I find it difficult, now, to recapture my first impression of that meeting. About the woman, hesitating before me, there was something unexpected, something wholly unfamiliar. She belonged to a type with which I was not acquainted. Nor was it wonderful that she should strike me in this fashion, since my wanderings, although fairly extensive, had never included the West Indies, nor had I been to Spain; and this girl—I could have sworn that she was under twenty—was one of those rare beauties, a golden Spaniard.
That she was not purely Spanish I learned later.
She was small, and girlishly slight, with slender ankles and exquisite little feet; indeed I think she had the tiniest feet of any woman I had ever met. She wore a sort of white pinafore over her dress, and her arms, which were bare because of the short sleeves of her frock, were of a child-like roundness, whilst her creamy skin was touched with a faint tinge of bronze, as though, I remember thinking, it had absorbed and retained something of the Southern sunshine. She had the swaying carriage which usually belongs to a tall woman, and her head and neck were Grecian in poise.
Her hair, which was of a curious dull gold colour, presented a mass of thick, tight curls, and her beauty was of that unusual character which makes a Cleopatra a subject of deathless debate. What I mean to say is this: whilst no man could have denied, for instance, that Val Beverley was a charmingly pretty woman, nine critics out of ten must have failed to classify this golden Spaniard correctly or justly. Her complexion was peach-like in the Oriental sense, that strange hint of gold underlying the delicate skin, and her dark blue eyes were shaded by really wonderful silken lashes.
Emotion had the effect of enlarging the pupils, a phenomenon rarely met with, so that now as she entered the room and found a stranger present they seemed to be rather black than blue.
Her embarrassment was acute, and I think she would have retired without speaking, but:
“Ysola,” said Colin Camber, regarding her with a look curiously compounded of sorrow and pride, “allow me to present Mr. Malcolm Knox, who has honoured us with a visit.”
He turned to me.
“Mr. Knox,” he said, “it gives me great pleasure that you should meet my wife.”
Perhaps I had expected this, indeed, subconsciously, I think I had. Nevertheless, at the words “my wife” I felt that I started. The analogy with Edgar Allan Poe was complete.
As Mrs. Camber extended her hand with a sort of appealing timidity, it appeared to me that she felt herself to be intruding. The expression in her beautiful eyes when she glanced at her husband could only be described as one of adoration; and whilst it was impossible to doubt his love for her, I wondered if his colossal egotism were capable of stooping to affection. I wondered if he knew how to tend and protect this delicate Southern girl wife of his.
Remembering the episode of the Lavender Arms, I felt justified in doubting her happiness, and in this I saw an explanation of the mingled sorrow and pride with which Colin Camber regarded her. It might betoken recognition of his own shortcomings as a husband.
“How nice of you to come and see us. Mr. Knox,” she said.
She spoke in a faintly husky manner which was curiously attractive, although lacking the deep, vibrant tones of Madame de Stämer’s memorable voice. Her English was imperfect, but her accent good.
“Your husband has been carrying me to enchanted lands, Mrs. Camber,” I replied. “I have never known a morning to pass so quickly.”
“Oh,” she replied, and laughed with a childish glee which I was glad to witness. “Did he tell you all about the book which is going to make the world good? Did he tell you it will make us rich as well?”
“Rich?” said Camber, frowning slightly. “Nature’s riches are health and love. If we hold these the rest will come. Now that you have joined us, Ysola, I shall beg Mr. Knox, in honour of this occasion, to drink a glass of wine and break a biscuit as a pledge of future meetings.”
I watched him as he spoke, a lean, unkempt figure invested with a curious dignity, and I found it almost impossible to believe that this was the same man who had sat in the bar of the Lavender Arms, sipping whisky and water. The resemblance to the portrait in Harley’s office became more marked than ever. There was an air of high breeding about the delicate features which, curiously enough, was accentuated by the unshaven chin. I recognized that refusal would be regarded as a rebuff, and therefore:
“You are very kind,” I said.
Colin Camber inclined his head gravely and courteously.
“We are very glad to have you with us, Mr. Knox,” he replied.
