecatingly.
“Here is Pedro with coffee and some curaçao of a kind which I can really
recommend, although you may be unfamiliar with it.”

I was certainly unfamiliar with the liqueur which he insisted we must
taste, and which was contained in a sort of square, opaque bottle
unknown, I think, to English wine merchants. Beyond doubt it was potent
stuff; and some cigars which the Spaniard produced on this occasion and
which were enclosed in little glass cylinders resembling test-tubes and
elaborately sealed, I recognized to be priceless. They convinced me, if
conviction had not visited me already, that Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento
Menendez belonged to that old school of West Indian planters by whom
the tradition of the Golden Americas had been for long preserved in the
Spanish Main.

We discussed indifferent matters for a while, sipping this wonderful
curaçao of our host’s. The effect created by the Colonel’s story faded
entirely, and when, the latter being unable to conceal his drowsiness,
Harley stood up, I took the hint with gratitude; for at that moment I
did not feel in the mood to discuss serious business or indeed business
of any kind.

“Gentlemen,” said the Colonel, also rising, in spite of our protests, “I
will observe your wishes. My guests’ wishes are mine. We will meet the
ladies for tea on the terrace.”

Harley and I walked out into the garden together, our courteous host
standing in the open window, and bowing in that exaggerated fashion
which in another might have been ridiculous but which was possible in
Colonel Menendez, because of the peculiar grace of deportment which was
his.

As we descended the steps I turned and glanced back, I know not why. But
the impression which I derived of the Colonel’s face as he stood there
in the shadow of the veranda was one I can never forget.

His expression had changed utterly, or so it seemed to me. He no longer
resembled Velasquez’ haughty cavalier; gone, too, was the debonnaire
bearing, I turned my head aside swiftly, hoping that he had not detected
my backward glance.

I felt that I had violated hospitality. I felt that I had seen what I
should not have seen. And the result was to bring about that which no
story of West Indian magic could ever have wrought in my mind.

A dreadful, cold premonition claimed me, a premonition that this was a
doomed man.

The look which I had detected upon his face was an indefinable, an
indescribable look; but I had seen it in the eyes of one who had been
bitten by a poisonous reptile and who knew his hours to be numbered. It
was uncanny, unnerving; and whereas at first the atmosphere of Colonel
Menendez’s home had seemed to be laden with prosperous security, now
that sense of ease and restfulness was gone--and gone for ever.

“Harley,” I said, speaking almost at random, “this promises to be the
strangest case you have ever handled.”

“Promises?” Paul Harley laughed shortly. “It _is_ the strangest case,
Knox. It is a case of wheels within wheels, of mystery crowning mystery.
Have you studied our host?”

“Closely.”

“And what conclusion have you formed?”

“None at the moment; but I think one is slowly crystalizing.”

“Hm,” muttered Harley, as we paced slowly on amid the rose trees. “Of
one thing I am satisfied.”

“What is that?”

“That Colonel Menendez is not afraid of Bat Wing, whoever or whatever
Bat Wing may be.”

“Not afraid?”

“Certainly he is not afraid, Knox. He has possibly been afraid in the
past, but now he is resigned.”

“Resigned to what?”

“Resigned to death!”

“Good God, Harley, you are right!” I cried. “You are right! I saw it in
his eyes as we left the library.”

Harley stopped and turned to me sharply.

“You saw this in the Colonel’s eyes?” he challenged.

“I did.”

“Which corroborates my theory,” he said, softly; “for _I_ had seen it
elsewhere.”

“Where do you mean, Harley?”

“In the face of Madame de Stämer.”

“What?”

“Knox”--Harley rested his hand upon my arm and looked about him
cautiously--“_she knows._”

“But knows what?”

“That is the question which we are here to answer, but I am as sure
as it is humanly possible to be sure of anything that whatever Colonel
Menendez may tell us to-night, one point at least he will withhold.”

“What do you expect him to withhold?”

“The meaning of the sign of the Bat Wing.”

“Then you think he knows its meaning?”

“He has told us that it is the death-token of Voodoo.”

I stared at Harley in perplexity.

“Then you believe his explanation to be false?”

“Not necessarily, Knox. It may be what he claims for it. But he is
keeping something back. He speaks all the time from behind a barrier
which he, himself, has deliberately erected against me.”

“I cannot understand why he should do so,” I declared, as he looked
at me steadily. “Within the last few moments I have become definitely
convinced that his appeal to you was no idle one. Therefore, why should
he not offer you every aid in his power?”

“Why, indeed?” muttered Harley.

“The same thing,” I continued, “applies to Madame de Stämer. If ever I
have seen love-light in a woman’s eyes I have seen it in hers, to-day,
whenever her glance has rested upon Colonel Menendez. Harley, I believe
she literally worships the ground he walks upon.”

“She does, she does!” cried my companion, and emphasized the words with
beats of his clenched fist. “It is utterly, damnably mystifying. But I
tell you, she knows, Knox, she knows!”

“You mean she knows that he is a doomed man?”

Harley nodded rapidly.

“They both know,” he replied; “but there is something which they dare
not divulge.”

He glanced at me swiftly, and his bronzed face wore a peculiar
expression.

“Have you had an opportunity of any private conversation with Miss Val
Beverley?” he enquired.

“Yes,” I said. “Surely you remember that you found me chatting with her
when you returned from your inspection of the tower.”

“I remember perfectly well, but I thought you might have just met. Now
it appears to me, Knox, that you have quickly established yourself in
the good books of a very charming girl. My only reason for visiting
the tower was to afford you just this opportunity! Don’t frown. Beyond
reminding you of the fact that she has been on intimate terms with
Madame de Stämer for some years, I will not intrude in any way upon your
private plans in that direction.”

I stared at him, and I suppose my expression was an angry one.

“Surely you don’t misunderstand me?” he said. “A cultured English
girl of that type cannot possibly have lived with these people without
learning something of the matters which are puzzling us so badly. Am I
asking too much?”

“I see what you mean,” I said, slowly. “No, I suppose you are right,
Harley.”

“Good,” he muttered. “I will leave that side of the enquiry in your very
capable hands, Knox.”

He paused, and began to stare about him.

“From this point,” said he, “we have an unobstructed view of the tower.”

We turned and stood looking up at the unsightly gray structure, with its
geometrical rows of windows and the minaret-like gallery at the top.

“Of course”--I broke a silence of some moments duration--“the entire
scheme of Cray’s Folly is peculiar, but the rooms, except for a
uniformity which is monotonous, and an unimaginative scheme of
decoration which makes them all seem alike, are airy and well
lighted, eminently sane and substantial. The tower, however, is quite
inexcusable, unless the idea was to enable the occupant to look over the
tops of the trees in all directions.”

“Yes,” agreed Harley, “it is an ugly landmark. But yonder up the slope I
can see the corner of what seems to be a very picturesque house of some
kind.”

“I caught a glimpse of it earlier to-day,” I replied. “Yes, from this
point a little more of it is visible. Apparently quite an old place.”

I paused, staring up the hillside, but Harley, hands locked behind
him and chin lowered reflectively, was pacing on. I joined him, and we
proceeded for some little distance in silence, passing a gardener who
touched his cap respectfully and to whom I thought at first my companion
was about to address some remark. Harley passed on, however, still
occupied, it seemed, with his reflections, and coming to a gravel path
which, bordering one side of the lawns, led down from terrace to terrace
into the valley, turned, and began to descend.

“Let us go and interview the swans,” he murmured absently.




CHAPTER VII

AT THE LAVENDER ARMS



In certain moods Paul Harley was impossible as a companion, and I,
who knew him well, had learned to leave him to his own devices at such
times. These moods invariably corresponded with his meeting some problem
to the heart of which the lance of his keen wit failed to penetrate.
His humour might not display itself in the spoken word, he merely became
oblivious of everything and everybody around him. People might talk to
him and he scarce noted their presence, familiar faces appear and he
would see them not. Outwardly he remained the observant Harley who
could see further into a mystery than any other in England, but his
observation was entirely introspective; although he moved amid the
hustle of life he was spiritually alone, communing with the solitude
which dwells in every man’s heart.

Presently, then, as we came to the lake at the foot of the sloping
lawns, where water lilies were growing and quite a number of swans had
their habitation, I detected the fact that I had ceased to exist so
far as Harley was concerned. Knowing this mood of old, I pursued my way
alone, pressing on across the valley and making for a swing gate which
seemed to open upon a public footpath. Coming to this gate I turned and
looked back.

Paul Harley was standing where I had left him by the edge of the lake,
staring as if hypnotized at the slowly moving swans. But I would have
been prepared to wager that he saw neither swans nor lake, but mentally
was far from the spot, deep in some complex maze of reflection through
which no ordinary mind could hope to follow him.

I glanced at my watch and found that it was but little after two
o’clock. Luncheon at Cray’s Folly was early. I therefore had some time
upon my hands and I determined to employ it in exploring part of the
neighbourhood. Accordingly I filled and lighted my pipe and strolled
leisurely along the footpath, enjoying the beauty of the afternoon, and
admiring the magnificent timber which grew upon the southerly slopes of
the valley.

Larks sang high above me and the air was fragrant with those wonderful
earthy scents which belong to an English countryside. A herd of very
fine Jersey cattle presently claimed inspection, and a little farther on
I found myself upon a high road where a brown-faced fellow seated aloft
upon a hay-cart cheerily gave me good-day as I passed.

Quite at random I turned to the left and followed the road, so that
presently I found myself in a very small village, the principal building
of which was a very small inn called the “Lavender Arms.”

Colonel Menendez’s curaçao, combined with the heat of the day, had made
me thirsty; for which reason I stepped into the bar-parlour determined
to sample the local ale. I wars served by the landlady, a neat, round,
red little person, and as she retired, having placed a foam-capped mug
upon the counter, her glance rested for a moment upon the only other
occupant of the room, a man seated in an armchair immediately to the
right of the door. A glass of whisky stood on the window ledge at his
elbow, and that it was by no means the first which he had imbibed, his
appearance seemed to indicate.

Having tasted the cool contents of my mug, I leaned back against the
counter and looked at this person curiously.

He was apparently of about medium height, but of a somewhat fragile
appearance. He was dressed like a country gentleman, and a stick and
soft hat lay upon the ledge near his glass. But the thing about him
which had immediately arrested my attention was his really extraordinary
resemblance to Paul Harley’s engraving of Edgar Allan Poe.

I wondered at first if Harley’s frequent references to the eccentric
American genius, to whom he accorded a sort of hero-worship, were
responsible for my imagining a close resemblance where only a slight one
existed. But inspection of that strange, dark face convinced me of
the fact that my first impression had been a true one. Perhaps, in my
curiosity, I stared rather rudely.

“You will pardon me, sir,” said the stranger, and I was startled to
note that he spoke with a faint American accent, “but are you a literary
man?”

As I had judged to be the case, he was slightly bemused, but by no
means drunk, and although his question was abrupt it was spoken civilly
enough.

“Journalism is one of the several occupations in which I have failed,” I
replied, lightly.

“You are not a fiction writer?”

“I lack the imagination necessary for that craft, sir.”

The other wagged his head slowly and took a drink of whisky.
“Nevertheless,” he said, and raised his finger solemnly, “you were
thinking that I resembled Edgar Allan Poe!”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, for the man had really amazed me. “You
clearly resemble him in more ways than one. I must really ask you to
inform me how you deduced such a fact from a mere glance of mine.”

“I will tell you, sir,” he replied. “But, first, I must replenish my
glass, and I should be honoured if you would permit me to replenish
yours.”

“Thanks very much,” I said, “but I would rather you excused me.”

“As you wish, sir,” replied the American with grave courtesy, “as you
wish.”

He stepped up to the counter and rapped upon it with half a crown, until
the landlady appeared. She treated me to a pathetic glance, but refilled
the empty glass.

My American acquaintance having returned to his seat and having added a
very little water to the whisky went on:

“Now, sir,” said he, “my name is Colin Camber, formerly of Richmond,
Virginia, United States of America, but now of the Guest House, Surrey,
England, at your service.”

Taking my cue from Mr. Camber’s gloomy but lofty manner, I bowed
formally and mentioned my name.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Knox,” he assured me;
“and now, sir, to answer your question. When you came in a few moments
ago you glanced at me. Your eyes did not open widely as is the case
when one recognizes, or thinks one recognizes, an acquaintance, they
narrowed. This indicated retrospection. For a moment they turned aside.
You were focussing a fugitive idea, a memory. You captured it. You
looked at me again, and your successive glances read as follows: The
hair worn uncommonly long, the mathematical brow, the eyes of a poet,
the slight moustache, small mouth, weak chin; the glass at his elbow.
The resemblance is complete. Knowing how complete it is myself, sir, I
ventured to test my theory, and it proved to be sound.”

