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La Saisiaz

I

Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee!

II Wander at will, Day after day,— Wander away, Wandering still— Soul that canst soar! Body may slumber: Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more.

III Waft of soul's wing! What lies above? Sunshine and Love, Skyblue and Spring! Body hides—where? Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care!

A. E. S. 14, 1877.

Dared and done: at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True! Singly dared and done; the climbing both of us were bound to do. Petty feat and yet prodigious: every side my glance was bent O'er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the whole ascent. Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute and now immense: Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence! And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its outspread, Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging head, (As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o'erbranched by shrub and tree, Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a turn set free,  Stationed face to face with—Nature? rather with Infinitude) —No revealment of them all, as singly I my path pursued, But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung "Even so Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!" Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the cyclamen; Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the sloe-tree's gash, Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain-ash: Yet of might to place between us—Oh the barrier! Yon Profound Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point: barrier this, without a bound! Boundless though it be, I reach you: somehow seem to have you here —Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain the four low walls appear; Those are vineyards they enclose from; and the little spire which points —That's Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All the same, howe'er disjoints Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there: have dared, Done the feat of mountain-climbing,—five days since, we both prepared Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply fail. For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from the vale, "Why not try for once the mountain,—take a foretaste, snatch by stealth Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the hoarded wealth?  Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together won Sight or sound by honest climbing: let us two have dared and done Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to-morrow's jaunt Not the only mode of wayfare—wheeled to reach the eagle's haunt!" So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased to call "your own," Set our faces to the rose-bloom o'er the summit's front of stone Where Salève obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun she hides, Due return of blushing "Good Night," rosy as a borne-off bride's. For his masculine "Good Morrow" when, with sunrise still in hold, Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black length burns to gold. Up and up we went, how careless—nay, how joyous! All was new, All was strange. "Call progress toilsome? that were just insulting you! How the trees must temper noontide! Ah, the thicket's sudden break! What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake? Light by light puts forth Geneva: what a land—and, of the land, Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now we stand? Is it late, and wrong to linger? True, to-morrow makes amends. Toilsome progress? child's play, call it—specially when one descends! There, the dread descent is over—hardly our adventure, though! Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass-path, 'mine,' you know!  Proud completion of achievement!" And we paced it, praising still That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through hill and hill; And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, the pair —All our people of the Chalet—two, enough and none to spare. So, we made for home together, and we reached it as the stars One by one came lamping—chiefly that prepotency of Mars— And your last word was "I owe you this enjoyment!"—met with "Nay: With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like to-day!" Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of that rare nook Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no travel-book, All the same—though latent—patent, hybrid birth of land and sea, And (our travelled friend assured you)—if such miracle might be— Comparable for completeness of both blessings—all around Nature, and, inside her circle, safety from world's sight and sound— Comparable to our Saisiaz. "Hold it fast and guard it well! Go and see and vouch for certain, then come back and never tell Living soul but us; and haply, prove our sky from cloud as clear, There may we four meet, praise fortune just as now, another year!"

Thus you charged him on departure: not without the final charge, "Mind to-morrow's early meeting! We must leave our journey marge  Ample for the wayside wonders: there's the stoppage at the inn Three-parts up the mountain, where the hardships of the track begin; There's the convent worth a visit; but, the triumph crowning all— There's Salève's own platform facing glory which strikes greatness small, —Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red and white and green, Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his demesne. So, some three weeks since, we saw them: so, to-morrow we intend You shall see them likewise; therefore Good Night till to-morrow, friend!" Last, the nothings that extinguish embers of a vivid day: "What might be the Marshal's next move, what Gambetta's counter-play?" Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest spark: "Sleep you well!" "Sleep but as well, you!"—lazy love quenched, all was dark.

Nothing dark next day at sundawn! Up I rose and forth I fared: Took my plunge within the bath-pool, pacified the watch-dog scared, Saw proceed the transmutation—Jura's black to one gold glow, Trod your level path that let me drink the morning deep and slow, Reached the little quarry—ravage recompensed by shrub and fern— Till the overflowing ardours told me time was for return. So, return I did, and gaily. But, for once, from no far mound Waved salute a tall white figure. "Has her sleep been so profound?  Foresight, rather, prudent saving strength for day's expenditure! Ay, the chamber-window's open: out and on the terrace, sure!"

No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the wreaths, Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes, Interpose between one's love and Nature's loving, hill and dale Down to where the blue lake's wrinkle marks the river's inrush pale —Mazy Arve: whereon no vessel but goes sliding white and plain, Not a steamboat pants from harbour but one hears pulsate amain, Past the city's congregated peace of homes and pomp of spires —Man's mild protest that there's something more than Nature, man requires, And that, useful as is Nature to attract the tourist's foot, Quiet slow sure money-making proves the matter's very root,— Need for body,—while the spirit also needs a comfort reached By no help of lake or mountain, but the texts whence Calvin preached. "Here's the veil withdrawn from landscape: up to Jura and beyond, All awaits us ranged and ready; yet she violates the bond, Neither leans nor looks nor listens: why is this?" A turn of eye Took the whole sole answer, gave the undisputed reason "why!"

This dread way you had your summons! No premonitory touch, As you talked and laughed ('tis told me) scarce a minute ere the clutch Captured you in cold forever. Cold? nay, warm you were as life When I raised you, while the others used, in passionate poor strife, All the means that seemed to promise any aid, and all in vain. Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face again Grow transparent, grow transfigured with the sudden light that leapt, At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps where it slept. Therefore, paying piteous duty, what seemed you have we consigned Peacefully to—what I think were, of all earth-beds, to your mind Most the choice for quiet, yonder: low walls stop the vines' approach, Lovingly Salève protects you; village-sports will ne'er encroach On the stranger lady's silence, whom friends bore so kind and well Thither "just for love's sake,"—such their own word was: and who can tell? You supposed that few or none had known and loved you in the world: May be! flower that's full-blown tempts the butterfly, not flower that's furled. But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the sheath and let expand Bud to bell and outspread flower-shape at the least warm touch of hand —Maybe, throb of heart, beneath which—quickening farther than it knew,— Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and unguessed hue. Disembosomed, re-embosomed,—must one memory suffice, Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss?