He clapped his hands, and, silent as a shadow, Ah Tsong appeared. I noted that although it was Camber who had summoned him, it was to Mrs. Camber that the Chinaman turned for orders. I had thought his yellow face incapable of expression, but as his oblique eyes turned in the direction of the girl I read in them a sort of dumb worship, such as one sees in the eyes of a dog.
She spoke to him rapidly in Chinese.
“Hoi, hoi,” he muttered, “hoi, hoi,” nodded his head, and went out.
I saw that Colin Camber had detected my interest, for:
“Ah Tsong is really my wife’s servant,” he explained.
“Oh,” she said in a low voice, and looked at me earnestly, “Ah Tsong nursed me when I was a little baby so high.” She held her hand about four feet from the floor and laughed gleefully. “Can you imagine what a funny little thing I was?”
“You must have been a wonder-child, Mrs. Camber,” I replied with sincerity; “and Ah Tsong has remained with you ever since?”
“Ever since,” she echoed, shaking her head in a vaguely pathetic way. “He will never leave me, do you think, Colin?”
“Never,” replied her husband; “you are all he loves in the world. A case, Mr. Knox,” he turned to me, “of deathless fidelity rarely met with nowadays and only possible, perhaps, in its true form in an Oriental.”
Mrs. Camber having seated herself upon one of the few chairs which was not piled with books, her husband had resumed his place by the writing desk, and I sought in vain to interpret the glances which passed between them.
The fact that these two were lovers none could have mistaken. But here again, as at Cray’s Folly, I detected a shadow. I felt that something had struck at the very root of their happiness, in fact, I wondered if they had been parted, and were but newly reunited for there was a sort of constraint between them, the more marked on the woman’s side than on the man’s. I wondered how long they had been married, but felt that it would have been indiscreet to ask.
Even as the idea occurred to me, however, an opportunity arose of learning what I wished to know. I heard a bell ring, and:
“There is someone at the door, Colin,” said Mrs. Camber.
“I will go,” he replied. “Ah Tsong has enough to do.”
Without another word he stood up and walked out of the room.
“You see,” said Mrs. Camber, smiling in her naive way, “we only have one servant, except Ah Tsong, her name is Mrs. Powis. She is visiting her daughter who is married. We made the poor old lady take a holiday.”
“It is difficult to imagine you burdened with household responsibilities, Mrs. Camber,” I replied. “Please forgive me but I cannot help wondering how long you have been married?”
“For nearly four years.”
“Really?” I exclaimed. “You must have been married very young?”
“I was twenty. Do I look so young?”
I gazed at her in amazement.
“You astonish me,” I declared, which was quite true and no mere compliment. “I had guessed your age to be eighteen.”
“Oh,” she laughed, and resting her hands upon the settee leaned forward with sparkling eyes, “how funny. Sometimes I wish I looked older. It is dreadful in this place, although we have been so happy here. At all the shops they look at me so funny, so I always send Mrs. Powis now.”
“You are really quite wonderful,” I said. “You are Spanish, are you not, Mrs. Camber?”
She slightly shook her head, and I saw the pupils begin to dilate.
“Not really Spanish,” she replied, haltingly. “I was born in Cuba.”
“In Cuba?”
She nodded.
“Then it was in Cuba that you met Mr. Camber?”
She nodded again, watching me intently.
“It is strange that a Virginian should settle in Surrey.”
“Yes?” she murmured, “you think so? But really it is not strange at all. Colin’s people are so proud, so proud. Do you know what they are like, those Virginians? Oh! I hate them.”
“You hate them?”
“No, I cannot hate them, for he is one. But he will never go back.”
“Why should he never go back, Mrs. Camber?”
“Because of me.”
“You mean that you do not wish to settle in America?”
“I could not—not where he comes from. They would not have me.”
Her eyes grew misty, and she quickly lowered her lashes.
“Would not have you?” I exclaimed. “I don’t understand.”
“No?” she said, and smiled up at me very gravely. “It is simple. I am a Cuban, one, as they say, of an inferior race—and of mixed blood.”
She shook her golden head as if to dismiss the subject, and stood up, as Camber entered, followed by Ah Tsong bearing a tray of refreshments.