Now, as Mr. Colin Camber had thus spoken in the serious manner of a
slightly drunken man, I had formed the opinion that I stood in the
presence of a very singular character. Here was that seeming mésalliance
which not infrequently begets genius: a powerful and original mind
allied to a weak will. I wondered what Mr. Colin Camber’s occupation
might be, and somewhat, too, I wondered why his name was unfamiliar to
me. For that the possessor of that brow and those eyes could fail to
make his mark in any profession which he might take up I was unwilling
to believe.

“Your exposition has been very interesting, Mr. Camber,” I said. “You
are a singularly close observer, I perceive.”

“Yes,” he replied, “I have passed my life in observing the ways of my
fellowmen, a study which I have pursued in various parts of the world
without appreciable benefit to myself. I refer to financial benefit.”

He contemplated me with a look which had grown suddenly pathetic.

“I would not have you think, sir,” he added, “that I am an habitual
toper. I have latterly been much upset by--domestic worries, and--er--”
 He emptied his glass at a draught. “Surely, Mr. Knox, you are going
to replenish? Whilst you are doing so, would you kindly request Mrs.
Wootton to extend the same favour to myself?”

But at that moment Mrs. Wootton in person appeared behind the counter.
“Time, please, gentlemen,” she said; “it is gone half-past two.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Camber, rising. “What is that? You decline to
serve me, Mrs. Wootton?”

“Why, not at all, Mr. Camber,” answered the landlady, “but I can serve
no one now; it’s after time.”

“You decline to serve me,” he muttered, his speech becoming slurred. “Am
I, then, to be insulted?”

I caught a glance of entreaty from the landlady. “My dear sir,” I said,
genially, “we must bow to the law, I suppose. At least we are better off
here than in America.”

“Ah, that is true,” agreed Mr. Camber, throwing his head back and
speaking the words as though they possessed some deep dramatic
significance. “Yes, but such laws are an insult to every intelligent
man.”

He sat down again rather heavily, and I stood looking from him to the
landlady, and wondering what I should do. The matter was decided for
me, however, in a way which I could never have foreseen. For, hearing
a light footfall upon the step which led up to the bar-parlour, I
turned--and there almost beside me stood a wrinkled little Chinaman!

 He wore a blue suit and a tweed cap, he wore queer, thick-soled
slippers, and his face was like a smiling mask hewn out of very old
ivory. I could scarcely credit the evidence of my senses, since the
Lavender Arms was one of the last places in which I should have looked
for a native of China.

Mr. Colin Camber rose again, and fixing his melancholy eyes upon the
newcomer:

“Ah Tsong,” he said in a tone of cold anger, “what are you doing here?”

Quite unmoved the Chinaman replied:

“Blingee you chit, sir, vellee soon go back.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Camber. “Answer me, Ah Tsong: who sent
you?”

“Lilly missee,” crooned the Chinaman, smiling up into the other’s face
with a sort of childish entreaty. “Lilly missee.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Camber in a changed voice. “Oh.”

He stood very upright for a moment, his gaze set upon the wrinkled
Chinese face. Then he looked at Mrs. Wootton and bowed, and looked at me
and bowed, very stiffly.

“I must excuse myself, sir,” he announced. “My wife desires my presence
at home.”

I returned his bow, and as he walked quite steadily toward the door,
followed by Ah Tsong, he paused, turned, and said: “Mr. Knox, I should
esteem it a friendly action if you would spare me an hour of your
company before you leave Surrey. My visitors are few. Any one, any one,
will direct you to the Guest House. I am persuaded that we have much in
common. Good-day, sir.”

He went down the steps, disappearing in company with the Chinaman,
and having watched them go, I turned to Mrs. Wootton, the landlady, in
silent astonishment.

She nodded her head and sighed.

“The same every day and every evening for months past,” she said. “I am
afraid it’s going to be the death of him.”

“Do you mean that Mr. Camber comes here every day and is always fetched
by the Chinaman?”

“Twice every day,” corrected the landlady, “and his poor wife sends here
regularly.”

“What a tragedy,” I muttered, “and such a brilliant man.”

“Ah,” said she, busily removing jugs and glasses from the counter, “it
does seem a terrible thing.”

“Has Mr. Camber lived for long in this neighbourhood?” I ventured to
inquire.

“It was about three years ago, sir, that he took the old Guest House at
Mid-Hatton. I remember the time well enough because of all the trouble
there was about him bringing a Chinaman down here.”

“I can imagine it must have created something of a sensation,” I
murmured. “Is the Guest House a large property?”

“Oh, no, sir, only ten rooms and a garden, and it had been vacant for a
long time. It belongs to what is called the Crayland Park Estate.”

“Mr. Camber, I take it, is a literary man?”

“So I believe, sir.”

Mrs. Wootton, having cleared the counter, glanced up at the clock and
then at me with a cheery but significant smile.

“I see that it is after time,” I said, returning the smile, “but the
queer people who seem to live hereabouts interest me very much.”

“I can’t wonder at that, sir!” said the landlady, laughing outright.
“Chinamen and Spanish men and what-not. If some of the old gentry that
lived here before the war could see it, they wouldn’t recognize the
place, of that I am sure.”

“Ah, well,” said I, pausing at the step, “I shall hope to see more of
Mr. Camber, and of yourself too, madam, for your ale is excellent.”

“Thank you, sir, I’m sure,” said the landlady much gratified, “but as
to Mr. Camber, I really doubt if he would know you if you met him again.
Not if he was sober, I mean.”

“Really?”

“Oh, it’s a fact, believe me. Just in the last six months or so he has
started on the rampage like, but some of the people he has met in here
and asked to call upon him have done it, thinking he meant it.”

“And they have not been well received?” said I, lingering.

“They have had the door shut in their faces!” declared Mrs. Wootton with
a certain indignation. “He either does not remember what he says or does
when he is in drink, or he pretends he doesn’t. Oh, dear, it’s a funny
world. Well, good-day, sir.”

“Good-day,” said I, and came out of the Lavender Arms full of sympathy
with the views of the “old gentry,” as outlined by Mrs. Wootton; for
certainly it would seem that this quiet spot in the Surrey Hills had
become a rallying ground for peculiar people.




CHAPTER VIII

THE CALL OF M’KOMBO



Of tea upon the veranda of Cray’s Folly that afternoon I retain several
notable memories. I got into closer touch with my host and hostess,
without achieving anything like a proper understanding of either of
them, and I procured a new viewpoint of Miss Val Beverley. Her repose
was misleading. She deliberately subjugated her own vital personality to
that of Madame de Stämer, why, I knew not, unless she felt herself under
an obligation to do so. That her blue-gray eyes could be wistful was
true enough, they could also be gay; and once I detected in them a
look of sadness which dispelled the butterfly illusion belonging to her
dainty slenderness, to her mobile lips, to the vagabond curling hair of
russet brown.

Paul Harley’s manner remained absent, but I who knew his moods so well
recognized that this abstraction was no longer real. It was a pose
which he often adopted when in reality he was keenly interested in
his surroundings. It baffled me, however, as effectively as it baffled
others, and whilst at one moment I decided that he was studying Colonel
Menendez, in the next I became convinced that Madame de Stämer was the
subject upon his mental dissecting table.

That he should find in Madame a fascinating problem did not surprise me.
She must have afforded tempting study for any psychologist. I could
not fathom the nature of the kinship existing between herself and the
Spanish colonel, for Madame de Stämer was French to her fingertips.
Her expressions, her gestures, her whole outlook on life proclaimed the
fashionable Parisienne.

She possessed a vigorous masculine intelligence and was the most
entertaining companion imaginable. She was daringly outspoken, and it
was hard to believe that her gaiety was forced. Yet, as the afternoon
wore on, I became more and more convinced that such was the case.

I thought that before affliction visited her Madame de Stämer must have
been a vivacious and a beautiful woman. Her vivacity remained and much
of her beauty, so that it was difficult to believe her snow-white hair
to be a product of nature. Again and again I found myself regarding it
as a powdered coiffure of the Pompadour period and wondering why Madame
wore no patches.

That a deep and sympathetic understanding existed between herself and
Colonel Menendez was unmistakable. More than once I intercepted glances
from the dark eyes of Madame which were lover-like, yet laden with a
profound sorrow. She was playing a rôle, and I was convinced that Harley
knew this. It was not merely a courageous fight against affliction on
the part of a woman of the world, versed in masking her real self from
the prying eyes of society, it was a studied performance prompted by
some deeper motive.

She dressed with exquisite taste, and to see her seated there amid her
cushions, gesticulating vivaciously, one would never have supposed that
she was crippled. My admiration for her momentarily increased, the more
so since I could see that she was sincerely fond of Val Beverley, whose
every movement she followed with looks of almost motherly affection.
This was all the more strange as Madame de Stämer whose age, I supposed,
lay somewhere on the sunny side of forty, was of a type which expects,
and wins, admiration, long after the average woman has ceased to be
attractive.

One endowed with such a temperament is as a rule unreasonably jealous
of youth and good looks in another. I could not determine if Madame’s
attitude were to be ascribed to complacent self-satisfaction or to a
nobler motive. It sufficed for me that she took an unfeigned joy in the
youthful sweetness of her companion.

“Val, dear,” she said, presently, addressing the girl, “you should make
those sleeves shorter, my dear.”

She had a rapid way of speaking, and possessed a slightly husky but
fascinatingly vibrant voice.

“Your arms are very pretty. You should not hide them.”

Val Beverley blushed, and laughed to conceal her embarrassment.

“Oh, my dear,” exclaimed Madame, “why be ashamed of arms? All women have
arms, but some do well to hide them.”

“Quite right, Marie,” agreed the Colonel, his thin voice affording an
odd contrast to the deeper tones of his cousin. “But it is the scraggy
ones who seem to delight in displaying their angles.”

“The English, yes,” Madame admitted, “but the French, no. They are too
clever, Juan.”

“Frenchwomen think too much about their looks,” said Val Beverley,
quietly. “Oh, you know they do, Madame. They would rather die than be
without admiration.”

Madame shrugged her shoulders.

“So would I, my dear,” she confessed, “although I cannot walk. Without
admiration there is”--she snapped her fingers--“nothing. And who would
notice a linnet when a bird of paradise was about, however sweet her
voice? Tell me that, my dear?”

Paul Harley aroused himself and laughed heartily.

“Yet,” he said, “I think with Miss Beverley, that this love of elegance
does not always make for happiness. Surely it is the cause of half the
domestic tragedies in France?”

“Ah, the French love elegance,” cried Madame, shrugging, “they cannot
help it. To secure what is elegant a Frenchwoman will sometimes forget
her husband, yes, but never forget herself.”

“Really, Marie,” protested the Colonel, “you say most strange things!”

“Is that so, Juan?” she replied, casting one of her queer glances in his
direction; “but how would you like to be surrounded by a lot of drabs,
eh? That man, Mr. Knox,” she extended one white hand in the direction of
Colonel Menendez, the fingers half closed, in a gesture which curiously
reminded me of Sarah Bernhardt, “that man would notice if a parlourmaid
came into the room with a shoe unbuttoned. Poof! if we love elegance it
is because without it the men would never love _us_.”

Colonel Menendez bent across the table and kissed the white fingers in
his courtier-like fashion.

“My sweet cousin,” he said, “I should love you in rags.”

Madame smiled and flushed like a girl, but withdrawing her hand she
shrugged.

“They would have to be _pretty_ rags!” she added.

During this little scene I detected Val Beverley looking at me in a
vaguely troubled way, and it was easy to guess that she was wondering
what construction I should place upon it. However:

“I am going into the town,” declared Madame de Stämer, energetically.
“Half the things ordered from Hartley’s have never been sent.”

“Oh, Madame, please let _me_ go,” cried Val Beverley.

“My dear,” pronounced Madame, “I will not let you go, but I will let you
come with me if you wish.”

She rang a little bell which stood upon the tea-table beside the urn,
and Pedro came out through the drawing room.

“Pedro,” she said, “is the car ready?”

The Spanish butler bowed.

“Tell Carter to bring it round. Hurry, dear,” to the girl, “if you are
coming with me. I shall not be a minute.”

Thereupon she whisked her mechanical chair about, waved her hand to
dismiss Pedro, and went steering through the drawing room at a great
rate, with Val Beverley walking beside her.

As we resumed our seats Colonel Menendez lay back with half-closed
eyes, his glance following the chair and its occupant until both were
swallowed up in the shadows of the big drawing room.