Rare thing, red or white, you rest now: two days slumbered through; and since One day more will see me rid of this same scene whereat I wince, Tetchy at all sights and sounds and pettish at each idle charm Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went arm in arm,— I have turned upon my weakness: asked, "And what, forsooth, prevents That, this latest day allowed me, I fulfil of her intents One she had the most at heart—that we should thus again survey From Salève Mont Blanc together?" Therefore,—dared and done to-day Climbing,—here I stand: but you—where?

If a spirit of the place Broke the silence, bade me question, promised answer,—what disgrace Did I stipulate "Provided answer suit my hopes, not fears!" Would I shrink to learn my life-time's limit—days, weeks, months or years? Would I shirk assurance on each point whereat I can but guess— "Does the soul survive the body? Is there God's self, no or yes?" If I know my mood, 'twere constant—come in whatsoe'er uncouth Shape it should, nay, formidable—so the answer were but truth.

Well, and wherefore shall it daunt me, when 'tis I myself am tasked, When, by weakness weakness questioned, weakly answers—weakly asked? Weakness never needs be falseness: truth is truth in each degree —Thunderpealed by God to Nature, whispered by my soul to me. Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a truth beyond: "Mine is but man's truest answer—how were it did God respond?" I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech, Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of reach, Than,—because it well may happen yonder, where the far snows blanch Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and hears an avalanche,— I shall pick a clod and throw,—cry, "Such the sight and such the sound! What though I nor see nor hear them? Others do, the proofs abound!" Can I make my eye an eagle's, sharpen ear to recognize Sound o'er league and league of silence? Can I know, who but surmise? If I dared no self-deception when, a week since, I and you Walked and talked along the grass-path, passing lightly in review What seemed hits and what seemed misses in a certain fence-play,—strife Sundry minds of mark engaged in "On the Soul and Future Life,"— If I ventured estimating what was come of parried thrust, Subtle stroke, and, rightly, wrongly, estimating could be just —Just, though life so seemed abundant in the form which moved by mine, I might well have played at feigning, fooling,—laughed "What need opine Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to pain, And this first life claims a second, else I count its good no gain?" Much less have I heart to palter when the matter to decide Now becomes "Was ending ending once and always, when you died?" Did the face, the form I lifted as it lay, reveal the loss Not alone of life but soul? A tribute to yon flowers and moss, What of you remains beside? A memory! Easy to attest "Certainly from out the world that one believes who knew her best Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good were great perchance Had but fortune favoured, bidden each shy faculty advance; After all—who knows another? Only as I know, I speak." So much of you lives within me while I live my year or week. Then my fellow takes the tale up, not unwilling to aver Duly in his turn, "I knew him best of all, as he knew her: Such he was, and such he was not, and such other might have been But that somehow every actor, somewhere in this earthly scene, Fails." And so both memories dwindle, yours and mine together linked, Till there is but left for comfort, when the last spark proves extinct, This—that somewhere new existence led by men and women new Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you; While ourselves, the only witness to what work our life evolved, Only to ourselves proposing problems proper to be solved By ourselves alone,—who working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit Others reap and garner, heedless how produced by stalk and root,— We who, darkling, timed the day's birth,—struggling, testified to peace,— Earned, by dint of failure, triumph,—we, creative thought, must cease In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped! Why repine? There's ever some one lives although ourselves be dead!

Well, what signifies repugnance? Truth is truth howe'er it strike. Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike. Stalwart body idly yoked to stunted spirit, powers, that fain Else would soar, condemned to grovel, groundlings through the fleshly chain,— Help that hinders, hindrance proved but help disguised when all too late,— Hindrance is the fact acknowledged, howsoe'er explained as Fate, Fortune, Providence: we bear, own life a burthen more or less. Life thus owned unhappy, is there supplemental happiness Possible and probable in life to come? or must we count Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole amount, Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow? Why should I want courage here? I will ask and have an answer,—with no favour, with no fear,— From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly believe True that controverted doctrine? Is it fact to which I cleave, Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the soul's eclipse Not the soul's extinction? take his "I believe and I declare— Certain am I—from this life I pass into a better, there Where that lady lives of whom enamoured was my soul"—where this Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is?

I have questioned and am answered. Question, answer presuppose Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers,—is, it knows; As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself,—a force Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course, Unaffected by its end,—that this thing likewise needs must be; Call this—God, then, call that—soul, and both—the only facts for me. Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving, proves them such: Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much. What before caused all the causes, what effect of all effects Haply follows,—these are fancy. Ask the rush if it suspects Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and how Falls or flows on still! What answer makes the rush except that now Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than itself, Is the everyway external stream that now through shoal and shelf Floats it onward, leaves it—may be—wrecked at last, or lands on shore There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore. —May be! mere surmise not knowledge: much conjecture styled belief, What the rush conceives the stream means through the voyage blind and brief. Why, because I doubtless am, shall I as doubtless be? "Because God seems good and wise." Yet under this our life's apparent laws Reigns a wrong which, righted once, would give quite other laws to life. "He seems potent." Potent here, then: why are right and wrong at strife? Has in life the wrong the better? Happily life ends so soon! Right predominates in life? Then why two lives and double boon? "Anyhow, we want it: wherefore want?" Because, without the want, Life, now human, would be brutish: just that hope, however scant, Makes the actual life worth leading; take the hope therein away, All we have to do is surely not endure another day. This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy: life done— Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment? none, "But the soul is not the body:" and the breath is not the flute; Both together make the music: either marred and all is mute. Truce to such old sad contention whence, according as we shape Most of hope or most of fear, we issue in a half-escape: "We believe" is sighed. I take the cup of comfort proffered thus, Taste and try each soft ingredient, sweet infusion, and discuss What their blending may accomplish for the cure of doubt, till—slow, Sorrowful, but how decided! needs must I o'erturn it—so! Cause before, effect behind me—blanks! The midway point I am, Caused, itself—itself efficient: in that narrow space must cram All experience—out of which there crowds conjecture manifold, But, as knowledge, this comes only—things may be as I behold, Or may not be, but, without me and above me, things there are; I myself am what I know not—ignorance which proves no bar To the knowledge that I am, and, since I am, can recognize What to rne is pain and pleasure: this is sure, the rest—surmise. If my fellows are or are not, what may please them and what pain,— Mere surmise: my own experience—that is knowledge, once again!