Of the ensuing conversation I remember nothing. My mind was focussed upon the one vital fact that Mrs. Camber was a Cuban Creole. Dimly I felt that here was the missing link for which Paul Harley was groping. For it was in Cuba that Colin Camber had met his wife, it was from Cuba that the menace of Bat Wing came.
What could it mean? Surely it was more than a coincidence that these two families, both associated with the West Indies, should reside within sight of one another in the Surrey Hills. Yet, if it were the result of design, the design must be on the part of Colonel Menendez, since the Cambers had occupied the Guest House before he had leased Cray’s Folly.
I know not if I betrayed my absentmindedness during the time that I was struggling vainly with these maddening problems, but presently, Mrs. Camber having departed about her household duties, I found myself walking down the garden with her husband.
“This is the summer house of which I was speaking, Mr. Knox,” he said, and I regret to state that I retained no impression of his having previously mentioned the subject. “During the time that Sir James Appleton resided at Cray’s Folly, I worked here regularly in the summer months. It was Sir James, of course, who laid out the greater part of the gardens and who rescued the property from the state of decay into which it had fallen.”
I aroused myself from the profitless reverie in which I had become lost. We were standing before a sort of arbour which marked the end of the grounds of the Guest House. It overhung the edge of a miniature ravine, in which, over a pebbly course, a little stream pursued its way down the valley to feed the lake in the grounds of Cray’s Folly.
From this point of vantage I could see the greater part of Colonel Menendez’s residence. I had an unobstructed view of the tower and of the Tudor garden.
“I abandoned my work-shop,” pursued Colin Camber, “when the—er—the new tenant took up his residence. I work now in the room in which you found me this morning.”
He sighed, and turning abruptly, led the way back to the house, holding himself very erect, and presenting a queer figure in his threadbare dressing gown.
It was now a perfect summer’s day, and I commented upon the beauty of the old garden, which in places was bordered by a crumbling wall.
“Yes, a quaint old spot,” said Camber. “I thought at one time, because of the name of the house, that it might have been part of a monastery or convent. This was not the case, however. It derives its name from a certain Sir Jaspar Guest, who flourished, I believe, under King Charles of merry memory.”
“Nevertheless,” I added, “the Guest House is a charming survival of more spacious days.”
“True,” returned Colin Camber, gravely. “Here it is possible to lead one’s own life, away from the noisy world,” he sighed again wearily. “Yes, I shall regret leaving the Guest House.”
“What! You are leaving?”
“I am leaving as soon as I can find another residence, suited both to my requirements and to my slender purse. But these domestic affairs can be of no possible interest to you. I take it, Mr. Knox, that you will grant my wife and myself the pleasure of your company at lunch?”
“Many thanks,” I replied, “but really I must return to Cray’s Folly.”
As I spoke the words I had moved a little ahead at a point where the path was overgrown by a rose bush, for the garden was somewhat neglected.
“You will quite understand,” I said, and turned.
Never can I forget the spectacle which I beheld.
Colin Camber’s peculiarly pale complexion had assumed a truly ghastly pallor, and he stood with tightly clenched hands, glaring at me almost insanely.
“Mr. Camber,” I cried, with concern, “are you unwell?”
He moistened his dry lips, and:
“You are returning—to Cray’s Folly?” he said, speaking, it seemed, with difficulty.
“I am, sir. I am staying with Colonel Menendez.”
“Ah!”
He clutched the collar of his pyjama jacket and wrenched so strongly that the button was torn off. His passion was incredible, insane. The power of speech had almost left him.
“You are a guest of—of Devil Menendez,” he whispered, and the speaking of the name seemed almost to choke him. “Of—Devil Menendez. You—you—are a spy. You have stolen my hospitality—you have obtained access to my house under false pretences. God! if I had known!”
“Mr. Camber,” I said, sternly, and realized that I, too, had clenched my fists, for the man’s language was grossly insulting, “you forget yourself.”
“Perhaps I do,” he muttered, thickly; “and therefore”—he raised a quivering forefinger—“go! If you have any spark of compassion in your breast, go! Leave my house.”
Nostrils dilated, he stood with that quivering finger outstretched, and now having become as speechless as he, I turned and walked rapidly up to the house.
“Ah Tsong! Ah Tsong!” came a cry from behind me in tones which I can only describe as hysterical—“Mr. Knox’s hat and stick. Quickly.”