“Madame de Stämer is a very remarkable woman,” said Paul Harley.

“Remarkable?” replied the Colonel. “The spirit of all the old chivalry
of France is imprisoned within her, I think.”

He passed cigarettes around, of a long kind resembling cheroots
and wrapped in tobacco leaf. I thought it strange that having thus
emphasized Madame’s nationality he did not feel it incumbent upon him to
explain the mystery of their kinship. However, he made no attempt to do
so, and almost before we had lighted up, a racy little two-seater was
driven around the gravel path by Carter, the chauffeur who had brought
us to Cray’s Folly from London.

The man descended and began to arrange wraps and cushions, and a few
moments later back came Madame again, dressed for driving. Carter
was about to lift her into the car when Colonel Menendez stood up and
advanced.

“Sit down, Juan, sit down!” said Madame, sharply.

A look of keen anxiety, I had almost said of pain, leapt into her eyes,
and the Colonel hesitated.

“How often must I tell you,” continued the throbbing voice, “that you
must not exert yourself.”

Colonel Menendez accepted the rebuke humbly, but the incident struck
me as grotesque; for it was difficult to associate delicacy with such a
fine specimen of well-preserved manhood as the Colonel.

However, Carter performed the duty of assisting Madame into her little
car, and when for a moment he supported her upright, before placing
her among the cushions, I noted that she was a tall woman, slender and
elegant.

All smiles and light, sparkling conversation, she settled herself
comfortably at the wheel and Val Beverley got in beside her. Madame
nodded to Carter in dismissal, waved her hand to Colonel Menendez, cried
“Au revoir!” and then away went the little car, swinging around the
angle of the house and out of sight.

Our host stood bare-headed upon the veranda listening to the sound
of the engine dying away among the trees. He seemed to be lost in
reflection from which he only aroused himself when the purr of the motor
became inaudible.

“And now, gentlemen,” he said, and suppressed a sigh, “we have much to
talk about. This spot is cool, but is it sufficiently private? Perhaps,
Mr. Harley, you would prefer to talk in the library?”

Paul Harley flicked ash from the end of his cigarette.

“Better still in your own study, Colonel Menendez,” he replied.

“What, do you suspect eavesdroppers?” asked the Colonel, his manner
becoming momentarily agitated.

He looked at Harley as though he suspected the latter of possessing
private information.

“We should neglect no possible precaution,” answered my friend. “That
agencies inimical to your safety are focussed upon the house your own
statement amply demonstrates.”

Colonel Menendez seemed to be on the point of speaking again, but he
checked himself and in silence led the way through the ornate library
to a smaller room which opened out of it, and which was furnished as a
study.

Here the motif was distinctly one of officialdom. Although the Southern
element was not lacking, it was not so marked as in the library or in
the hall. The place was appointed for utility rather than ornament.
Everything was in perfect order. In the library, with the blinds drawn,
one might have supposed oneself in Trinidad; in the study, under similar
conditions, one might equally well have imagined Downing Street to lie
outside the windows. Essentially, this was the workroom of a man of
affairs.

Having settled ourselves comfortably, Paul Harley opened the
conversation.

“In several particulars,” said he, “I find my information to be
incomplete.”

He consulted the back of an envelope, upon which, I presumed during the
afternoon, he had made a number of pencilled notes.

“For instance,” he continued, “your detection of someone watching the
house, and subsequently of someone forcing an entrance, had no visible
association with the presence of the bat wing attached to your front
door?”

“No,” replied the Colonel, slowly, “these episodes took place a month
ago.”

“Exactly a month ago?”

“They took place immediately before the last full moon.”

“Ah, before the full moon. And because you associate the activities of
Voodoo with the full moon, you believe that the old menace has again
become active?”

The Colonel nodded emphatically. He was busily engaged in rolling one of
his eternal cigarettes.

“This belief of yours was recently confirmed by the discovery of the bat
wing?”

“I no longer doubted,” said Colonel Menendez, shrugging his shoulders.
“How could I?”

“Quite so,” murmured Harley, absently, and evidently pursuing some
private train of thought. “And now, I take it that your suspicions, if
expressed in words would amount to this: During your last visit to Cuba
you (_a_) either killed some high priest of Voodoo, or (_b_) seriously
injured him? Assuming the first theory to be the correct one, your death
was determined upon by the sect over which he had formerly presided.
Assuming the second to be accurate, however, it is presumably the man
himself for whom we must look. Now, Colonel Menendez, kindly inform me
if you recall the name of this man?”

“I recall it very well,” replied the Colonel. “His name was M’kombo, and
he was a Benin negro.”

“Assuming that he is still alive, what, roughly, would his age be
to-day?”

The Colonel seemed to meditate, pushing a box of long Martinique cigars
across the table in my direction.

“He would be an old man,” he pronounced. “I, myself, am fifty-two, and I
should say that M’kombo if alive to-day would be nearer to seventy than
sixty.”

“Ah,” murmured Harley, “and did he speak English?”

“A few words, I believe.”

Paul Harley fixed his gaze upon the dark, aquiline face.

“In short,” he said, “do you really suspect that it was M’kombo whose
shadow you saw upon the lawn, who a month ago made a midnight entrance
into Cray’s Folly, and who recently pinned a bat wing to the door?”

Colonel Menendez seemed somewhat taken aback by this direct question. “I
cannot believe it,” he confessed.

“Do you believe that this order or religion of Voodooism has any
existence outside those places where African negroes or descendents of
negroes are settled?”

“I should not have been prepared to believe it, Mr. Harley, prior to my
experiences in Washington and elsewhere.”

“Then you do believe that there are representatives of this cult to be
met with in Europe and America?”

“I should have been prepared to believe it possible in America, for in
America there are many negroes, but in England----”

Again he shrugged his shoulders.

“I would remind you,” said Harley, quietly, “that there are also quite a
number of negroes in England. If you seriously believe Voodoo to follow
negro migration, I can see no objection to assuming it to be a universal
cult.”

“Such an idea is incredible.”

“Yet by what other hypothesis,” asked Harley, “are we to cover the facts
of your own case as stated by yourself? Now,” he consulted his pencilled
notes, “there is another point. I gather that these African sorcerers
rely largely upon what I may term intimidation. In other words, they
claim the power of wishing an enemy to death.”

He raised his eyes and stared grimly at the Colonel.

“I should not like to suppose that a man of your courage and culture
could subscribe to such a belief.”

“I do not, sir,” declared the Colonel, warmly. “No Obeah man could ever
exercise his will upon _me!_”

“Yet, if I may say so,” murmured Harley, “your will to live seems to
have become somewhat weakened.”

“What do you mean?”

Colonel Menendez stood up, his delicate nostrils dilated. He glared
angrily at Harley.

“I mean that I perceive a certain resignation in your manner of which I
do not approve.”

“You do not _approve?_” said Colonel Menendez, softly; and I thought
as he stood looking down upon my friend that I had rarely seen a more
formidable figure.

Paul Harley had roused him unaccountably, and knowing my friend for a
master of tact I knew also that this had been deliberate, although I
could not even dimly perceive his object.

“I occupy the position of a specialist,” Harley continued, “and you
occupy that of my patient. Now, you cannot disguise from me that your
mental opposition to this danger which threatens has become slackened.
Allow me to remind you that the strongest defence is counter-attack.
You are angry, Colonel Menendez, but I would rather see you angry than
apathetic. To come to my last point. You spoke of a neighbour in terms
which led me to suppose that you suspected him of some association with
your enemies. May I ask for the name of this person?”

Colonel Menendez sat down again, puffing furiously at his cigarette,
whilst beginning to roll another. He was much disturbed, was fighting to
regain mastery of himself.

“I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” he said, “for a breach of
good behaviour which really was unforgivable. I was angry when I should
have been grateful. Much that you have said is true. Because it is true,
I despise myself.”

He flashed a glance at Paul Harley.

“Awake,” he continued, “I care for no man breathing, black or white; but
_asleep_”--he shrugged his shoulders. “It is in sleep that these dealers
in unclean things obtain their advantage.”

“You excite my curiosity,” declared Harley.

“Listen,” Colonel Menendez bent forward, resting his elbows upon his
knees. Between the yellow fingers of his left hand he held the newly
completed cigarette whilst he continued to puff vigorously at the old
one. “You recollect my speaking of the death of a certain native girl?”

Paul Harley nodded.

“The real cause of her death was never known, but I obtained evidence to
show that on the night after the wing of a bat had been attached to her
hut, she wandered out in her sleep and visited the Black Belt. Can you
doubt that someone was calling her?”

“Calling her?”

“Mr. Harley, she was obeying the call of M’kombo!”

“The _call_ of M’kombo? You refer to some kind of hypnotic suggestions?”

“I illustrate,” replied the Colonel, “to help to make clear something
which I have to tell you. On the night when last the moon was full--on
the night after someone had entered the house--I had retired early to
bed. Suddenly I awoke, feeling very cold. I awoke, I say, and where do
you suppose I found myself?”

“I am all anxiety to hear.”

“On the point of entering the Tudor garden--you call it Tudor
garden?--which is visible from the window of your room!”

“Most extraordinary,” murmured Harley; “and you were in your night
attire?”

“I was.”

“And what had awakened you?”

“An accident. I believe a lucky accident. I had cut my bare foot upon
the gravel and the pain awakened me.”

“You had no recollection of any dream which had prompted you to go down
into the garden?”

“None whatever.”

“Does your room face in that direction?”

“It does not. It faces the lake on the south of the house. I had
descended to a side door, unbarred it, and walked entirely around the
east wing before I awakened.”

“Your room faces the lake,” murmured Harley.

“Yes.”

Their glances met, and in Paul Harley’s expression there seemed to be a
challenge.

“You have not yet told me,” said he, “the name of your neighbour.”

Colonel Menendez lighted his new cigarette.

“Mr. Harley,” he confessed, “I regret that I ever referred to this
suspicion of mine. Indeed it is hardly a suspicion, it is what I may
call a desperate doubt. Do you say that, a desperate doubt?”

“I think I follow you,” said Harley.

“The fact is this, I only know of one person within ten miles of Cray’s
Folly who has ever visited Cuba.”

“Ah.”

“I have no other scrap of evidence to associate him I with my shadowy
enemy. This being so, you will pardon me if I ask you to forget that I
ever referred to his existence.”

He spoke the words with a sort of lofty finality, and accompanied them
with a gesture of the hands which really left Harley no alternative but
to drop the subject.

Again their glances met, and it was patent to me that underlying all
this conversation was something beyond my ken. What it was that Harley
suspected I could not imagine, nor what it was that Colonel Menendez
desired to conceal; but tension was in the very air. The Spaniard was on
the defensive, and Paul Harley was puzzled, irritated.

It was a strange interview, and one which in the light of after events
I recognized to possess extraordinary significance. That sixth sense of
Harley’s was awake, was prompting him, but to what extent he understood
its promptings at that hour I did not know, and have never known to
this day. Intuitively, I believe, as he sat there staring at Colonel
Menendez, he began to perceive the shadow within a shadow which was the
secret of Cray’s Folly, which was the thing called Bat Wing, which was
the devilish force at that very hour alive and potent in our midst.




CHAPTER IX

OBEAH



This conversation in Colonel Menendez’s study produced a very unpleasant
impression upon my mind. The atmosphere of Cray’s Folly seemed to become
charged with unrest. Of Madame de Stämer and Miss Beverley I saw nothing
up to the time that I retired to dress. Having dressed I walked into
Harley’s room, anxious to learn if he had formed any theory to account
for the singular business which had brought us to Surrey.

Harley had excused himself directly we had left the study, stating that
he wished to get to the village post-office in time to send a telegram
to London. Our host had suggested a messenger, but this, as well as the
offer of a car, Harley had declined, saying that the exercise would aid
reflection. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find his room empty, for I
could not imagine why the sending of a telegram should have detained him
so long.

Dusk was falling, and viewed from the open window the Tudor garden below
looked very beautiful, part of it lying in a sort of purplish shadow
and the rest being mystically lighted as though viewed through a golden
veil. To the whole picture a sort of magic quality was added by a speck
of high-light which rested upon the face of the old sun-dial.

I thought that here was a fit illustration for a fairy tale; then I
remembered the Colonel’s account of how he had awakened in the act
of entering this romantic plaisance, and I was touched anew by an
unrestfulness, by a sense of the uncanny.

I observed a book lying upon the dressing table, and concluding that it
was one which Harley had brought with him, I took it up, glancing at the
title. It was “Negro Magic,” and switching on the light, for there was a
private electric plant in Cray’s Folly, I opened the book at random and
began to read.