I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and taught This—there is no reconciling wisdom with a world distraught, Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim, If—(to my own sense, remember! though none other feel the same!)— If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's place, And life, time,—with all their chances, changes—just probation-space, Mine, for me. But those apparent other mortals—theirs, for them? Knowledge stands on my experience: all outside its narrow hem, Free surmise may sport and welcome! Pleasures, pains affect mankind Just as they affect myself? Why, here's my neighbour color-blind, Eyes like mine to all appearance: "green as grass" do I affirm? "Red as grass" he contradicts me: which employs the proper term? Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no third for referee, How should I distinguish? Just so, God must judge 'twixt man and me. To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine, Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and green; Still, without what seems such mortal's pleasure, pain, my life were lost —Life, my whole sole chance to prove—although at man's apparent cost— What is beauteous and what ugly, right to strive for, right to shun, Fit to help and fit to hinder,—prove my forces every one, Good and evil,—learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love of good, As 'tis set me, understand so much as may be understood— Solve the problem: "From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse In each good or evil issue! nor miscalculate alike Counting one the other in the final balance, which to strike,  Soul was born and life allotted: ay, the show of things unfurled For thy summing-up and judgment,—thine, no other mortal's world!"

What though fancy scarce may grapple with the complex and immense —"His own world for every mortal?" Postulate omnipotence! Limit power, and simple grows the complex: shrunk to atom size, That which loomed immense to fancy low before my reason lies,— I survey it and pronounce it work like other work: success Here and there, the workman's glory,—here and there, his shame no less. Failure as conspicuous. Taunt not "Human work ape work divine?" As the power, expect performance! God's be God's as mine is mine! God whose power made man and made man's wants, and made, to meet those wants, Heaven and earth which, through the body, prove the spirit's ministrants, Excellently all,—did He lack power or was the will in fault When He let blue heaven be shrouded o'er by vapours of the vault, Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death? What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life? Must the rose sigh "Pluck—I perish!" must the eve weep "Gaze—I fade!" —Every sweet warn "'Ware my bitter!" every shine bid "Wait my shade"? Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die? Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy— Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess What a preferable state were universal happiness? Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement, Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good, Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless food. Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere, Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear To myself, the sole existence, single truth mid falsehood,—well! If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for,—if Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff, First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot can prize,— Plainlier! if this life's conception new life fail to realize,— Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge Reflex of the devil's doings—God's work by no subterfuge— (So death's kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave Soul and body both release from life's long nightmare in the grave) Still,—with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read, Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead,— I must say—or choke in silence—"Howsoever came my fate, Sorrow did and joy did nowise,—life well weighed,—preponderate." By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can; By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man! Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change? Wisdom—that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance? Power? 'tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim, So much passion,—no defect there, no excess, but still the same,— As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world—its leaf! No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute: Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!

But, O world outspread beneath me! only for myself I speak, Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak, Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age, Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with blains —Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence explains! I shall "vindicate no way of God's to man," nor stand apart, "Laugh, be candid," while I watch it traversing the human heart! Traversed heart must tell its story uncominented on: no less Mine results in, "Only grant a second life, I acquiesce In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts  Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance? Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood reigned? While for love—Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed By the death-pang to the birth-throe—learning what is love indeed? Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled, Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop distilled, I shall boast it mine—the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure sprung,   Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!"

Witness, Dear and True, how little I was 'ware of—not your worth, —That I knew, my heart assures me—but of what a shade on earth Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw O'er the ways we walked together! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow, Used to seem the ways, the walking; narrow ways are well to tread When there's moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead: Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives, Liberates the brain o'erloaded—best of all restoratives. Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late converged Ways though winding?—world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept or surged As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven's Titan mace Smote the immense to storm Mozart would by a finger's lifting chase? Yes, I knew—but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and True. Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day, Walk—but with how bold a footstep! on a way—but what a way! —Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were utmost gain. Can it be, and must, and will it?

Silence! Out of fact's domain, Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear—dispute Fact's inexorable ruling, "Outside fact, surmise be mute!" Well!

Ay, well and best, if fact's self I may force the answer from! 'T is surmise I stop the mouth of. Not above in yonder dome All a rapture with its rose-glow,—not around, where pile and peak Strainingly await the sun's fall,—not beneath, where crickets creak, Birds assemble for their bed-time, soft the tree-top swell subsides,— No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowledge hides. Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust —Now the ready "Man were wronged else," now the rash "and God unjust"— None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand, Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof! Fancy thrust and Reason parry! Thine the prize who stand aloof.

. I concede the thing refused: henceforth no certainty more plain Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again. Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three— God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be. Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact!

.                                                        I do: Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two. Life to come will be improvement on the life that's now; destroy Body's thwartings, there's no longer screen betwixt soul and soul's joy. Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? In this first Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst: Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed, Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde. We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak, Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak. There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh Substitute of trap for dragnet, once a breakage in the mesh. Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne'er emerged Any new-created Python for man's plague since earth was purged. Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old, O'er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold: Which advantage—in the absence of a fourth and farther fact Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act— I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. Why delay? Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day! Is he sad? there's ready refuge: of all sadness death's prompt cure! Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burden to endure! Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole, Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing whole, Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears— What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years, When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where, flesh-freed, Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed! Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's increase, Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of hope sufficed,— What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light? Death itself perchance, brief pain that's pang, condensed and infinite? But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he laughs— Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs! Any moment claims more courage when, by crossing cold and gloom, Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance wait, Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state! I affirm and reaffirm it therefore: only make as plain As that man now lives, that after dying man will live again,— Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene,— And I bid him—at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky, Flower's departure, frost's arrival—never hesitate, but die!

. Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure, This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage—be it hope, Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope,— He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all, Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er befall. What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere, Next life's—call it, heaven of freedom, close above and crystal-clear? He shall find—say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term, Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm. God, soul, earth, heaven, hell,—five facts now: what is to desiderate?

. Nothing! Henceforth man's existence bows to the monition "Wait! Take the joys and bear the sorrows—neither with extreme concern! Living here means nescience simply: 'tis next life that helps to learn. Shut those eyes, next life will open,—stop those ears, next life will teach Hearing's office,—close those lips, next life will give the power of speech!  Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive attitude, Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good, Reap this life's success or failure! Soon shall things be unperplexed And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next."

. Not so fast! Still more concession! not alone do I declare Life must needs be borne,—I also will that man become aware Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends. Good, done here, be there rewarded,—evil, worked here, there amerced! Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first.

. There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree? Was—for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be. Prior to this last announcement, "Certainly as God exists, As He made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists, Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime,— Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns Life eternal,—heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death,—say, hell. As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!" —Prior to this last announcement, earth was man's probation-place: Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace; Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple "Such effects succeed Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man's earthly deed Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line On his making point meet point or with or else without incline,"— Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must. Lay but down that law as stringent "Wouldst thou live again, be just! " As this other "Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw thy breath! For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach results in death—" And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane) Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain! Tell not me "Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law, Now styled God's—now, Nature's edict!" Where's obedience without flaw Paid to either? What's the adage rife in man's mouth? Why, "The best I both see and praise, the worst I follow"—which, despite professed Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives. There's evading and persuading and much making law amends Somehow, there's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes and faulty friends, —Any consequence except inevitable death when "Die, Whoso breaks our law!" they publish, God and Nature equally. Law that's kept or broken—subject to man's will and pleasure! Whence? How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence: Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey; Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward. Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air—no sward Firm like my first fact to stand on, " God there is, and soul there is," And soul's earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis, Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise, Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, "Does the scope Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?"

Thus have we come back full circle: fancy's footsteps one by one Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begun, Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True! When, half a week Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a cheek You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile By some word like "Idly argued! you know better all the while!" Now, from me—Oh not a blush, but, how much more, a joyous glow, Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your "Yes, better I do know" Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me. So, I hope—no more than hope, but hope—no less than hope, because I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent laws, How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all: —Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released, Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated,—all we know, All we know not,—o'er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo— Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld, I behold in life, so—hope!

Sad summing-up of all to say! Athanasius contra mundum, why should he hope more than they? So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts!

Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon village I this morn Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn Tenement's ignoble fortune: through a crevice, plain its floor Piled with provender for cattle, while a dung-heap blocked the door. In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose, Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul—Rousseau's. Turn thence! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the lake? There I plucked a leaf, one week since,—ivy, plucked for Byron's sake. Famed unfortunates! And yet, because of that phosphoric fame Swathing blackness' self with brightness till putridity looked flame, All the world was witched: and wherefore? what could lie beneath, allure Heart of man to let corruption serve man's head as cynosure? Was the magic in the dictum "All that's good is gone and past; Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst of all comes last: Which believe—for I believe it?" So preached one his gospel-news; While melodious moaned the other, "Dying day with dolphin-hues! Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman's eye! Ye mounts Where I climb to 'scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your especial worth Failed ye to enforce the maxim 'Of all objects found on earth Man is meanest, much too honoured when compared with—what by odds Beats him—any dog: so, let him go a-howling to his gods!'  Which believe—for I believe it!" such the comfort man received Sadly since perforce he must: for why? the famous bard believed!

Fame! Then, give me fame, a moment! As I gather at a glance Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse, Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and brandish well Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether heaven or hell Send the dazzling summons downward, to submit itself the same, Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on face by—Fame! Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant torch I wave! Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late with sky for architrave? This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindled core, began Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted yonder at Lausanne. This which flits and spits, the aspic,—sparkles in and out the boughs Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round and round allows Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of Wit— Laughter so bejewels Learning,—what but Ferney nourished it? Nay, nor fear—since eveiy resin feeds the flame—that I dispense With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's all-explosive Eloquence: No, be sure! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean-Jacques, Dare I want thine, Diodati! What though monkeys and macaques Gibber "Byron"? Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond the crew, Green for ever, no deciduous trash macaques and monkeys chew! As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet's power,— Detonations, figurations, smiles—the rainbow, tears—the shower,— Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel—Fame! and, famed, declare —Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire. . . O the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence! Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life long—this: "He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod . . . Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God!"

So the poor smile played, that evening: pallid smile long since extinct Here in London's mid-November! Not so loosely thoughts were linked, Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Salève, Found the chain, I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached your grave,— Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me would not rest Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain, —Here it lies, for much or little! I have lived all o'er again That last pregnant hour: I saved it, just as I could save a root Disinterred for re-interment when the time best helps to shoot. Life is stocked with germs of torpid life; but may I never wake Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake! Rest all such, unraised forever! Be this, sad yet sweet, the sole Memory evoked from slumber! Least part this: then what the whole?

9, 1877.

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Rh “True,” replied Paul Harley; “and did Ah Tsong return to his room?”

“Not immediately. Permit me to say, Mr. Harley, that the nature of your questions surprises me. At the moment I fail to see their bearing upon the main issue. He returned and reported to my wife that I was writing, and she then requested him to bring her a glass of milk. Accordingly, he came down again, and going out into the kitchen, executed this order.”

“Ah. He would have to light a candle for that purpose, I suppose?”

“A candle, or a lamp,” replied Colin Camber, staring at Paul Harley. Then, his expression altering: “Of course!” he cried. “You saw the light from Cray’s Folly? I understand at last.”