As I walked in past the study door the Chinaman came to meet me, holding my hat and cane. I took them from him without a word, and, the door being held open by Ah Tsong, walked out on to the road.
My heart was beating rapidly. I did not know what to think nor what to do. This ignominious dismissal afforded an experience new to me. I was humiliated, mortified, but above all, wildly angry.
How far I had gone on my homeward journey I cannot say, when the sound of quickly pattering footsteps intruded upon my wild reverie. I stopped, turned, and there was Ah Tsong almost at my heels.
“Blinga chit flom lilly missee,” he said, and held the note toward me.
I hesitated, glaring at him in a way that must have been very unpleasant; but recovering myself I tore open the envelope, and read the following note, written in pencil and very shakily:
MR. KNOX. Please forgive him. If you knew what we have suffered from Senor Don Juan Menendez, I know you would forgive him. Please, for my sake. YSOLA CAMBER.
The Chinaman was watching me, that strangely pathetic expression in his eyes, and:
“Tell your mistress that I quite understand and will write to her,” I said.
“Hoi, hoi.”
Ah Tsong turned, and ran swiftly off, as I pursued my way back to Cray’s Folly in a mood which I shall not attempt to describe.
I sat in Paul Harley’s room. Luncheon was over, and although, as on the previous day, it had been a perfect repast, perfectly served, the sense of tension which I had experienced throughout the meal had made me horribly ill at ease.
That shadow of which I have spoken elsewhere seemed to have become almost palpable. In vain I had ascribed it to a morbid imagination: persistently it lingered.
Madame de Stämer’s gaiety rang more false than ever. She twirled the rings upon her slender fingers and shot little enquiring glances all around the table. This spirit of unrest, from wherever it arose, had communicated itself to everybody. Madame’s several bon mots one and all were failures. She delivered them without conviction like an amateur repeating lines learned by heart. The Colonel was unusually silent, eating little but drinking much. There was something unreal, almost ghastly, about the whole affair; and when at last Madame de Stämer retired, bearing Val Beverley with her, I felt certain that the Colonel would make some communication to us. If ever knowledge of portentous evil were written upon a man’s face it was written upon his, as he sat there at the head of the table, staring straightly before him. However:
“Gentlemen,” he said, “if your enquiries here have led to no result of, shall I say, a tangible character, at least I feel sure that you must have realized one thing.”
Harley stared at him sternly.
“I have realized, Colonel Menendez,” he replied, “that something is pending.”
“Ah!” murmured the Colonel, and he clutched the edge of the table with his strong brown hands.
“But,” continued my friend, “I have realized something more. You have asked for my aid, and I am here. Now you have deliberately tied my hands.”
“What do you mean, sir?” asked the other, softly.
“I will speak plainly. I mean that you know more about the nature of this danger than you have ever communicated to me. Allow me to proceed, if you please, Colonel Menendez. For your delightful hospitality I thank you. As your guest I could be happy, but as a professional investigator whose services have been called upon under most unusual circumstances, I cannot be happy and I do not thank you.”
Their glances met. Both were angry, wilful, and self-confident. Following a few moments of silence:
“Perhaps, Mr. Harley,” said the Colonel, “you have something further to say?”
“I have this to say,” was the answer: “I esteem your friendship, but I fear I must return to town without delay.”
The Colonel’s jaws were clenched so tightly that I could see the muscles protruding. He was fighting an inward battle; then:
“What!” he said, “you would desert me?”
“I never deserted any man who sought my aid.”
“I have sought your aid.”
“Then accept it!” cried Harley. “This, or allow me to retire from the case. You ask me to find an enemy who threatens you, and you withhold every clue which could aid me in my search.”
“What clue have I withheld?”
Paul Harley stood up.
“It is useless to discuss the matter further, Colonel Menendez,” he said, coldly.
The Colonel rose also, and:
“Mr. Harley,” he replied, and his high voice was ill-controlled, “if I give you my word of honour that I dare not tell you more, and if, having done so, I beg of you to remain at least another night, can you refuse me?”
Harley stood at the end of the table watching him.
