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 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

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, 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

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 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.”

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 “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

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 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.”

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 CHAPTER V VAL BEVERLEY

HE 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 46

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 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 BeverlyBeverley [sic] 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

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 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

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 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.

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50 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.”

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Rh “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?”

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52 “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.”

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Rh “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

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54 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.”

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Rh “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.

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 CHAPTER VI THE BARRIER

OLONEL 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.

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Rh 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.

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58 “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.

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Rh 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

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60 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,

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Rh 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.”

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62 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’

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Rh 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.

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 CHAPTER VII AT THE LAVENDER ARMS

N 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

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Rh 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 was 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

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164 "I'll think it over," his wife answered, smiling, as he did, coldly but genially.

Then they began to talk of something else.

Nurse Fedosya, sitting in the kitchen that evening, was telling the silent housemaid Darya and the talkative old cook Agathya about the young lady of the house, and how the child loved to play priatki with her mother—"She hides her little face, and cries  ' tiutiu ' !"

"And the mistress herself is like a little one," added Fedosya, smiling.

Agathya listened and shook her head ominously; while her face became grave and reproachful.

"That the mistress does it, well, that's one thing; but that the young lady does it, that's bad."

"Why?" asked Fedosya with curiosity.

This expression of curiosity gave her face the look of a wooden, roughly-painted doll.

"Yes, that's bad," repeated Agathya with conviction. "Terribly bad!"

"Well?" said Fedosya, the ludicrous expression of curiosity on her face becoming more emphatic.

"She'll hide, and hide, and hide away," said Agathya, in a mysterious whisper, as she looked cautiously toward the door.

"What are you saying?" exclaimed Fedosya, frightened.

"It's the truth I'm saying, remember my words," Agathya went on with the same assurance and secrecy. "It's the surest sign."

The old woman had invented this sign, quite suddenly, herself; and she was evidently very proud of it.

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66 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!”

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Rh “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

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68 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 mesalliancemésalliance [sic] 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

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Rh 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:

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70 “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.”

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Rh “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.”

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72 “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.

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 CHAPTER VIII THE CALL OF M’KOMBO

F 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

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74 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

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Rh 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.”

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76 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

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Rh 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

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78 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

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Rh 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.

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80 “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

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Rh 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”

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82 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.

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Rh “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

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84 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.

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Rh “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 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,

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86 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.

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 CHAPTER IX OBEAH

HIS 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

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88 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,

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Rh 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.

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90 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.”

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Rh “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.”

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92 “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

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Rh 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.”

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94 “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.”

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 CHAPTER X THE NIGHT WALKER

F 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.

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96 “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

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Rh 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

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98 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

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Rh 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.

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100 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.”

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Rh “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?”

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102 “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,

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Rh 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 realized

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