We were silent for a while, until:

“How long a time elapsed between the firing of the shot and Ah Tsong’s knocking at the study door?” asked Harley.

“I could not answer definitely. I was absorbed in my work. But probably only a minute or two.”

“Was the sound a loud one?”

“Fairly loud. And very startling, of course, in the silence of the night.”

“The shot, then, was fired from somewhere quite near the house?”

“I presume so.”

“But you thought no more about the matter?”

“Frankly, I had forgotten it. You see, the neighbourhood is rich with game; it might have been a poacher.”

“Quite,” murmured Harley, but his face was very stern. “I wonder if you fully realize the danger of your position, Mr. Camber?”

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218 “Believe me,” was the reply, “I can anticipate almost every question which I shall be called upon to answer.”

Paul Harley stared at him in a way which told me that he was comparing his features line for line with the etching of Edgar Allen Poe which hung in his office in Chancery Lane, and:

“I do believe you,” he replied, “and I am wondering if you are in a position to clear yourself?”

“On the contrary,” Camber assured him, “I am only waiting to hear that Juan Menendez was shot in the grounds of Cray’s Folly, and not within the house, to propose to you that unless the real assassin be discovered, I shall quite possibly pay the penalty of his crime.”

“He was shot in the Tudor garden,” replied Harley, “within sight of your windows.”

“Ah!” Colin Camber resumed the task of stuffing shag into his corn-cob. “Then if it would interest you, Mr. Harley, I will briefly outline the case against myself. I had never troubled to disguise the fact that I hated Menendez. Many witnesses can be called to testify to this. He was in Cuba when I was in Cuba, and evidence is doubtless obtainable to show that we stayed at the same hotels in various cities of the United States prior to my coming to England and leasing the Guest House. Finally, he became my neighbour in Surrey.”

He carefully lighted his pipe, whilst Harley and I watched him silently, then:

“Menendez had the bat wing nailed to the door of his house,” he continued. “He believed himself to be in danger, and associated this sign with the source of his danger. Excepting himself and possibly certain other members of his household it is improbable that any

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Rh one else in Surrey understands the significance of the token save myself. The unholy rites of Voodoo are a closed book to the Western nations. I have opened that book, Mr. Harley. The powers of the Obeah man, and especially of the arch-magician known and dreaded by every negro as ‘Bat Wing,’ are familiar to me. Since I was alone at the time that the shot was fired, and for some few minutes afterward, and since the Tudor garden of Cray’s Folly is within easy range of the Guest House, to fail to place me under arrest would be an act of sheer stupidity.”

He spoke the words with a sort of triumph. Like the fakir, he possessed the art of spiritual detachment, which is an attribute of genius. From an intellectual eminence he was surveying his own peril. Colin Camber in the flesh had ceased to exist; he was merely a pawn in a fascinating game.

Paul Harley glanced at his watch.

“Mr. Camber,” he said, “I have just sustained the most crushing defeat of my career. The man who had summoned me to his aid was killed almost before my eyes. One thing I must do or accept professional oblivion.”

“I understand.” Colin Camber nodded. “Apprehend his murderer?”

“Ultimately, yes. But, firstly, I must see that to the assassination of Colonel Menendez a judicial murder is not added.”

“You mean?” asked Camber, eagerly.

“I mean that if you killed Menendez, you are a madman, and I have formed the opinion during our brief conversation that you are brilliantly sane.”

Colin Camber rose and bowed in that old-world fashion which was his.

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220 “I am obliged to you, Mr. Harley,” he replied. “But has Mr. Knox informed you of my bibulous habits?”

Paul Harley nodded.

“They will, of course, be ascribed,” continued Camber, “and there are many suitable analogies, to deliberate contemplation of a murderous deed. I would remind you that chronic alcoholism is a recognized form, of insanity.”

His mood changed again, and sighing wearily, he lay back in the chair. Over his pale face crept an expression which I knew, instinctively, to mean that he was thinking of his wife.

“Mr. Harley,” he said, speaking in a very low tone which scorned to accentuate the beauty of his voice, “I have suffered much in the quest of truth. Suffering is the gate beyond which we find compassion. Perhaps you have thought my foregoing remarks frivolous, in view of the fact that last night a soul was sent to its reckoning almost at my doors. I revere the truth, however, above all lesser laws and above all expediency. I do not, and I cannot, regret the end of the man Menendez. But for three reasons I should regret to pay the penalty of a crime which I did not commit. These reasons are—one,” he ticked them off upon his delicate fingers—“It would be bitter to know that Devil Menendez even in death had injured me; two—My work in the world, which is unfinished; and, three—My wife.”

I watched and listened, almost awed by the strangeness of the man who sat before me. His three reasons were illuminating. A casual observer might have regarded Colin Camber as a monument of selfishness. But it was evident to me, and I knew it

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Rh must be evident to Paul Harley, that his egotism was quite selfless. To a natural human resentment and a pathetic love for his wife he had added, as an equal clause, the claim of the world upon his genius.

“I have heard you,” said Paul Harley, quietly, “and you have led me to the most important point of all.”

“What point is that, Mr. Harley?”

“You have referred to your recent lapse from abstemiousness. Excuse me if I discuss personal matters. This you ascribed to domestic troubles, or so Mr. Knox has informed me. You have also referred to your undisguised hatred of the late Colonel Juan Menendez. I am going to ask you, Mr. Camber, to tell me quite frankly what was the nature of those domestic troubles, and what had caused this hatred which survives even the death of its object?”

Colin Camber stood up, angular, untidy, but a figure of great dignity.

“Mr. Harley,” he replied, “I cannot answer your questions.”

Paul Harley inclined his head gravely.

“May I suggest,” he said, “that you will be called upon to do so under circumstances which will brook no denial.”

Colin Camber watched him unflinchingly.

“‘The fate of every man is hung around his neck,’” he replied.

“Yet, in this secret history which you refuse to divulge, and which therefore must count against you, the truth may lie which exculpates you.”