“Colonel Menendez,” he said, “this would appear to be a game in which my handicap rests on the fact that I do not know against whom I am pitted. Very well. You leave me no alternative but to reply that I will stay.”
“I thank you, Mr. Harley. As I fear I am far from well, dare I hope to be excused if I retire to my room for an hour’s rest?”
Harley and I bowed, and the Colonel, returning our salutations, walked slowly out, his bearing one of grace and dignity. So that memorable luncheon terminated, and now we found ourselves alone and faced with a problem which, from whatever point one viewed it, offered no single opening whereby one might hope to penetrate to the truth.
Paul Harley was pacing up and down the room in a state of such nervous irritability as I never remembered to have witnessed in him before.
I had just finished an account of my visit to the Guest House and of the indignity which had been put upon me, and:
“Conundrums! conundrums!” my friend exclaimed. “This quest of Bat Wing is like the quest of heaven, Knox. A hundred open doors invite us, each one promising to lead to the light, and if we enter where do they lead?—to mystification. For instance, Colonel Menendez has broadly hinted that he looks upon Colin Camber as an enemy. Judging from your reception at the Guest House to-day, such an enmity, and a deadly enmity, actually exists. But whereas Camber has resided here for three years, the Colonel is a newcomer. We are, therefore, offered the spectacle of a trembling victim seeking the sacrifice. Bah! it is preposterous.”
“If you had seen Colin Camber’s face to-day, you might not have thought it so preposterous.”
“But I should, Knox! I should! It is impossible to suppose that Colonel Menendez was unaware when he leased Cray’s Folly that Camber occupied the Guest House.”
“And Mrs. Camber is a Cuban,” I murmured.
“Don’t, Knox!” my friend implored. “This case is driving me mad. I have a conviction that it is going to prove my Waterloo.”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “this mood is new to you.”
“Why don’t you advise me to remember Auguste Dupin?” asked Harley, bitterly. “That great man, preserving his philosophical calm, doubtless by this time would have pieced together these disjointed clues, and have produced an elegant pattern ready to be framed and exhibited to the admiring public.”
He dropped down upon the bed, and taking his briar from his pocket, began to load it in a manner which was almost vicious. I stood watching him and offered no remark, until, having lighted the pipe, he began to smoke. I knew that these “Indian moods” were of short duration, and, sure enough, presently:
“God bless us all, Knox,” he said, breaking into an amused smile, “how we bristle when someone tries to prove that we are not infallible! How human we are, Knox, but how fortunate that we can laugh at ourselves.”
I sighed with relief, for Harley at these times imposed a severe strain even upon my easy-going disposition.
“Let us go down to the billiard room,” he continued. “I will play you a hundred up. I have arrived at a point where my ideas persistently work in circles. The best cure is golf; failing golf, billiards.”
The billiard room was immediately beneath us, adjoining the last apartment in the east wing, and there we made our way. Harley played keenly, deliberately, concentrating upon the game. I was less successful, for I found myself alternately glancing toward the door and the open window, in the hope that Val Beverley would join us. I was disappointed, however. We saw no more of the ladies until tea-time, and if a spirit of constraint had prevailed throughout luncheon, a veritable demon of unrest presided upon the terrace during tea.
Madame de Stämer made apologies on behalf of the Colonel. He was prolonging his siesta, but he hoped to join us at dinner.
“Is the Colonel’s heart affected?” Harley asked.
Madame de Stämer shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, blankly.
“It is mysterious, the state of his health,” she replied. “An old trouble, which began years and years ago in Cuba.”
Harley nodded sympathetically, but I could see that he was not satisfied. Yet, although he might doubt her explanation, he had noted, and so had I, that Madame de Stämer’s concern was very real. Her slender hands were strangely unsteady; indeed her condition bordered on one of distraction.
Harley concealed his thoughts, whatever they may have been, beneath that mask of reserve which I knew so well, whilst I endeavoured in vain to draw Val Beverley into conversation with me.
I gathered that Madame de Stämer had been to visit the invalid, and that she was all anxiety to return was a fact she was wholly unable to conceal. There was a tired look in her still eyes, as though she had undertaken a task beyond her powers to perform, and, so unnatural a quartette were we, that when presently she withdrew I was glad, although she took Val Beverley with her.