“The religion of the negro,” said this authority, “is emotional, and
more often than not associated with beliefs in witchcraft and in the
rites known as Voodoo or Obi Mysteries. It has been endeavoured by
some students to show that these are relics of the Fetish worship of
equatorial Africa, but such a genealogy has never been satisfactorily
demonstrated. The cannibalistic rituals, human sacrifices, and obscene
ceremonies resembling those of the Black Sabbath of the Middle Ages,
reported to prevail in Haiti and other of the islands, and by some among
the negroes of the Southern States of America, may be said to rest on
doubtful authority. Nevertheless, it is a fact beyond doubt that among
the negroes both of the West Indies and the United States there is a
widespread belief in the powers of the Obeah man. A native who believes
himself to have come under the spell of such a sorcerer will sink into a
kind of decline and sometimes die.”

At this point I discovered several paragraphs underlined in pencil, and
concluding that the underlining had been done by Paul Harley, I read
them with particular care. They were as follows: “According to Hesketh
J. Bell, the term Obeah is most probably derived from the substantive
Obi, a word used on the East coast of Africa to denote witchcraft,
sorcery, and fetishism in general. The etymology of Obi has been traced
to a very antique source, stretching far back into Egyptian mythology.
A serpent in the Egyptian language was called Ob or Aub. Obion is still
the Egyptian name for a serpent. Moses, in the name of God, forbade the
Israelites ever to enquire of the demon, Ob, which is translated in our
Bible: Charmer or wizard, divinator or sorcerer. The Witch of Endor is
called Oub or Ob, translated Pythonissa; and Oubois was the name of the
basilisk or royal serpent, emblem of the Sun and an ancient oracular
deity of Africa.”

A paragraph followed which was doubly underlined, and pursuing my
reading I made a discovery which literally caused me to hold my breath.
This is what I read:

“In a recent contribution to the _Occult Review_, Mr. Colin Camber, the
American authority, offered some very curious particulars in support
of a theory to show that whereas snakes and scorpions have always been
recognized as sacred by Voodoo worshippers, the real emblem of their
unclean religion is the bat, especially _the Vampire Bat of South
America._

“He pointed out that the symptoms of one dying beneath the spell of an
Obeah man are closely paralleled in the cases of men and animals who
have suffered from nocturnal attacks of blood-sucking bats.”

I laid the open book down upon the bed. My brain was in a tumult.
The several theories, or outlines of theories which hitherto I had
entertained, were, by these simple paragraphs, cast into the utmost
disorder. I thought of the Colonel’s covert references to a neighbour
whom he feared, of his guarded statement that the devotees of Voodoo
were not confined to the West Indies, of the attack upon him in
Washington, of the bat wing pinned to the door of Cray’s Folly.

Incredulously, I thought of my acquaintance of the Lavender Arms, with
his bemused expression and his magnificent brow; and a great doubt and
wonder grew up in my mind.

I became increasingly impatient for the return of Paul Harley. I felt
that a clue of the first importance had fallen into my possession; so
that when, presently, as I walked impatiently up and down the room, the
door opened and Harley entered, I greeted him excitedly.

“Harley!” I cried, “Harley! I have learned a most extraordinary thing!”

Even as I spoke and looked into the keen, eager face, the expression
in Harley’s eyes struck me. I recognized that in him, too, intense
excitement was pent up. Furthermore, he was in one of his irritable
moods. But, full of my own discoveries:

“I chanced to glance at this book,” I continued, “whilst I was waiting
for you. You have underlined certain passages.”

He stared at me queerly.

“I discovered the book in my own library after you had gone last night,
Knox, and it was then that I marked the passages which struck me as
significant.”

“But, Harley,” I cried, “the man who is quoted here, Colin Camber, lives
in this very neighbourhood!”

“I know.”

“What! You know?”

“I learned it from Inspector Aylesbury of the County Police half an hour
ago.”

Harley frowned perplexedly. “Then, why, in Heaven’s name didn’t you tell
me?” he exclaimed. “It would have saved me a most disagreeable journey
into Market Hilton.”

“Market Hilton! What, have you been into the town?”

“That is exactly where I have been, Knox. I ‘phoned through to Innes
from the village post-office after lunch to have the car sent down.
There is a convenient garage by the Lavender Arms.”

“But the Colonel has three cars,” I exclaimed.

“The horse has four legs,” replied Harley, irritably, “but although I
have only two, there are times when I prefer to use them. I am still
wondering why you failed to mention this piece of information when you
had obtained it.”

“My dear Harley,” said I, patiently, “how could I possibly be expected
to attach any importance to the matter? You must remember that at the
time I had never seen this work on negro sorcery.”

“No,” said Harley, dropping down upon the bed, “that is perfectly true,
Knox. I am afraid I have a liver at times; a distinct Indian liver.
Excuse me, old man, but to tell you the truth I feel strangely inclined
to pack my bag and leave for London without a moment’s delay.”

“What!” I cried.

“Oh, I know you would be sorry to go, Knox,” said Harley, smiling,
“and so, for many reasons, should I. But I have the strongest possible
objection to being trifled with.”

“I am afraid I don’t quite understand you, Harley.”

“Well, just consider the matter for a moment. Do you suppose that
Colonel Menendez is ignorant of the fact that his nearest neighbour is a
recognized authority upon Voodoo and allied subjects?”

“You are speaking, of course, of Colin Camber?”

“Of none other.”

“No,” I replied, thoughtfully, “the Colonel must know, of course, that
Camber resides in the neighbourhood.”

“And that he knows something of the nature of Camber’s studies his
remarks sufficiently indicate,” added Harley. “The whole theory to
account for these attacks upon his life rests on the premise that agents
of these Obeah people are established in England and America. Then, in
spite of my direct questions, he leaves me to find out for myself that
Colin Camber’s property practically adjoins his own!”

“Really! Does he reside so near as that?”

“My dear fellow,” cried Harley, “he lives at a place called the Guest
House. You can see it from part of the grounds of Cray’s Folly. We were
looking at it to-day.”

“What! the house on the hillside?”

“That’s the Guest House! What do you make of it, Knox? That Menendez
suspects this man is beyond doubt. Why should he hesitate to mention his
name?”

“Well,” I replied, slowly, “probably because to associate practical
sorcery and assassination with such a character would be preposterous.”

“But the man is admittedly a student of these things, Knox.”

“He may be, and that he is a genius of some kind I am quite prepared to
believe. But having had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Colin Camber, I am
not prepared to believe him capable of murder.”

I suppose I spoke with a certain air of triumph, for Paul Harley
regarded me silently for a while.

“You seem to be taking this case out of my hands, Knox,” he said.
“Whilst I have been systematically at work racing about the county in
quest of information you would appear to have blundered further into the
labyrinth than all my industry has enabled me to do.”

He remained in a very evil humour, and now the cause of this suddenly
came to light.

“I have spent a thoroughly unpleasant afternoon,” he continued,
“interviewing an impossible country policeman who had never heard of my
existence!”

This display of human resentment honestly delighted me. It was
refreshing to know that the omniscient Paul Harley was capable of pique.

“One, Inspector Aylesbury,” he went on, bitterly, “a large person
bearing a really interesting resemblance to a walrus, but lacking that
creature’s intelligence. It was not until Superintendent East had spoken
to him from Scotland Yard that he ceased to treat me as a suspect. But
his new attitude was almost more provoking than the old one. He adopted
the manner of a regimental sergeant-major reluctantly interviewing
a private with a grievance. If matters should so develop that we are
compelled to deal with that fish-faced idiot, God help us all!”

He burst out laughing, his good humour suddenly quite restored, and
taking out his pipe began industriously to load it.

“I can smoke while I am changing,” he said, “and you can sit there and
tell me all about Colin Camber.”

I did as he requested, and Harley, who could change quicker than any
man I had ever known, had just finished tying his bow as I completed my
story of the encounter at the Lavender Arms.

“Hm,” he muttered, as I ceased speaking. “At every turn I realize that
without you I should have been lost, Knox. I am afraid I shall have to
change your duties to-morrow.”

“Change my duties? What do you mean?”

“I warn you that the new ones will be less pleasant than the old! In
other words, I must ask you to tear yourself away from Miss Val
Beverley for an hour in the morning, and take advantage of Mr. Camber’s
invitation to call upon him.”

“Frankly, I doubt if he would acknowledge me.”

“Nevertheless, you have a better excuse than I. In the circumstances it
is most important that we should get in touch with this man.”

“Very well,” I said, ruefully. “I will do my best. But you don’t
seriously think, Harley, that the danger comes from there?”

Paul Harley took his dinner jacket from the chair upon which the man had
laid it out, and turned to me.

“My dear Knox,” he said, “you may remember that I spoke, recently, of
retiring from this profession?”

“You did.”

“My retirement will not be voluntary, Knox. I shall be kicked out as
an incompetent ass; for, respecting the connection, if any, between the
narrative of Colonel Menendez, the bat wing nailed to the door of the
house, and Mr. Colin Camber, I have not the foggiest notion. In this, at
last, I have triumphed over Auguste Dupin. Auguste Dupin never confessed
defeat.”




CHAPTER X

THE NIGHT WALKER



If luncheon had seemed extravagant, dinner at Cray’s Folly proved to be
a veritable Roman banquet. To associate ideas of selfishness with Miss
Beverley was hateful, but the more I learned of the luxurious life of
this queer household hidden away in the Surrey Hills the less I wondered
at any one’s consenting to share such exile. I had hitherto counted an
American freak dinner, organized by a lucky plunger and held at the Café
de Paris, as the last word in extravagant feasting. But I learned now
that what was caviare in Monte Carlo was ordinary fare at Cray’s Folly.

Colonel Menendez was an epicure with an endless purse. The excellence of
one of the courses upon which I had commented led to a curious incident.

“You approve of the efforts of my chef?” said the Colonel.

“He is worthy of his employer,” I replied.

Colonel Menendez bowed in his cavalierly fashion and Madame de Stämer
positively beamed upon me.

“You shall speak for him,” said the Spaniard. “He was with me in Cuba,
but has no reputation in London. There are hotels that would snap him
up.”

I looked at the speaker in surprise.

“Surely he is not leaving you?” I asked.

The Colonel exhibited a momentary embarrassment.

“No, no. No, no,” he replied, waving his hand gracefully, “I was only
thinking that he--” there was a scarcely perceptible pause--“might wish
to better himself. You understand?”

I understood only too well; and recollecting the words spoken by Paul
Harley that afternoon, respecting the Colonel’s will to live, I became
conscious of an uncomfortable sense of chill.

If I had doubted that in so speaking he had been contemplating his own
death, the behaviour of Madame de Stämer must have convinced me. Her
complexion was slightly but cleverly made up, with all the exquisite
art of the Parisienne, but even through the artificial bloom I saw her
cheeks blanch. Her face grew haggard and her eyes burned unnaturally.
She turned quickly aside to address Paul Harley, but I knew that the
significance of this slight episode had not escaped him.

He was by no means at ease. In the first place, he was badly puzzled;
in the second place, he was angry. He felt it incumbent upon him to save
this man from a menace which he, Paul Harley, evidently recognized to be
real, although to me it appeared wildly chimerical, and the very person
upon whose active coöperation he naturally counted not only seemed
resigned to his fate, but by deliberate omission of important data added
to Harley’s difficulties.

How much of this secret drama proceeding in Cray’s Folly was appreciated
by Val Beverley I could not determine. On this occasion, I remember,
she was simply but perfectly dressed and, in my eyes, seemed the most
sweetly desirable woman I had ever known. Realizing that I had already
revealed my interest in the girl, I was oddly self-conscious, and a
hundred times during the progress of dinner I glanced across at Harley,
expecting to detect his quizzical smile. He was very stern, however, and
seemed more reserved than usual. He was uncertain of his ground, I
could see. He resented the understanding which evidently existed between
Colonel Menendez and Madame de Stämer, and to which, although his aid
had been sought, he was not admitted.

It seemed to me, personally, that an almost palpable shadow lay upon
the room. Although, save for this one lapse, our host throughout talked
gaily and entertainingly, I was obsessed by a memory of the expression
which I had detected upon his face that morning, the expression of a
doomed man.

What, in Heaven’s name, I asked myself, did it all mean? If ever I saw
the fighting spirit looking out of any man’s eyes, it looked out of the
eyes of Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez. Why, then, did he lie down to the
menace of this mysterious Bat Wing, and if he counted opposition futile,
why had he summoned Paul Harley to Cray’s Folly?

With the passing of every moment I sympathized more fully with the
perplexity of my friend, and no longer wondered that even his highly
specialized faculties had failed to detect an explanation.