“It may be so. But my determination remains unaltered.”

“Very well,” answered Paul Harley, quietly, but I could see that he was exercising a tremendous restraint

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222 upon himself. “I respect your decision, but you have given me a giant’s task, and for this I cannot thank you, Mr. Camber.”

I heard a car pulled up in the road outside the Guest House. Colin Camber clenched his hands and sat down again in the carved chair.

“The opportunity has passed,” said Harley. “The police are here.”

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 CHAPTER XXIII INSPECTOR AYLESBURY CROSS-EXAMINES

H, I see,” said Inspector Aylesbury, “a little private confab, eh?”

He sank his chin into its enveloping folds, treating Harley and myself each to a stare of disapproval.

“These gentlemen very kindly called to advise me of the tragic occurrence at Cray’s Folly,” explained Colin Camber. “Won’t you be seated, Inspector?”

“Thanks, but I can conduct my examination better standing.”

He turned to Paul Harley.

“Might I ask, Mr. Harley,” he said, “what concern this is of yours?”

“I am naturally interested in anything appertaining to the death of a client, Inspector Aylesbury.”

“Oh, so you slip in ahead of me, having deliberately withheld information from the police, and think you are going to get all the credit. Is that it?”

“That is it, Inspector,” replied Harley, smiling. “An instance of professional jealousy.”

“Professional jealousy?” cried the Inspector. “Allow me to remind you that you have no official standing in this case whatever. You are merely a member of the public, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I am happy to be recognized as a member of that much-misunderstood body.”

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224 “Ah, well, we shall see. Now, Mr. Camber, your attention, please.”

He raised his finger impressively.

“I am informed by Miss Beverley that the late Colonel Menendez looked upon you as a dangerous enemy.”

“Were those her exact words?” I murmured.

“Mr. Knox!”

The inspector turned rapidly, confronting me. “I have already warned your friend. But if I have any interruptions from you, I will have you removed.”

He continued to glare at me for some moments, and then, turning again to Colin Camber:

“I say, I have information that Colonel Menendez looked upon you as a dangerous neighbour.”

“In that event,” replied Colin Camber, “why did he lease an adjoining property?”

“That’s an evasion, sir. Answer my first question, if you please.”

“You have asked me no question, Inspector.”

“Oh, I see. That’s your attitude, is it? Very well, then. Were you, or were you not, an enemy of the late Colonel Menendez?”

“I was.”

“What’s that?”

“I say I was. I hated him, and I hate him no less in death than I hated him living.”

I think that I had never seen a man so taken aback. Inspector Aylesbury, drawing out a large handkerchief blew his nose. Replacing the handkerchief, he produced a note-book.

“I am placing that statement on record, sir,” he said.

He made an entry in the book, and then:

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Rh “Where did you first meet Colonel Menendez?” he asked.

“I never met him in my life.”

“What’s that?”

Colin Camber merely shrugged his shoulders.

“I will repeat my question,” said the Inspector, pompously. “Where did you first meet Colonel Juan Menendez?”

“I have answered you, Inspector.”

“Oh, I see. You decline to answer that question. Very well, I will make a note of this.” He did so. “And now,” said he, “what were you doing at midnight last night?”

“I was writing.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“What happened?”

Very succinctly Colin Camber repeated the statement which he had already made to Paul Harley, and, at its conclusion:

“Send for the man, Ah Tsong,” directed Inspector Aylesbury.

Colin Camber inclined his head, clapped his hands, and silently Ah Tsong entered.

The Inspector stared at him for several moments as a visitor to the Zoo might stare at some rare animal; then:

“Your name is Ah Tsong?” he began.

“Ah Tsong,” murmured the Chinaman.

“I am going to ask you to give an exact account of your movements last night.”

“No sabby.”

Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat.

“I say I wish to know exactly what you did last night. Answer me.”

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226 Ah Tsong’s face remained quite expressionless, and:

“No sabby,” he repeated.

“Oh, I see,” said the Inspector, “This witness refuses to answer at all.”

“You are wrong,” explained Colin Camber, quietly. “Ah Tsong is a Chinaman, and his knowledge of English is very limited. He does not understand you.”

“He understood my first question. You can’t draw wool over my eyes. He knows well enough. Are you going to answer me?” he demanded, angrily, of the Chinaman.

“No sabby, master,” he said, glancing aside at Colin Camber. “Number-one p’licee-man gotchee no pidgin.”

Paul Harley was leisurely filling his pipe, and:

“If you think the evidence of Ah Tsong important, Inspector,” he said, “I will interpret if you wish.”

“You will do what?”

“I will act as interpreter.”

“Do you want me to believe that you speak Chinese?”

“Your beliefs do not concern me, Inspector; I am merely offering my services.”

“Thanks,” said the Inspector, dryly, “but I won’t trouble you. I should like a few words with Mrs. Camber.”

“Very good.”

Colin Camber bent his head gravely, and gave an order to Ah Tsong, who turned and went out.

“And what firearms have you in the house?” asked Inspector Aylesbury.

“An early Dutch arquebus, which you see in the corner,” was the reply.

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Rh “That doesn’t interest me. I mean up-to-date weapons.”

“And a Colt revolver which I have in a drawer here.”

As he spoke, Colin Camber opened a drawer in his desk and took out a heavy revolver of the American Army Service pattern.

“I should like to examine it, if you please.”

Camber passed it to the Inspector, and the latter, having satisfied himself that none of the chambers were loaded, peered down the barrel, and smelled at the weapon suspiciously.

“If it has been recently used it has been well cleaned,” he said, and placed it on a cabinet beside him. “Anything else?”

“Nothing.”

“No sporting rifles?”

“None. I never shoot.”

“Oh, I see.”

The door opened and Mrs. Camber came in. She was very simply dressed, and looked even more child-like than she had seemed before. I think Ah Tsong had warned her of the nature of the ordeal which she was to expect, but her wide-eyed timidity was nevertheless pathetic to witness.

