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.
“Itwasthe 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.”
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 theDaily Telegraphand 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, theDaily Telegraphupon the floor beside him and theTimesnow 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 theMailup 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.
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 theOccult 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 ofThugeedaggers 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 enthralled.
“What we call Will,” he continued, “is what the Ancient Egyptians calledKhu. It is not mental: it is a property of the soul. At this point, Mr. Knox, I depart from the laws generally accepted by my contemporaries. I shall presently propose to you that the eye of the Divine Architect literally watches every creature upon the earth.”
“Literally?”
“Literally, Mr. Knox. We need no images, no idols, no paintings. All power, all light comes from one source. That source is the sun! The sun controls Will, and the Will is the soul. If there were a cavern in the earth so deep that the sun could never reach it, and if it were possible for a child to be born in that cavern, do you know what that child would be?”
“Almost certainly blind,” I replied; “beyond which my imagination fails me.”
“Then I will inform you, Mr. Knox. It would be a demon.”
“What!” I cried, and was momentarily touched with the fear that this was a brilliant madman.
“Listen,” he said, and pointed with the stem of his pipe. “Why, in all ancient creeds, is Hades depicted as below? For the simple reason that could such a spot exist and be inhabited, it must besunless, when it could only be inhabited by devils; and what are devils but creatures without souls?”
“You mean that a child born beyond reach of the sun’s influence would have no soul?”
“Such is my meaning, Mr. Knox. Do you begin to see the importance of my experiment with the lotus seeds?”
I shook my head slowly. Whereupon, laying his corn-cob upon the desk, Colin Camber burst into a fit of boyish laughter, which seemed to rejuvenate him again, which wiped out the image of the magus completely, and only left before me a very human student of strange subjects, and withal a fascinating companion.
“I fear, sir,” he said, presently, “that my steps have led me farther into the wilderness than it has been your fate to penetrate. The whole secret of the universe is contained in the words Day and Night, Darkness and Light. I have studied both the light and the darkness, deliberately and without fear. A new age is about to dawn, sir, and a new age requires new beliefs, new truths. Were you ever in the country of the Hill Dyaks?”
This abrupt question rather startled me, but:
“You refer to the Borneo hill-country?”
“Precisely.”
“No, I was never there.”
“Then this little magical implement will be new to you,” said he.
Standing up, he crossed to a cabinet littered untidily with all sorts of strange-looking objects, carved bones, queer little inlaid boxes, images, untidy manuscripts, and what-not.
He took up what looked like a very ungainly tobacco-pipe, made of some rich brown wood, and, handing it to me:
“Examine this, Mr. Knox,” he said, the boyish smile of triumph returning again to his face.
I did as he requested and made no discovery of note. The thing clearly was not intended for a pipe. The stem was soiled and, moreover, there was carving inside the bowl. So that presently I returned it to him, shaking my head.
“Unless one should be informed of the properties of this little instrument,” he declared, “discovery by experiment is improbable. Now, note.”
He struck the hollow of the bowl upon the palm of his hand, and it delivered a high, bell-like note which lingered curiously. Then:
“Note again.”
He made a short striking motion with the thing, similar to that which one would employ who had designed to jerk something out of the bowl. And at the very spot on the floor where any object contained in the bowl would have fallen, came a reprise of the bell note! Clearly, from almost at my feet, it sounded, a high, metallic ring.
He struck upward, and the bell-note sounded on the ceiling; to the right, and it came from the window; in my direction, and the tiny bell seemed to ring beside my ear! I will honestly admit that I was startled, but:
“Dyak magic,” said Colin Camber; “one of nature’s secrets not yet discovered by conventional Western science. It was known to the Egyptian priesthood, of course; hence the Vocal Memnon. It was known to Madame Blavatsky, who employed an ‘astral bell’; and it is known to me.”
He returned the little instrument to its place upon the cabinet.
“I wonder if the fact will strike you as significant,” said he, “that the note which you have just heard can only be produced between sunrise and sunset?”
Without giving me time to reply:
“The most notable survival of black magic—that is, the scientific employment of darkness against light—is to be met with in Haiti and other islands of the West Indies.”
“You are referring to Voodooism?” I said, slowly.
He nodded, replacing his pipe between his teeth.
“A subject, Mr. Knox, which I investigated exhaustively some years ago.”
I was watching him closely as he spoke, and a shadow, a strange shadow, crept over his face, a look almost of exaltation—of mingled sorrow and gladness which I find myself quite unable to describe.
“In the West Indies, Mr. Knox,” he continued, in a strangely altered voice, “I lost all and found all. Have you ever realized, sir, that sorrow is the price we must pay for joy?”
I did not understand his question, and was still wondering about it when I heard a gentle knock, the door opened, and a woman came in.