Remembering Colin Camber as I had seen him at the Lavender Arms, it was
simply impossible to suppose that such a man as Menendez could fear such
a man as Camber. True, I had seen the latter at a disadvantage, and
I knew well enough that many a genius has been also a drunkard. But
although I was prepared to find that Colin Camber possessed genius, I
found it hard to believe that this was of a criminal type. That such a
character could be the representative of some remote negro society was
an idea too grotesque to be entertained for a moment.

I was tempted to believe that his presence in the neighbourhood of this
haunted Cuban was one of those strange coincidences which in criminal
history have sometimes proved so tragic for their victims.

Madame de Stämer, avoiding the Colonel’s glances, which were
pathetically apologetic, gradually recovered herself, and:

“My dear,” she said to Val Beverley, “you look perfectly sweet to-night.
Don’t you think she looks perfectly sweet, Mr. Knox?”

Ignoring a look of entreaty from the blue-gray eyes:

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“Oh, Mr. Knox,” cried the girl, “why do you encourage her? She says
embarrassing things like that every time I put on a new dress.”

Her reference to a new dress set me speculating again upon the apparent
anomaly of her presence at Cray’s Folly. That she was not a professional
“companion” was clear enough. I assumed that her father had left her
suitably provided for, since she wore such expensively simple gowns. She
had a delightful trick of blushing when attention was focussed upon her,
and said Madame de Stämer:

“To be able to blush like that I would give my string of pearls--no,
half of it.”

“My dear Marie,” declared Colonel Menendez, “I have seen you blush
perfectly.”

“No, no,” Madame disclaimed the suggestion with one of those Bernhardt
gestures, “I blushed my last blush when my second husband introduced me
to my first husband’s wife.”

“Madame!” exclaimed Val Beverley, “how can you say such things?” She
turned to me. “Really, Mr. Knox, they are all fables.”

“In fables we renew our youth,” said Madame.

“Ah,” sighed Colonel Menendez; “our youth, our youth.”

“Why sigh, Juan, why regret?” cried Madame, immediately. “Old age is
only tragic to those who have never been young.”

She directed a glance toward him as she spoke those words, and as I had
felt when I had seen his tragic face on the veranda that morning I felt
again in detecting this look of Madame de Stämer’s. The yearning yet
selfless love which it expressed was not for my eyes to witness.

“Thank God, Marie,” replied the Colonel, and gallantly kissed his hand
to her, “we have both been young, gloriously young.”

When, at the termination of this truly historic dinner, the ladies left
us:

“Remember, Juan,” said Madame, raising her white, jewelled hand, and
holding the fingers characteristically curled, “no excitement, no
billiards, no cards.”

Colonel Menendez bowed deeply, as the invalid wheeled herself from the
room, followed by Miss Beverley. My heart was beating delightfully, for
in the moment of departure the latter had favoured me with a significant
glance, which seemed to say, “I am looking forward to a chat with you
presently.”

“Ah,” said Colonel Menendez, when we three men found ourselves alone,
“truly I am blessed in the autumn of my life with such charming
companionship. Beauty and wit, youth and discretion. Is he not a happy
man who possesses all these?”

“He should be,” said Harley, gravely.

The saturnine Pedro entered with some wonderful crusted port, and
Colonel Menendez offered cigars.

“I believe you are a pipe-smoker,” said our courteous host to Harley,
“and if this is so, I know that you will prefer your favourite mixture
to any cigar that ever was rolled.”

“Many thanks,” said Harley, to whom no more delicate compliment could
have been paid.

He was indeed an inveterate pipe-smoker, and only rarely did he truly
enjoy a cigar, however choice its pedigree. With a sigh of content
he began to fill his briar. His mood was more restful, and covertly I
watched him studying our host. The night remained very warm and one of
the two windows of the dining room, which was the most homely apartment
in Cray’s Folly, was wide open, offering a prospect of sweeping velvet
lawns touched by the magic of the moonlight.

A short silence fell, to be broken by the Colonel.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I trust you do not regret your fishing
excursion?”

“I could cheerfully pass the rest of my days in such ideal
surroundings,” replied Paul Harley.

I nodded in agreement.

“But,” continued my friend, speaking very deliberately, “I have
to remember that I am here upon business, and that my professional
reputation is perhaps at stake.”

He stared very hard at Colonel Menendez.

“I have spoken with your butler, known as Pedro, and with some of the
other servants, and have learned all that there is to be learned about
the person unknown who gained admittance to the house a month ago, and
concerning the wing of a bat, found attached to the door more recently.”

“And to what conclusion have you come?” asked Colonel Menendez, eagerly.

He bent forward, resting his elbows upon his knees, a pose which he
frequently adopted. He was smoking a cigar, but his total absorption in
the topic under discussion was revealed by the fact that from a pocket
in his dinner jacket he had taken out a portion of tobacco, had laid
it in a slip of rice paper, and was busily rolling one of his eternal
cigarettes.

“I might be enabled to come to one,” replied Harley, “if you would
answer a very simple question.”

“What is this question?”

“It is this--Have you any idea who nailed the bat’s wing to your door?”

Colonel Menendez’s eyes opened very widely, and his face became more
aquiline than ever.

“You have heard my story, Mr. Harley,” he replied, softly. “If I know
the explanation, why do I come to you?”

Paul Harley puffed at his pipe. His expression did not alter in the
slightest.

“I merely wondered if your suspicions tended in the direction of Mr.
Colin Camber,” he said.

“Colin Camber!”

As the Colonel spoke the name either I became victim of a strange
delusion or his face was momentarily convulsed. If my senses served me
aright then his pronouncing of the words “Colin Camber” occasioned him
positive agony. He clutched the arms of his chair, striving, I thought,
to retain composure, and in this he succeeded, for when he spoke again
his voice was quite normal.

“Have you any particular reason for your remark, Mr. Harley?”

“I have a reason,” replied Paul Harley, “but don’t misunderstand me. I
suggest nothing against Mr. Camber. I should be glad, however, to know
if you are acquainted with him?”

“We have never met.”

“You possibly know him by repute?”

“I have heard of him, Mr. Harley. But to be perfectly frank, I have
little in common with citizens of the United States.”

A note of arrogance, which at times crept into his high, thin voice,
became perceptible now, and the aristocratic, aquiline face looked very
supercilious.

How the conversation would have developed I know not, but at this
moment Pedro entered and delivered a message in Spanish to the Colonel,
whereupon the latter arose and with very profuse apologies begged
permission to leave us for a few moments.

When he had retired:

“I am going upstairs to write a letter, Knox,” said Paul Harley. “Carry
on with your old duties to-day, your new ones do not commence until
to-morrow.”

With that he laughed and walked out of the dining room, leaving me
wondering whether to be grateful or annoyed. However, it did not take me
long to find my way to the drawing room where the two ladies were seated
side by side upon a settee, Madame’s chair having been wheeled into a
corner.

“Ah, Mr. Knox,” exclaimed Madame as I entered, “have the others
deserted, then?”

“Scarcely deserted, I think. They are merely straggling.”

“Absent without leave,” murmured Val Beverley.

I laughed, and drew up a chair. Madame de Stämer was smoking, but Miss
Beverley was not. Accordingly, I offered her a cigarette, which she
accepted, and as I was lighting it with elaborate care, every moment
finding a new beauty in her charming face, Pedro again appeared and
addressed some remark in Spanish to Madame.

“My chair, Pedro,” she said; “I will come at once.”

The Spanish butler wheeled the chair across to the settee, and lifting
her with an ease which spoke of long practice, placed her amidst the
cushions where she spent so many hours of her life.

“I know you will excuse me, dear,” she said to Val Beverley, “because I
feel sure that Mr. Knox will do his very best to make up for my absence.
Presently, I shall be back.”

Pedro holding the door open, she went wheeling out, and I found myself
alone with Val Beverley.

At the time I was much too delighted to question the circumstances which
had led to this tête-à-tête, but had I cared to give the matter any
consideration, it must have presented rather curious features. The call
first of host and then of hostess was inconsistent with the courtesy of
the master of Cray’s Folly, which, like the appointments of his home and
his mode of life, was elaborate. But these ideas did not trouble me at
the moment.

Suddenly, however, indeed before I had time to speak, the girl started
and laid her hand upon my arm.

“Did you hear something?” she whispered, “a queer sort of sound?”

“No,” I replied, “what kind of sound?”

“An odd sort of sound, almost like--the flapping of wings.”

I saw that she had turned pale, I saw the confirmation of something
which I had only partly realised before: that her life at Cray’s Folly
was a constant fight against some haunting shadow. Her gaiety, her
lightness, were but a mask. For now, in those wide-open eyes, I read
absolute horror.

“Miss Beverley,” I said, grasping her hand reassuringly, “you alarm me.
What has made you so nervous to-night?”

“To-night!” she echoed, “to-night? It is every night. If you had not
come--” she corrected herself--“if someone had not come, I don’t think I
could have stayed. I am sure I could not have stayed.”

“Doubtless the attempted burglary alarmed you?” I suggested, intending
to sooth her fears.

“Burglary?” She smiled unmirthfully. “It was no burglary.”

“Why do you say so, Miss Beverley?”

“Do you think I don’t know why Mr. Harley is here?” she challenged. “Oh,
believe me, I know--I know. I, too, saw the bat’s wing nailed to the
door, Mr. Knox. You are surely not going to suggest that this was the
work of a burglar?”

I seated myself beside her on the settee.

“You have great courage,” I said. “Believe me, I quite understand all
that you have suffered.”

“Is my acting so poor?” she asked, with a pathetic smile.

“No, it is wonderful, but to a sympathetic observer only acting,
nevertheless.”

I noted that my presence reassured her, and was much comforted by this
fact.

“Would you like to tell me all about it,” I continued; “or would this
merely renew your fears?”

“I should like to tell you,” she replied in a low voice, glancing about
her as if to make sure that we were alone. “Except for odd people,
friends, I suppose, of the Colonel’s, we have had so few visitors since
we have been at Cray’s Folly. Apart from all sorts of queer happenings
which really”--she laughed nervously--“may have no significance
whatever, the crowning mystery to my mind is why Colonel Menendez should
have leased this huge house.”

“He does not entertain very much, then?”

“Scarcely at all. The ‘County’--do you know what I mean by the
‘County?’--began by receiving him with open arms and ended by sending
him to Coventry. His lavish style of entertainment they labelled
‘swank’--horrible word but very expressive! They concluded that they
did not understand him, and of everything they don’t understand they
disapprove. So after the first month or so it became very lonely
at Cray’s Folly. Our foreign servants--there are five of them
altogether--got us a dreadfully bad name. Then, little by little, a sort
of cloud seemed to settle on everything. The Colonel made two visits
abroad, I don’t know exactly where he went, but on his return from the
first visit Madame de Stämer changed.”

“Changed?--in what way?”

“I am afraid it would be hopeless to try to make you understand, Mr.
Knox, but in some subtle way she changed. Underneath all her vivacity
she is a tragic woman, and--oh, how can I explain?” Val Beverley made a
little gesture of despair.

“Perhaps you mean,” I suggested, “that she seemed to become even less
happy than before?”

“Yes,” she replied, looking at me eagerly. “Has Colonel Menendez told
you anything to account for it?”

“Nothing,” I said, “He has left us strangely in the dark. But you say he
went abroad on a second and more recent occasion?”

“Yes, not much more than a month ago. And after that, somehow or
other, matters seemed to come to a head. I confess I became horribly
frightened, but to have left would have seemed like desertion, and
Madame de Stämer has been so good to me.”

“Did you actually witness any of the episodes which took place about a
month ago?”

Val Beverley shook her head.

“I never saw anything really definite,” she replied.

“Yet, evidently you either saw or heard something which alarmed you.”

“Yes, that is true, but it is so difficult to explain.”

“Could you try to explain?”

“I will try if you wish, for really I am longing to talk to someone
about it. For instance, on several occasions I have heard footsteps in
the corridor outside my room.”

“At night?”

“Yes, at night.”

“Strange footsteps?”

She nodded.

“That is the uncanny part of it. You know how familiar one grows with
the footsteps of persons living in the same house? Well, these footsteps
were quite unfamiliar to me.”

“And you say they passed your door?”

“Yes. My rooms are almost directly overhead. And right at the end of the
corridor, that is on the southeast corner of the building, is Colonel
Menendez’s bedroom, and facing it a sort of little smoke-room. It was in
this direction that the footsteps went.”

“To Colonel Menendez’s room?”

“Yes. They were light, furtive footsteps.”

“This took place late at night?”

“Quite late, long after everyone had retired.”