She glanced at me with a ghost of a smile, and:

“Ysola,” said Colin Camber, inclining his head toward me in a grave gesture of courtesy, “Mr. Knox has generously forgiven me a breach of good manners for which I shall never forgive myself. I beg you to thank him, as I have done.”

“It is so good of you,” she said, sweetly, and held out her hand. “But I knew you would understand that it was just a great mistake.”

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228 “Mr. Paul Harley,” Camber continued, “my wife welcomes you; and this, Ysola, is Inspector Aylesbury, who desires a few moments’ conversation upon a rather painful matter.”

“I have heard, I have heard,” she whispered. “Ah Tsong has told me.”

The pupils of her eyes dilated, as she fixed an appealing glance upon the Inspector.

In justice to the latter he was palpably abashed by the delicate beauty of the girl who stood before him, by her naïveté, and by that childishness of appearance and manner which must have awakened the latent chivalry in almost any man’s heart.

“I am sorry to have to trouble you with this disagreeable business, Mrs. Camber,” he began; “but I believe you were awakened last night by the sound of a shot.”

“Yes,” she replied, watching him intently, “that is so.”

“May I ask at what time this was heard?”

“Ah Tsong told me it was after twelve o’clock.”

“Was the sound a loud one?”

“Yes. It must have been to have awakened me.”

“I see. Did you think it was in the house?”

“Oh, no.”

“In the garden?”

“I really could not say, but I think that it was farther away than that.”

“And what did you do?”

“I rang the bell for Ah Tsong.”

“Did he come immediately?”

“Almost immediately.”

“He was dressed, then?”

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Rh “No, I don’t think he was. He had quickly put on an overcoat. He usually answers at once, when I ring for him, you see.”

“I see. What did you do then?”

“Well, I was frightened, you understand, and I told him to find out if all was well with my husband. He came back and told me that Colin was writing. But the sound had alarmed me very much.”

“Oh, and now perhaps you will tell me, Mrs. Camber, when and where your husband first met Colonel Menendez?”

Every vestige of colour fled from the girl’s face.

“So far as I know—they never met,” she replied, haltingly.

“Could you swear to that?”

“Yes.”

I think that hitherto she had not fully realized the nature of the situation; but now something in the Inspector’s voice, or perhaps in our glances, told her the truth. She moved to where Colin Camber was sitting, looking down at him questioningly, pitifully. He put his arm about her and drew her close.

Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and returned his note-book to his pocket.

“I am going to take a look around the garden,” he announced.

My respect for him increased slightly, and Harley and I followed him out of the study. A police sergeant was sitting in the hall, and Ah Tsong was standing just outside the door.

“Show me the way to the garden,” directed the Inspector.

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230 low voice, in order, as I divined, that the Inspector should not hear him.

“I feel dreadfully guilty, Knox,” he confessed, in a murmured aside. “For any Englishman, fictitious characters excepted, to possess a knowledge of Chinese is almost indecent.”

Presently, then, I found myself once more in that unkempt garden of which I retained such unpleasant memories.

Inspector Aylesbury stared all about and up at the back of the house, humming to himself and generally behaving as though he were alone. Before the little summer study he stood still, and:

“Oh, I see,” he muttered.

What he had seen was painfully evident. The right-hand window, beneath which there was a permanent wooden seat, commanded an unobstructed view of the Tudor garden in the grounds of Cray’s Folly. Clearly I could detect the speck of high-light upon the top of the sun-dial.

The Inspector stepped into the hut. It contained a bookshelf upon which a number of books remained, a table and a chair, with some few other dilapidated appointments. I glanced at Harley and saw that he was staring as if hypnotized at the prospect in the valley below. I observed a constable on duty at the top of the steps which led down into the Tudor garden, but I could see nothing to account for Harley’s fixed regard, until:

“Pardon me one moment, Inspector,” he muttered, brusquely.

Brushing past the indignant Aylesbury, who was examining the contents of the shelves in the hut, he knelt upon the wooden seat and stared intently through the open window.

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Rh “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven,” he chanted. “Good! That will settle it.”

“Oh, I see,” said Inspector Aylesbury, standing strictly upright, his prominent eyes turned in the direction of the kneeling Harley. “One, two, three, four, and so on will settle it, eh? If you don’t mind me saying so, it was settled already.”

“Yes?” replied Harley, standing up, and I saw that his eyes were very bright and that his face was slightly flushed. “You think the case is so simple as that?”

“Simple?” exclaimed the Inspector. “It’s the most cunning thing that was ever planned, but I flatter myself that I have a good straight eye which can see a fairly long way.”

“Excellent,” murmured Harley. “I congratulate you. Myopia is so common in the present generation. You have decided, of course, that the murder was committed by Ah Tsong?”

Inspector Aylesbury’s eyes seemed to protrude extraordinarily.

“Ah Tsong!” he exclaimed. “Ah Tsong!”

“Surely it is palpable,” continued Harley, “that of the three people residing in the Guest House, Ah Tsong is the only one who could possibly have done the deed.”

“Who could possibly—who could possibly” stuttered the Inspector, then paused because of sheer lack of words.

“Review the evidence,” continued Harley, coolly. “Mrs. Camber was awakened by the sound of a shot. She immediately rang for Ah Tsong. There was a short interval before Ah Tsong appeared—and when he did appear he was wearing an overcoat. Note this point, Inspector: wearing an overcoat. He descended to the study and found Mr. Camber writing. Now, Ah

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232 Tsong sleeps in a room adjoining the kitchen on the ground floor. We passed his quarters on our way to the garden a moment ago. Of course, you had noted this? Mr. Camber is therefore eliminated from our list of suspects.”