Paul Harley resumed his seat, staring at me with unseeing eyes. A sound reached us through the drawing room which told us that Madame de Stämer’s chair was being taken upstairs, a task always performed when Madame desired to visit the upper floors by Manoel and Pedro’s daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame’s maid. These sounds died away, and I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still, and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering loftily overhead.
Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.
“Ah,” he murmured, “a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests. Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox.”
Over the remainder of that afternoon I will pass in silence. Indeed, looking backward now, I cannot recollect that it afforded one incident worthy of record. But because great things overshadow small, so it may be that whereas my recollections of quite trivial episodes are sharp enough up to a point, my memories from this point onward to the horrible and tragic happening which I have set myself to relate are hazy and indistinct. I was troubled by the continued absence of Val Beverley. I thought that she was avoiding me by design, and in Harley’s gloomy reticence I could find no shadow of comfort.
We wandered aimlessly about the grounds, Harley staring up in a vague fashion at the windows of Cray’s Folly; and presently, when I stopped to inspect a very perfect rose bush, he left me without a word, and I found myself alone.
Later, as I sauntered toward the Tudor garden, where I had hoped to encounter Miss Beverley, I heard the clicking of billiard balls; and there was Harley at the table, practising fancy shots.
He glanced up at me as I paused by the open window, stopped to relight his pipe, and then bent over the table again.
“Leave me alone, Knox,” he muttered; “I am not fit for human society.”
Understanding his moods as well as I did, I merely laughed and withdrew.
I strolled around into the library and inspected scores of books without forming any definite impression of the contents of any of them. Manoel came in whilst I was there and I was strongly tempted to send a message to Miss Beverley, but common sense overcame the inclination.
When at last my watch told me that the hour for dressing was arrived, I heaved a sigh of relief. I cannot say that I was bored, my ill-temper sprang from a deeper source than this. The mysterious disappearance of the inmates of Cray’s Folly, and a sort of brooding stillness which lay over the great house, had utterly oppressed me.
As I passed along the terrace I paused to admire the spectacle afforded by the setting sun. The horizon was on fire from north to south and the countryside was stained with that mystic radiance which is sometimes called the Blood of Apollo. Turning, I saw the disk of the moon coldly rising in the heavens. I thought of the silent birds and the hovering hawk, and I began my preparations for dinner mechanically, dressing as an automaton might dress.
Paul Harley’s personality was never more marked than in his evil moods. His power to fascinate was only equalled by his power to repel. Thus, although there was a light in his room and I could hear Lim moving about, I did not join him when I had finished dressing, but lighting a cigarette walked downstairs.
The beauty of the night called to me, although as I stepped out upon the terrace I realized with a sort of shock that the gathering dusk held a menace, so that I found myself questioning the shadows and doubting the rustle of every leaf. Something invisible, intangible yet potent, brooded over Cray’s Folly. I began to think more kindly of the disappearance of Val Beverley during the afternoon. Doubtless she, too, had been touched by this spirit of unrest and in solitude had sought to dispel it.
So thinking. I walked on in the direction of the Tudor garden. The place was bathed in a sort of purple half-light, lending it a fairy air of unreality, as though banished sun and rising moon yet disputed for mastery over earth. This idea set me thinking of Colin Camber, of Osiris, whom he had described as a black god, and of Isis, whose silver disk now held undisputed sovereignty of the evening sky.
Resentment of the treatment which I had received at the Guest House still burned hotly within me, but the mystery of it all had taken the keen edge off my wrath, and I think a sort of melancholy was the keynote of my reflections as, descending the steps to the sunken garden, I saw Val Beverley, in a delicate blue gown, coming toward me. She was the spirit of my dreams, and the embodiment of my mood. When she lowered her eyes at my approach, I knew by virtue of a sort of inspiration that she had been avoiding me.
“Miss Beverley,” I said, “I have been looking for you all the afternoon.”
“Have you? I have been in my room writing letters.”
I paced slowly along beside her.
“I wish you would be very frank with me,” I said.
She glanced up swiftly, and as swiftly lowered her lashes again.
“Do you think I am not frank?”
“I do think so. I understand why.”