She paused, staring at me with a sort of embarrassment, and presently:

“Were the footsteps those of a man or a woman?” I asked.

“Of a woman. Someone, Mr. Knox,” she bent forward, and that look of fear
began to creep into her eyes again, “with whose footsteps I was quite
unfamiliar.”

“You mean a stranger to the house?”

“Yes. Oh, it was uncanny.” She shuddered. “The first time I heard it I
had been lying awake listening. I was nervous. Madame de Stämer had
told me that morning that the Colonel had seen someone lurking about
the lawns on the previous night. Then, as I lay awake listening for
the slightest sound, I suddenly detected these footsteps; and they
paused--right outside my door.”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“Frankly, I was too frightened to do anything. I just lay still with my
heart beating horribly, and presently they passed on, and I heard them
no more.”

“Was your door locked?”

“No.” She laughed nervously. “But it has been locked every night since
then!”

“And these sounds were repeated on other nights?”

“Yes, I have often heard them, Mr. Knox. What makes it so strange is
that all the servants sleep out in the west wing, as you know, and Pedro
locks the communicating door every night before retiring.”

“It is certainly strange,” I muttered.

“It is horrible,” declared the girl, almost in a whisper. “For what can
it mean except that there is someone in Cray’s Folly who is never seen
during the daytime?”

“But that is incredible.”

“It is not so incredible in a big house like this. Besides, what other
explanation can there be?”

“There must be one,” I said, reassuringly. “Have you spoken of this to
Madame de Stämer?”

“Yes.”

Val Beverley’s expression grew troubled.

“Had she any explanation to offer?”

“None. Her attitude mystified me very much. Indeed, instead of
reassuring me, she frightened me more than ever by her very silence.
I grew to dread the coming of each night. Then--” she hesitated again,
looking at me pathetically--“twice I have been awakened by a loud cry.”

“What kind of cry?”

“I could not tell you, Mr. Knox. You see I have always been asleep when
it has come, but I have sat up trembling and dimly aware that what had
awakened me was a cry of some kind.”

“You have no idea from whence it proceeded?”

“None whatever. Of course, all these things may seem trivial to you, and
possibly they can be explained in quite a simple way. But this feeling
of something pending has grown almost unendurable. Then, I don’t
understand Madame and the Colonel at all.”

She suddenly stopped speaking and flushed with embarrassment.

“If you mean that Madame de Stämer is in love with her cousin, I agree
with you,” I said, quietly.

“Oh, is it so evident as that?” murmured Val Beverley. She laughed to
cover her confusion. “I wish I could understand what it all means.”

At this point our tête-à-tête was interrupted by the return of Madame de
Stämer.

“Oh, la la!” she cried, “the Colonel must have allowed himself to become
too animated this evening. He is threatened with one of his attacks and
I have insisted upon his immediate retirement. He makes his apologies,
but knows you will understand.”

I expressed my concern, and:

“I was unaware that Colonel Menendez’s health was impaired,” I said.

“Ah,” Madame shrugged characteristically. “Juan has travelled too much
of the road of life on top speed, Mr. Knox.” She snapped her white
fingers and grimaced significantly. “Excitement is bad for him.”

She wheeled her chair up beside Val Beverley, and taking the girl’s hand
patted it affectionately.

“You look pale to-night, my dear,” she said. “All this bogey business is
getting on your nerves, eh?”

“Oh, not at all,” declared the girl. “It is very mysterious and
annoying, of course.”

“But M. Paul Harley will presently tell us what it is all about,”
 concluded Madame. “Yes, I trust so. We want no Cuban devils here at
Cray’s Folly.”

I had hoped that she would speak further of the matter, but having thus
apologized for our host’s absence, she plunged into an amusing account
of Parisian society, and of the changes which five years of war had
brought about. Her comments, although brilliant, were superficial, the
only point I recollect being her reference to a certain Baron Bergmann,
a Swedish diplomat, who, according to Madame, had the longest nose and
the shortest memory in Paris, so that in the cold weather, “he even
sometimes forgot to blow his nose.”

Her brightness I thought was almost feverish. She chattered and laughed
and gesticulated, but on this occasion she was overacting. Underneath
all her vivacity lay something cold and grim.

Harley rejoined us in half an hour or so, but I could see that he was
as conscious of the air of tension as I was. All Madame’s high spirits
could not enable her to conceal the fact that she was anxious to retire.
But Harley’s evident desire to do likewise surprised me very greatly;
for from the point of view of the investigation the day had been an
unsatisfactory one. I knew that there must be a hundred and one things
which my friend desired to know, questions which Madame de Stämer could
have answered. Nevertheless, at about ten o’clock we separated for
the night, and although I was intensely anxious to talk to Harley, his
reticent mood had descended upon him again, and:

“Sleep well, Knox,” he said, as he paused at my door. “I may be
awakening you early.”

With which cryptic remark and not another word he passed on and entered
his own room.




CHAPTER XI

THE SHADOW ON THE BLIND



Perhaps it was childish on my part, but I accepted this curt dismissal
very ill-humouredly. That Harley, for some reason of his own, wished
to be alone, was evident enough, but I resented being excluded from his
confidence, even temporarily. It would seem that he had formed a theory
in the prosecution of which my coöperation was not needed. And what
with profitless conjectures concerning its nature, and memories of
Val Beverley’s pathetic parting glance as we had bade one another
good-night, sleep seemed to be out of the question, and I stood for a
long time staring out of the open window.

The weather remained almost tropically hot, and the moon floated in a
cloudless sky. I looked down upon the closely matted leaves of the box
hedge, which rose to within a few feet of my window, and to the left I
could obtain a view of the close-hemmed courtyard before the doors of
Cray’s Folly. On the right the yews began, obstructing my view of the
Tudor garden, but the night air was fragrant, and the outlook one of
peace.

After a time, then, as no sound came from the adjoining room, I turned
in, and despite all things was soon fast asleep.

Almost immediately, it seemed, I was awakened. In point of fact, nearly
four hours had elapsed. A hand grasped my shoulder, and I sprang up in
bed with a stifled cry, but:

“It’s all right, Knox,” came Harley’s voice. “Don’t make a noise.”

“Harley!” I said. “Harley! what has happened?”

“Nothing, nothing. I am sorry to have to disturb your beauty sleep, but
in the absence of Innes I am compelled to use you as a dictaphone,
Knox. I like to record impressions while they are fresh, hence my having
awakened you.”

“But what has happened?” I asked again, for my brain was not yet fully
alert.

“No, don’t light up!” said Harley, grasping my wrist as I reached out
toward the table-lamp.

His figure showed as a black silhouette against the dim square of the
window.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s nearly two o’clock. The light might be observed.”

“Two o’clock?” I exclaimed.

“Yes. I think we might smoke, though. Have you any cigarettes? I have
left my pipe behind.”

I managed to find my case, and in the dim light of the match which I
presently struck I saw that Paul Harley’s face was very fixed and grim.
He seated himself on the edge of my bed, and:

“I have been guilty of a breach of hospitality, Knox,” he began. “Not
only have I secretly had my own car sent down here, but I have had
something else sent, as well. I brought it in under my coat this
evening.”

“To what do you refer, Harley?”

“You remember the silken rope-ladder with bamboo rungs which I brought
from Hongkong on one occasion?”

“Yes--”

“Well, I have it in my bag now.”

“But, my dear fellow, what possible use can it be to you at Cray’s
Folly?”

“It has been of great use,” he returned, shortly.

“It enabled me to descend from my window a couple of hours ago and to
return again quite recently without disturbing the household. Don’t
reproach me, Knox. I know it is a breach of confidence, but so is the
behaviour of Colonel Menendez.”

“You refer to his reticence on certain points?”

“I do. I have a reputation to lose, Knox, and if an ingenious piece of
Chinese workmanship can save it, it shall be saved.”

“But, my dear Harley, why should you want to leave the house secretly at
night?”

Paul Harley’s cigarette glowed in the dark, then:

“My original object,” he replied, “was to endeavour to learn if any one
were really watching the place. For instance, I wanted to see if all
lights were out at the Guest House.”

“And were they?” I asked, eagerly.

“They were. Secondly,” he continued, “I wanted to convince myself that
there were no nocturnal prowlers from within or without.”

“What do you mean by within or without?”

“Listen, Knox.” He bent toward me in the dark, grasping my shoulder
firmly. “One window in Cray’s Folly was lighted up.”

“At what hour?”

“The light is there yet.”

That he was about to make some strange revelation I divined. I detected
the fact, too, that he believed this revelation would be unpleasant to
me; and in this I found an explanation of his earlier behaviour. He had
seemed distraught and ill at ease when he had joined Madame de Stämer,
Miss Beverley, and myself in the drawing room. I could only suppose that
this and the abrupt parting with me outside my door had been due to
his holding a theory which he had proposed to put to the test before
confiding it to me. I remember that I spoke very slowly as I asked him
the question:

“Whose is the lighted window, Harley?”

“Has Colonel Menendez taken you into a little snuggery or smoke-room
which faces his bedroom in the southeast corner of the house?”

“No, but Miss Beverley has mentioned the room.”

“Ah. Well, there is a light in that room, Knox.”

“Possibly the Colonel has not retired?”

“According to Madame de Stämer he went to bed several hours ago, you may
remember.”

“True,” I murmured, fumbling for the significance of his words.

“The next point is this,” he resumed. “You saw Madame retire to her own
room, which, as you know, is on the ground floor, and I have satisfied
myself that the door communicating with the servants’ wing is locked.”

“I see. But to what is all this leading, Harley?”

“To a very curious fact, and the fact is this: The Colonel is not
alone.”

I sat bolt upright.

“What?” I cried.

“Not so loud,” warned Harley.

“But, Harley--”

“My dear fellow, we must face facts. I repeat, the Colonel is not
alone.”

“Why do you say so?”

“Twice I have seen a shadow on the blind of the smoke-room.”

“His own shadow, probably.”

Again Paul Harley’s cigarette glowed in the darkness.

“I am prepared to swear,” he replied, “that it was the shadow of a
woman.”

“Harley----”

“Don’t get excited, Knox. I am dealing with the strangest case of my
career, and I am jumping to no conclusions. But just let us look at
the circumstances judicially. The whole of the domestic staff we may
dismiss, with the one exception of Mrs. Fisher, who, so far as I can
make out, occupies the position of a sort of working housekeeper, and
whose rooms are in the corner of the west wing immediately facing the
kitchen garden. Possibly you have not met Mrs. Fisher, Knox, but I have
made it my business to interview the whole of the staff and I may
say that Mrs. Fisher is a short, stout old lady, a native of Kent, I
believe, whose outline in no way corresponds to that which I saw upon
the blind. Therefore, unless the door which communicates with the
servants’ quarters was unlocked again to-night--to what are we reduced
in seeking to explain the presence of a woman in Colonel Menendez’s
room? Madame de Stämer, unassisted, could not possibly have mounted the
stairs.”

“Stop, Harley!” I said, sternly. “Stop.”

He ceased speaking, and I watched the steady glow of his cigarette in
the darkness. It lighted up his bronzed face and showed me the steely
gleam of his eyes.

“You are counting too much on the locking of the door by Pedro,” I
continued, speaking very deliberately. “He is a man I would trust no
farther than I could see him, and if there is anything dark underlying
this matter you depend that he is involved in it. But the most natural
explanation, and also the most simple, is this--Colonel Menendez has
been taken seriously ill, and someone is in his room in the capacity of
a nurse.”

“Her behaviour was scarcely that of a nurse in a sick-room,” murmured
Harley.

“For God’s sake tell me the truth,” I said. “Tell me all you saw.”

“I am quite prepared to do so, Knox. On three occasions, then, I saw
the figure of a woman, who wore some kind of loose robe, quite clearly
silhouetted upon the linen blind. Her gestures strongly resembled those
of despair.”

“Of despair?”

“Exactly. I gathered that she was addressing someone, presumably Colonel
Menendez, and I derived a strong impression that she was in a condition
of abject despair.”

“Harley,” I said, “on your word of honour did you recognize anything
in the movements, or in the outline of the figure, by which you could
identify the woman?”

“I did not,” he replied, shortly. “It was a woman who wore some kind
of loose robe, possibly a kimono. Beyond that I could swear to nothing,
except that it was not Mrs. Fisher.”

We fell silent for a while. What Paul Harley’s thoughts may have been
I know not, but my own were strange and troubled. Presently I found my
voice again, and:

“I think, Harley,” I said, “that I should report to you something which
Miss Beverley told me this evening.”

“Yes?” said he, eagerly. “I am anxious to hear anything which may be of
the slightest assistance. You are no doubt wondering why I retired so
abruptly to-night. My reason was this: I could see that you were full of
some story which you had learned from Miss Beverley, and I was anxious
to perform my tour of inspection with a perfectly unprejudiced mind.”

“You mean that your suspicions rested upon an inmate of Cray’s Folly?”

“Not upon any particular inmate, but I had early perceived a distinct
possibility that these manifestations of which the Colonel complained
might be due to the agency of someone inside the house. That this
person might be no more than an accomplice of the prime mover I also
recognized, of course. But what did you learn to-night, Knox?”

I repeated Val Beverley’s story of the mysterious footsteps and of the
cries which had twice awakened her in the night.

“Hm,” muttered Harley, when I had ceased speaking. “Assuming her account
to be true----”

“Why should you doubt it?” I interrupted, hotly.

“My dear Knox, it is my business to doubt everything until I have
indisputable evidence of its truth. I say, assuming her story to be
true, we find ourselves face to face with the fantastic theory that some
woman unknown is living secretly in Cray’s Folly.”

“Perhaps in one of the tower rooms,” I suggested, eagerly. “Why, Harley,
that would account for the Colonel’s marked unwillingness to talk about
this part of the house.”

My sight was now becoming used to the dusk, and I saw Harley vigorously
shake his head.

“No, no,” he replied; “I have seen all the tower rooms. I can swear that
no one inhabits them. Besides, is it feasible?”

“Then whose were the footsteps that Miss Beverley heard?”

“Obviously those of the woman who, at this present moment, so far as I
know, is in the smoking-room with Colonel Menendez.”

I sighed wearily.

“This is a strange business, Harley. I begin to think that the mystery
is darker than I ever supposed.”

We fell silent again. The weird cry of a night hawk came from somewhere
in the valley, but otherwise everything within and without the great
house seemed strangely still. This stillness presently imposed its
influence upon me, for when I spoke again, I spoke in a low voice.

“Harley,” I said, “my imagination is playing me tricks. I thought I
heard the fluttering of wings at that moment.”

“Fortunately, my imagination remains under control,” he replied, grimly;
“therefore I am in a position to inform you that you did hear the
fluttering of wings. An owl has just flown into one of the trees
immediately outside the window.”

“Oh,” said I, and uttered a sigh of relief.

“It is extremely fortunate that my imagination is so carefully trained,”
 continued Harley; “otherwise, when the woman whose shadow I saw upon the
blind to-night raised her arms in a peculiar fashion, I could not well
have failed to attach undue importance to the shape of the shadow thus
created.”

“What was the shape of the shadow, then?”

“Remarkably like that of a bat.”

He spoke the words quietly, but in that still darkness, with dawn yet a
long way off, they possessed the power which belongs to certain chords
in music, and to certain lines in poetry. I was chilled unaccountably,
and I peopled the empty corridors of Cray’s Folly with I know not
what uncanny creatures; nightmare fancies conjured up from memories of
haunted manors.

Such was my mood, then, when suddenly Paul Harley stood up. My eyes were
growing more and more used to the darkness, and from something strained
in his attitude I detected the fact that he was listening intently.

He placed his cigarette on the table beside the bed and quietly crossed
the room. I knew from his silent tread that he wore shoes with rubber
soles. Very quietly he turned the handle and opened the door.

“What is it, Harley?” I whispered.

Dimly I saw him raise his hand. Inch by inch he opened the door. My
nerves in a state of tension, I sat there watching him, when without
a sound he slipped out of the room and was gone. Thereupon I arose and
followed as far as the doorway.

Harley was standing immediately outside in the corridor. Seeing me, he
stepped back, and: “Don’t move, Knox,” he said, speaking very close to
my ear. “There is someone downstairs in the hall. Wait for me here.”

With that he moved stealthily off, and I stood there, my heart beating
with unusual rapidity, listening--listening for a challenge, a cry, a
scuffle--I knew not what to expect.

Cavernous and dimly lighted, the corridor stretched away to my left.
On the right it branched sharply in the direction of the gallery
overlooking the hall.

The seconds passed, but no sound rewarded my alert listening--until,
very faintly, but echoing in a muffled, church-like fashion around that
peculiar building, came a slight, almost sibilant sound, which I took to
be the gentle closing of a distant door.

Whilst I was still wondering if I had really heard this sound or merely
imagined it:

“Who goes there?” came sharply in Harley’s voice.

I heard a faint click, and knew that he had shone the light of an
electric torch down into the hall.

I hesitated no longer, but ran along to join him. As I came to the head
of the main staircase, however, I saw him crossing the hall below. He
was making in the direction of the door which shut off the servants’
quarters. Here he paused, and I saw him trying the handle. Evidently
the door was locked, for he turned and swept the white ray all about the
place. He tried several other doors, but found them all to be locked,
for presently he came upstairs again, smiling grimly when he saw me
there awaiting him.

“Did you hear it, Knox?” he said.

“A sound like the closing of a door?”

Paul Harley nodded.

“It _was_ the closing of a door,” he replied; “but before that I had
distinctly heard a stair creak. Someone crossed the hall then, Knox.
Yet, as you perceive for yourself, it affords no hiding-place.”

His glance met and challenged mine.

“The Colonel’s visitor has left him,” he murmured. “Unless something
quite unforeseen occurs, I shall throw up the case to-morrow.”




CHAPTER XII

MORNING MISTS



The man known as Manoel awakened me in the morning. Although
characteristically Spanish, he belonged to a more sanguine type than
the butler and spoke much better English than Pedro. He placed upon the
table beside me a tray containing a small pot of China tea, an apple, a
peach, and three slices of toast.

“How soon would you like your bath, sir?” he enquired.

“In about half an hour,” I replied.

“Breakfast is served at 9.30 if you wish, sir,” continued Manoel, “but
the ladies rarely come down. Would you prefer to breakfast in your
room?”

“What is Mr. Harley doing?”

“He tells me that he does not take breakfast, sir. Colonel Don Juan
Menendez will be unable to ride with you this morning, but a groom will
accompany you to the heath if you wish, which is the best place for a
gallop. Breakfast on the south veranda is very pleasant, sir, if you are
riding first.”

“Good,” I replied, for indeed I felt strangely heavy; “it shall be the
heath, then, and breakfast on the veranda.”

Having drunk a cup of tea and dressed I went into Harley’s room, to
find him propped up in bed reading the _Daily Telegraph_ and smoking a
cigarette.

“I am off for a ride,” I said. “Won’t you join me?”

He fixed his pillows more comfortably, and slowly shook his head.

“Not a bit of it, Knox,” he replied, “I find exercise to be fatal to
concentration.”

“I know you have weird theories on the subject, but this is a beautiful
morning.”

“I grant you the beautiful morning, Knox, but here you will find me when
you return.”

I knew him too well to debate the point, and accordingly I left him to
his newspaper and cigarette, and made my way downstairs. A housemaid was
busy in the hall, and in the courtyard before the monastic porch a negro
groom awaited me with two fine mounts. He touched his hat and grinned
expansively as I appeared. A spirited young chestnut was saddled for
my use, and the groom, who informed me that his name was Jim, rode a
smaller, Spanish horse, a beautiful but rather wicked-looking creature.

We proceeded down the drive. Pedro was standing at the door of the
lodge, talking to his surly-looking daughter. He saluted me very
ceremoniously as I passed.

Pursuing an easterly route for a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a
narrow lane which branched off to the left in a tremendous declivity.
Indeed it presented the appearance of the dry bed of a mountain torrent,
and in wet weather a torrent this lane became, so I was informed by
Jim. It was very rugged and dangerous, and here we dismounted, the groom
leading the horses.

Then we were upon a well-laid main road, and along this we trotted on to
a tempting stretch of heath-land. There was a heavy mist, but the
scent of the heather in the early morning was delightful, and there was
something exhilarating in the dull thud of the hoofs upon the springy
turf. The negro was a natural horseman, and he seemed to enjoy the ride
every bit as much as I did. For my own part I was sorry to return. But
the vapours of the night had been effectively cleared from my mind, and
when presently we headed again for the hills, I could think more coolly
of those problems which overnight had seemed well-nigh insoluble.

We returned by a less direct route, but only at one point was the path
so steep as that by which we had descended. This brought us out on a
road above and about a mile to the south of Cray’s Folly. At one point,
through a gap in the trees, I found myself looking down at the gray
stone building in its setting of velvet lawns and gaily patterned
gardens. A faint mist hovered like smoke over the grass.

Five minutes later we passed a queer old Jacobean house, so deeply
hidden amidst trees that the early morning sun had not yet penetrated to
it, except for one upstanding gable which was bathed in golden light. I
should never have recognized the place from that aspect, but because of
its situation I knew that this must be the Guest House. It seemed very
gloomy and dark, and remembering how I was pledged to call upon Mr.
Colin Camber that day, I apprehended that my reception might be a cold
one.

Presently we left the road and cantered across the valley meadows, in
which I had walked on the previous day, reentering Cray’s Folly on
the south, although we had left it on the north. We dismounted in the
stable-yard, and I noted two other saddle horses in the stalls, a pair
of very clean-looking hunters, as well as two perfectly matched ponies,
which, Jim informed me, Madame de Stämer sometimes drove in a chaise.

Feeling vastly improved by the exercise, I walked around to the veranda,
and through the drawing room to the hall. Manoel was standing there,
and:

“Your bath is ready, sir,” he said.

I nodded and went upstairs. It seemed to me that life at Cray’s Folly
was quite agreeable, and such was my mood that the shadowy Bat Wing
menace found no place in it save as the chimera of a sick man’s
imagination. One thing only troubled me: the identity of the woman who
had been with Colonel Menendez on the previous night.

However, such unconscious sun worshippers are we all that in the glory
of that summer morning I realized that life was good, and I resolutely
put behind me the dark suspicions of the night.

I looked into Harley’s room ere descending, and, as he had assured
me would be the case, there he was, propped up in bed, the _Daily
Telegraph_ upon the floor beside him and the _Times_ now open upon the
coverlet.

“I am ravenously hungry,” I said, maliciously, “and am going down to eat
a hearty breakfast.”

“Good,” he returned, treating me to one of his quizzical smiles. “It is
delightful to know that someone is happy.”

Manoel had removed my unopened newspapers from the bedroom, placing
them on the breakfast table on the south veranda; and I had propped the
_Mail_ up before me and had commenced to explore a juicy grapefruit
when something, perhaps a faint breath of perfume, a slight rustle of
draperies, or merely that indefinable aura which belongs to the presence
of a woman, drew my glance upward and to the left. And there was Val
Beverley smiling down at me.

“Good morning, Mr. Knox,” she said. “Oh, please don’t interrupt your
breakfast. May I sit down and talk to you?”

“I should be most annoyed if you refused.”

She was dressed in a simple summery frock which left her round,
sun-browned arms bare above the elbow, and she laid a huge bunch of
roses upon the table beside my tray.

“I am the florist of the establishment,” she explained. “These
will delight your eyes at luncheon. Don’t you think we are a lot of
barbarians here, Mr. Knox?”

“Why?”

“Well, if I had not taken pity upon you, here you would have bat over a
lonely breakfast just as though you were staying at a hotel.”

“Delightful,” I replied, “now that you are here.”

“Ah,” said she, and smiled roguishly, “that afterthought just saved
you.”

“But honestly,” I continued, “the hospitality of Colonel Menendez is
true hospitality. To expect one’s guests to perform their parlour tricks
around a breakfast table in the morning is, on the other hand, true
barbarism.”

“I quite agree with you,” she said, quietly. “There is a perfectly
delightful freedom about the Colonel’s way of living. Only some horrid
old Victorian prude could possibly take exception to it. Did you enjoy
your ride?”

“Immensely,” I replied, watching her delightedly as she arranged the
roses in carefully blended groups.

Her fingers were very delicate and tactile, and such is the character
which resides in the human hand, that whereas the gestures of Madame de
Stämer were curiously stimulating, there was something in the movement
of Val Beverley’s pretty fingers amidst the blooms which I found most
soothing.

“I passed the Guest House on my return,” I continued. “Do you know Mr.
Camber?”

She looked at me in a startled way.

“No,” she replied, “I don’t. Do you?”

“I met him by chance yesterday.”

“Really? I thought he was quite unapproachable; a sort of ogre.”

“On the contrary, he is a man of great charm.”

“Oh,” said Val Beverley, “well, since you have said so, I might as
well admit that he has always seemed a charming man to me. I have never
spoken to him, but he looks as though he could be very fascinating. Have
you met his wife?”

“No. Is she also American?”

My companion shook her head.