“Do you really understand?”
“I think I do. Your woman’s intuition has told you that there is something wrong.”
“In what way?”
“You are afraid of your thoughts. You can see that Madame de Stämer and Colonel Menendez are deliberately concealing something from Paul Harley, and you don’t know where your duty lies. Am I right?”
She met my glance for a moment in a startled way, then: “Yes,” she said, softly; “you are quite right. How have you guessed?”
“I have tried very hard to understand you,” I replied, “and so perhaps up to a point I have succeeded.”
“Oh, Mr. Knox.” She suddenly laid her hand upon my arm. “I am oppressed with such a dreadful foreboding, yet I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
“I understand. I, too, have felt it.”
“You have?” She paused, and looked at me eagerly. “Then it is not just morbid imagination on my part. If only I knew what to do, what to believe. Really, I am bewildered. I have just left Madame de Stämer—”
“Yes?” I said, for she had paused in evident doubt.
“Well, she has utterly broken down.”
“Broken down?”
“She came to my room and sobbed hysterically for nearly an hour this afternoon.”
“But what was the cause of her grief?”
“I simply cannot understand.”
“Is it possible that Colonel Menendez is dangerously ill?”
“It may be so, Mr. Knox, but in that event why have they not sent for a physician?”
“True,” I murmured; “and no one has been sent for?”
“No one.”
“Have you seen Colonel Menendez?”
“Not since lunch-time.”
“Have you ever known him to suffer in this way before?”
“Never. It is utterly unaccountable. Certainly during the last few months he has given up riding practically altogether, and in other ways has changed his former habits, but I have never known him to exhibit traces of any real illness.”
“Has any medical man attended him?”
“Not that I know of. Oh, there is something uncanny about it all. Whatever should I do if you were not here?”
She had spoken on impulse, and seeing her swift embarrassment:
“Miss Beverley,” I said, “I am delighted to know that my company cheers you.”
Truth to tell my heart was beating rapidly, and, so selfish is the nature of man, I was more glad to learn that my company was acceptable to Val Beverley than I should have been to have had the riddle of Cray’s Folly laid bare before me.
Those sweetly indiscreet words, however, had raised a momentary barrier between us, and we walked on silently to the house, and entered the brightly lighted hall.
The silver peal of a Chinese tubular gong rang out just when we reached the veranda, and as Val Beverley and I walked in from the garden, Madame de Stämer came wheeling through the doorway, closely followed by Paul Harley. In her the art of the toilette amounted almost to genius, and she had so successfully concealed all traces of her recent grief that I wondered if this could have been real.
“My dear Mr. Knox,” she cried, “I seem to be fated always to apologize for other people. The Colonel is truly desolate, but he cannot join us for dinner. I have already explained to Mr. Harley.”
Harley inclined his head sympathetically, and assisted to arrange Madame in her place.
“The Colonel requests us to smoke a cigar with him after dinner, Knox,” he said, glancing across to me. “It would seem that troubles never come singly.”
“Ah,” Madame shrugged her shoulders, which her low gown left daringly bare, “they come in flocks, or not at all. But I suppose we should feel lonely in the world without a few little sorrows, eh, Mr. Harley?”
I loved her unquenchable spirit, and I have wondered often enough what I should have thought of her if I had known the truth. France has bred some wonderful women, both good and bad, but none I think more wonderful than Marie de Stämer.
If such a thing were possible, we dined more extravagantly than on the previous night. Madame’s wit was at its keenest; she was truly brilliant. Pedro, from the big bouffet at the end of the room, supervised this feast of Lucullus, and except for odd moments of silence in which Madame seemed to be listening for some distant sound, there was nothing, I think, which could have told a casual observer that a black cloud rested upon the house.
Once, interrupting a tête-à-tête between Val Beverley and Paul Harley:
“Do not encourage her, Mr. Harley,” said Madame, “she is a desperate flirt.”
“Oh, Madame,” cried Val Beverley and blushed deeply.
“You know you are, my dear, and you are very wise. Flirt all your life, but never fall in love. It is fatal, don’t you think so, Mr. Knox?”—turning to me in her rapid manner.
I looked into her still eyes, which concealed so much.