“I have no idea,” she replied. “I have seen her several times of course,
and she is one of the daintiest creatures imaginable, but I know nothing
about her nationality.”

“She is young, then?”

“Very young, I should say. She looks quite a child.”

“The reason of my interest,” I replied, “is that Mr. Camber asked me to
call upon him, and I propose to do so later this morning.”

“Really?”

Again I detected the startled expression upon Val Beverley’s face.

“That is rather curious, since you are staying here.”

“Why?”

“Well,” she looked about her nervously, “I don’t know the reason, but
the name of Mr. Camber is anathema in Cray’s Folly.”

“Colonel Menendez told me last night that he had never met Mr. Camber.”

Val Beverley shrugged her shoulders, a habit which it was easy to see
she had acquired from Madame de Stämer.

“Perhaps not,” she replied, “but I am certain he hates him.”

“Hates Mr. Camber?”

“Yes.” Her expression grew troubled. “It is another of those mysteries
which seem to be part of Colonel Menendez’s normal existence.”

“And is this dislike mutual?”

“That I cannot say, since I have never met Mr. Camber.”

“And Madame de Stämer, does she share it?”

“Fully, I think. But don’t ask me what it means, because I don’t know.”

She dismissed the subject with a light gesture and poured me out a
second cup of coffee.

“I am going to leave you now,” she said. “I have to justify my existence
in my own eyes.”

“Must you really go?”

“I must really.”

“Then tell me something before you go.”

She gathered up the bunches of roses and looked down at me with a
wistful expression.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Did you detect those mysterious footsteps again last night?”

The look of wistfulness changed to another which I hated to see in her
eyes, an expression of repressed fear.

“No,” she replied in a very low voice, “but why do you ask the
question?”

Doubt of her had been far enough from my mind, but that something in the
tone of my voice had put her on her guard I could see.

“I am naturally curious,” I replied, gravely.

“No,” she repeated, “I have not heard the sound for some time now.
Perhaps, after all, my fears were imaginary.”

There was a constraint in her manner which was all too obvious, and
when presently, laden with the spoil of the rose garden, she gave me a
parting smile and hurried into the house, I sat there very still for a
while, and something of the brightness had faded from the coming, nor
did life seem so glad a business as I had thought it quite recently.




CHAPTER XIII

AT THE GUEST HOUSE



I presented myself at the Guest House at half-past eleven. My mental
state was troubled and indescribably complex. Perhaps my own uneasy,
thoughts were responsible for the idea, but it seemed to me that the
atmosphere of Cray’s Folly had changed yet again. Never before had
I experienced a sense of foreboding like that which had possessed me
throughout the hours of this bright summer’s morning.

Colonel Menendez had appeared about nine o’clock. He exhibiting no
traces of illness that were perceptible to me. But this subtle change
which I had detected, or thought I had detected, was more marked in
Madame Stämer than in any one. In her strange, still eyes I had read
what I can only describe as a stricken look. It had none of the heroic
resignation and acceptance of the inevitable which had so startled me in
the face of the Colonel on the previous day. There was a bitterness in
it, as of one who has made a great but unwilling sacrifice, and again I
had found myself questing that faint but fugitive memory, conjured up by
the eyes of Madame de Stämer.

Never had the shadow lain so darkly upon the house as it lay this
morning with the sun blazing gladly out of a serene sky. The birds, the
flowers, and Mother Earth herself bespoke the joy of summer. But beneath
the roof of Cray’s Folly dwelt a spirit of unrest, of apprehension. I
thought of that queer lull which comes before a tropical storm, and I
thought I read a knowledge of pending evil even in the glances of the
servants.

I had spoken to Harley of this fear. He had smiled and nodded grimly,
saying:

“Evidently, Knox, you have forgotten that to-night is the night of the
full moon.”

It was in no easy state of mind, then, that I opened the gate and walked
up to the porch of the Guest House. That the solution of the grand
mystery of Cray’s Folly would automatically resolve these lesser
mysteries I felt assured, and I was supported by the idea that a clue
might lie here.

The house, which from the roadway had an air of neglect, proved on close
inspection to be well tended, but of an unprosperous aspect. The brass
knocker, door knob, and letter box were brilliantly polished, whilst
the windows and the window curtains were spotlessly clean. But the place
cried aloud for the service of the decorator, and it did not need the
deductive powers of a Paul Harley to determine that Mr. Colin Camber was
in straitened circumstances.

In response to my ringing the door was presently opened by Ah Tsong. His
yellow face exhibited no trace of emotion whatever. He merely opened the
door and stood there looking at me.

“Is Mr. Camber at home?” I enquired.

“Master no got,” crooned Ah Tsong.

He proceeded quietly to close the door again.

“One moment,” I said, “one moment. I wish, at any rate, to leave my
card.”

Ah Tsong allowed the door to remain open, but:

“No usee palaber so fashion,” he said. “No feller comee here. Sabby?”

“I savvy, right enough,” said I, “but all the same you have got to take
my card in to Mr. Camber.”

I handed him a card as I spoke, and suddenly addressing him in “pidgin,”
 of which, fortunately, I had a smattering:

“Belong very quick, Ah Tsong,” I said, sharply, “or plenty big trouble,
savvy?”

“Sabby, sabby,” he muttered, nodding his head; and leaving me standing
in the porch he retired along the sparsely carpeted hall.

This hall was very gloomily lighted, but I could see several pieces of
massive old furniture and a number of bookcases, all looking incredibly
untidy.

Rather less than a minute elapsed, I suppose, when from some place at
the farther end of the hallway Mr. Camber appeared in person. He wore a
threadbare dressing gown, the silken collar and cuffs of which were very
badly frayed. His hair was dishevelled and palpably he had not shaved
this morning.

He was smoking a corncob pipe, and he slowly approached, glancing from
the card which he held in his hand in my direction, and then back again
at the card, with a curious sort of hesitancy. In spite of his untidy
appearance I could not fail to mark the dignity of his bearing, and the
almost arrogant angle at which he held his head.

“Mr--er--Malcolm Knox?” he began, fixing his large eyes upon me with a
look in which I could detect no sign of recognition. “I am advised that
you desire to see me?”

“That is so, Mr. Camber,” I replied, cheerily. “I fear I have
interrupted your work, but as no other opportunity may occur of renewing
an acquaintance which for my part I found extremely pleasant--”

“Of renewing an acquaintance, you say, Mr. Knox?”

“Yes.”

“Quite.” He looked me up and down critically. “To be sure, we have met
before, I understand?”

“We met yesterday, Mr. Camber, you may recall. Having chanced to come
across a contribution of yours of the _Occult Review_, I have availed
myself of your invitation to drop in for a chat.”

His expression changed immediately and the sombre eyes lighted up.

“Ah, of course,” he cried, “you are a student of the transcendental.
Forgive my seeming rudeness, Mr. Knox, but indeed my memory is of the
poorest. Pray come in, sir; your visit is very welcome.”

He held the door wide open, and inclined his head in a gesture of
curious old-world courtesy which was strange in so young a man. And
congratulating myself upon the happy thought which had enabled me to win
such instant favour, I presently found myself in a study which I despair
of describing.

In some respects it resembled the lumber room of an antiquary, whilst
in many particulars it corresponded to the interior of one of those
second-hand bookshops which abound in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross
Road. The shelves with which it was lined literally bulged with books,
and there were books on the floor, books on the mantelpiece, and books,
some open and some shut, some handsomely bound, and some having the
covers torn off, upon every table and nearly every chair in the place.

Volume seven of Burton’s monumental “Thousand Nights and a Night” lay
upon a littered desk before which I presumed Mr. Camber had been seated
at the time of my arrival. Some wet vessel, probably a cup of tea or
coffee, had at some time been set down upon the page at which this
volume was open, for it was marked with a dark brown ring. A volume of
Fraser’s “Golden Bough” had been used as an ash tray, apparently, since
the binding was burned in several places where cigarettes had been laid
upon it.

In this interesting, indeed unique apartment, East met West, unabashed
by Kipling’s dictum. Roman tear-vases and Egyptian tomb-offerings stood
upon the same shelf as empty Bass bottles; and a hideous wooden idol
from the South Sea Islands leered on eternally, unmoved by the
presence upon his distorted head of a soft felt hat made, I believe, in
Philadelphia.

Strange implements from early British barrows found themselves in the
company of _Thugee_ daggers There were carved mammals’ tusks and snake
emblems from Yucatan; against a Chinese ivory model of the Temple of Ten
Thousand Buddhas rested a Coptic crucifix made from a twig of the Holy
Rose Tree. Across an ancient Spanish coffer was thrown a Persian rug
into which had been woven the monogram of Shah-Jehan and a text from
the Koran. It was easy to see that Mr. Colin Camber’s studies must have
imposed a severe strain upon his purse.

“Sit down, Mr. Knox, sit down,” he said, sweeping a vellum-bound volume
of Eliphas Levi from a chair, and pushing the chair forward. “The visit
of a fellow-student is a rare pleasure for me. And you find me, sir,” he
seated himself in a curious, carved chair which stood before the desk,
“you find me engaged upon enquiries, the result of which will constitute
chapter forty-two of my present book. Pray glance at the contents of
this little box.”

He placed in my hands a small box of dark wood, evidently of great age.
It contained what looked like a number of shrivelled beans.

Having glanced at it curiously I returned it to him, shaking my head
blankly.

“You are puzzled?” he said, with a kind of boyish triumph, which lighted
up his face, which rejuvenated him and gave me a glimpse of another man.
“These, sir,” he touched the shrivelled objects with a long, delicate
forefinger “are seeds of the sacred lotus of Ancient Egypt. They were
found in the tomb of a priest.”

“And in what way do they bear upon the enquiry to which you referred,
Mr. Camber?”

“In this way,” he replied, drawing toward him a piece of newspaper
upon which rested a mound of coarse shag. “I maintain that the vital
principle survives within them. Now, I propose to cultivate these seeds,
Mr. Knox. Do you grasp the significance, of this experiment?”

He knocked out the corn-cob upon the heel of his slipper and began to
refill the hot bowl with shag from the newspaper at his elbow.

“From a physical point of view, yes,” I replied, slowly. “But I should
not have supposed such an experiment to come within the scope of your
own particular activities, Mr. Camber.”

“Ah,” he returned, triumphantly, at the same time stuffing tobacco
into the bowl of the corn-cob, “it is for this very reason that chapter
forty-two of my book must prove to be the hub of the whole, and the
whole, Mr. Knox, I am egotist enough to believe, shall establish a new
focus for thought, an intellectual Rome bestriding and uniting the Seven
Hills of Unbelief.”

He lighted his pipe and stared at me complacently.

Whilst I had greatly revised my first estimate of the man, my revisions
had been all in his favour. Respecting his genius my first impression
was confirmed. That he was ahead of his generation, perhaps a new
Galileo, I was prepared to believe. He had a pride of bearing which I
think was partly racial, but which in part, too, was the insignia of
intellectual superiority. He stood above the commonplace, caring little
for the views of those around and beneath him. From vanity he was
utterly free. His was strangely like the egotism of true genius.

“Now, sir,” he continued, puffing furiously at his corn-cob, “I observed
you glancing a moment ago at this volume of the ‘Golden Bough.’” He
pointed to the scarred book which I have already mentioned. “It is a
work of profound scholarship. But having perused its hundreds of pages,
what has the student learned? Does he know why the twenty-sixth
chapter of the ‘Book of the dead’ was written upon lapis-lazuli, the
twenty-seventh upon green felspar, the twenty-ninth upon cornelian, and
the thirtieth upon serpentine? He does not. Having studied Part Four,
has he learned the secret of why Osiris was a black god, although he
typified the Sun? Has he learned why modern Christianity is losing its
hold upon the nations, whilst Buddhism, so called, counts its disciples
by millions? He has not. This is because the scholar is rarely the
seer.”

“I quite agree with you,” I said, thinking that I detected the drift of
his argument.

“Very well,” said he. “I am an American citizen, Mr. Knox, which is
tantamount to stating that I belong to the greatest community of traders
which has appeared since the Phoenicians overran the then known world.
America has not produced the mystic, yet Judæa produced the founder of
Christianity, and Gautama Buddha, born of a royal line, established
the creed of human equity. In what way did these magicians, for a
miracle-worker is nothing but a magician, differ from ordinary men? In
one respect only: They had learned to control that force which we have
to-day termed Will.”

As he spoke those words Colin Camber directed upon me a glance from
his luminous eyes which frankly thrilled me. The bemused figure of the
Lavender Arms was forgotten. I perceived before me a man of power, a man
of extraordinary knowledge and intellectual daring. His voice, which was
very beautiful, together with his glance, held me 

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