“Say, rather, that it is Fate,” I murmured.
“Yes, that is more pretty, but not so true. If I could live my life again, M. Knox,” she said, for she sometimes used the French and sometimes the English mode of address, “I should build a stone wall around my heart. It could peep over, but no one could ever reach it.”
Oddly enough, then, as it seems to me now, the spirit of unrest seemed almost to depart for awhile, and in the company of the vivacious Frenchwoman time passed very quickly up to the moment when Harley and I walked slowly upstairs to join the Colonel.
During the latter part of dinner an idea had presented itself to me which I was anxious to mention to Harley, and:
“Harley,” I said, “an explanation of the Colonel’s absence has occurred to me.”
“Really!” he replied; “possibly the same one that has occurred to me.”
“What is that?”
Paul Harley paused on the stairs, turning to me.
“You are thinking that he has taken cover from the danger which he believes particularly to threaten him to-night?”
“Exactly.”
“You may be right,” he murmured, proceeding upstairs.
He led the way to a little smoke-room which hitherto I had never visited, and in response to his knock:
“Come in,” cried the high voice of Colonel Menendez.
We entered to find ourselves in a small and very cosy room. There was a handsome oak bureau against one wall, which was littered with papers of various kinds, and there was also a large bookcase occupied almost exclusively by French novels. It occurred to me that the Colonel spent a greater part of his time in this little snuggery than in the more formal study below. At the moment of our arrival he was stretched upon a settee near which stood a little table; and on this table I observed the remains of what appeared to me to have been a fairly substantial repast. For some reason which I did not pause to analyze at the moment I noted with disfavour the presence of a bowl of roses upon the silver tray.
Colonel Menendez was smoking a cigarette, and Manoel was in the act of removing the tray.
“Gentlemen,” said the Colonel, “I have no words in which to express my sorrow. Manoel, pull up those armchairs. Help yourself to port, Mr. Harley, and fill Mr. Knox’s glass. I can recommend the cigars in the long box.”
As we seated ourselves:
“I am extremely sorry to find you indisposed, sir,” said Harley.
He was watching the dark face keenly, and probably thinking, as I was thinking, that it exhibited no trace of illness.
Colonel Menendez waved his cigarette gracefully, settling himself amid the cushions.
“An old trouble, Mr. Harley,” he replied, lightly; “a legacy from ancestors who drank too deep of the wine of life.”
“You are surely taking medical advice?”
Colonel Menendez shrugged slightly.
“There is no doctor in England who would understand the case,” he replied. “Besides, there is nothing for it but rest and avoidance of excitement.”
“In that event, Colonel,” said Harley, “we will not disturb you for long. Indeed, I should not have consented to disturb you at all, if I had not thought that you might have some request to make upon this important night.”
“Ah!” Colonel Menendez shot a swift glance in his direction. “You have remembered about to-night?”
“Naturally.”
“Your interest comforts me very greatly, gentlemen, and I am only sorry that my uncertain health has made me so poor a host. Nothing has occurred since your arrival to help you, I am aware. Not that I am anxious for any new activity on the part of my enemies. But almost anything which should end this deathly suspense would be welcome.”
He spoke the final words with a peculiar intonation. I saw Harley watching him closely.
“However,” he continued, “everything is in the hands of Fate, and if your visit should prove futile, I can only apologize for having interrupted your original plans. Respecting to-night”—he shrugged—“what can I say?”
“Nothing has occurred,” asked Harley, slowly, “nothing fresh, I mean, to indicate that the danger which you apprehend may really culminate to-night?”
“Nothing fresh, Mr. Harley, unless you yourself have observed anything.”
“Ah,” murmured Paul Harley, “let us hope that the threat will never be fulfilled.”
Colonel Menendez inclined his head gravely.
“Let us hope so,” he said.
On the whole, he was curiously subdued. He was most solicitous for our comfort and his exquisite courtesy had never been more marked. I often think of him now—his big but graceful figure reclining upon the settee, whilst he skilfully rolled his eternal cigarettes and chatted in that peculiar, light voice. Before the memory of Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez I sometimes stand appalled. If his Maker had but endowed him with other qualities of mind and heart equal to his magnificent courage, then truly he had been a great man.