The Inspector was growing very red, but ere he had time to speak Harley continued:

“The first of these three persons to have heard a shot fired at the end of the garden would have been Ah Tsong, and not Mrs. Camber, whose room is upstairs and in the front of the house. If it had been fired by Mr. Camber from the spot upon which we now stand, he would still have been in the garden at the moment when Mrs. Camber was ringing the bell for Ah Tsong. Mr. Camber must therefore have returned from the end of the garden to the study, and have passed Ah Tsong’s room—unheard by the occupant—between the time that the bell rang and the time that Ah Tsong went upstairs. This I submit to be impossible. There is an alternative: it is that he slipped in whilst Ah Tsong, standing on the landing above, was receiving his mistress’s orders. I submit that the alternative is also impossible. We thus eliminate Mr. Camber from the case, as I have already mentioned.”

“Eliminate—eliminate!” cried the Inspector, beginning to recover power of speech. “Do you think you can fuddle me with a mass of words, Mr. Harley? Allow me to point out to you, sir, that you are in no way officially associated with this matter.”

“You have already drawn my attention to the fact, Inspector, but it can do no harm to jog my memory.”

Harley spoke entirely without bitterness, and I, who knew his every mood, realized that he was thoroughly

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Rh enjoying himself. Therefore I knew that at last he had found a clue.

“I may add, Inspector,” said he, “that upon further reflection I have also eliminated Ah Tsong from the case. I forgot to mention that he lacks the first and second fingers of his right hand; and I have yet to meet the marksman who can shoot a man squarely between the eyes, by moonlight, at a hundred yards, employing his third finger as trigger-finger. There are other points, but these will be sufficient to show you that this case is more complicated than you had assumed it to be.”

Inspector Aylesbury did not deign to reply, or could not trust himself to do so. He turned and made his way back to the house.

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 CHAPTER XXIV AN OFFICIAL MOVE

E REËNTERED the study to find Mrs. Camber sitting in a chair very close to her husband. Inspector Aylesbury stood in the open doorway for a moment, and then, stepping back into the hall:

“Sergeant Butler,” he said, addressing the man who waited there.

“Yes, sir.”

“Go out to the gate and get Edson to relieve you. I shall want you to go back to headquarters in a few minutes.”

“Very good, sir.”

I scented what was coming, and as Inspector Aylesbury reëntered the room:

“I should like to make a statement,” announced Paul Harley, quietly.

The Inspector frowned, and lowering his chin, regarded him with little favour.

“I have not invited any statement from you, Mr. Harley,” said he.

“Quite,” returned Harley. “I am volunteering it. It is this: I gather that you are about to take an important step officially. Having in view certain steps which I, also, am about to take, I would ask you to defer action, purely in your own interests, for at least twenty-four hours.”

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Rh “I hear you,” said the Inspector, sarcastically.

“Very well, Inspector. You have come newly into this case, and I assure you that its apparent simplicity is illusive. As new facts come into your possession you will realize that what I say is perfectly true, and if you act now you will be acting hastily. All that I have learned I am prepared to place at your disposal. But I predict that the interference of Scotland Yard will be necessary before this enquiry is concluded. Therefore I suggest, since you have rejected my coöperation, that you obtain that of Detective Inspector Wessex, of the Criminal Investigation Department. In short, this is no one-man job. You will do yourself harm by jumping to conclusions, and cause unnecessary trouble to perfectly innocent people.”

“Is your statement concluded?” asked the Inspector.

“For the moment I have nothing to add.”

“Oh, I see. Very good. Then we can now get to business. Always with your permission, Mr. Harley.”

He took his stand before the fireplace, very erect, and invested with his most official manner. Mrs. Camber watched him in a way that was pathetic. Camber seemed to be quite composed, although his face was unusually pale.

“Now, Mr. Camber,” said the Inspector, “I find your answers to the questions which I have put to you very unsatisfactory.”

“I am sorry,” said Colin Camber, quietly.

“One moment, Inspector,” interrupted Paul Harley, “you have not warned Mr. Camber.”

Thereupon the long-repressed wrath of Inspector Aylesbury burst forth.

“Then I will warn you, sir!” he shouted. “One more word and you leave this house.”

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236 “Yet I am going to venture on one more word,” continued Harley, unperturbed. He turned to Colin Camber. “I happen to be a member of the Bar, Mr. Camber,” he said, “although I rarely accept a brief. Have I your authority to act for you?”

“I am grateful, Mr. Harley, and I leave this unpleasant affair in your hands with every confidence.”

Camber stood up, bowing formally.

The expression upon the inflamed face of Inspector Aylesbury was really indescribable, and recognizing his mental limitations, I was almost tempted to feel sorry for him. However, he did not lack self-confidence, and:

“I suppose you have scored, Mr. Harley,” he said, a certain hoarseness perceptible in his voice, “but I know my duty and I am not afraid to perform it. Now, Mr. Camber, did you, or did you not, at about twelve o’clock last night”

“Warn the accused,” murmured Harley.

Inspector Aylesbury uttered a choking sound, but:

“I have to warn you,” he said, “that your answers may be used as evidence. I will repeat: Did you, or did you not, at about twelve o’clock last night, shoot, with intent to murder, Colonel Juan Menendez?”

Ysola Camber leapt up, clutching at her husband’s arm as if to hold him back.

“I did not,” he replied, quietly.

“Nevertheless,” continued the Inspector, looking aggressively at Paul Harley whilst he spoke, “I am going to detain you pending further enquiries.”

Colin Camber inclined his head.

“Very well,” he said; “you only do your duty.”

The little fingers clutching his sleeve slowly relaxed, and Mrs. Camber, uttering a long sigh, sank in a swoon at his feet.

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Rh “Ysola! Ysola!” he muttered. Stooping he raised the child-like figure. “If you will kindly open the door, Mr. Knox,” he said, “I will carry my wife to her room.”

I sprang to the door and held it widely open.

Colin Camber, deadly pale, but holding his head very erect, walked in the direction of the hallway with his pathetic burden. Mis-reading the purpose written upon the stern white face, Inspector Aylesbury stepped forward.

“Let someone else attend to Mrs. Camber,” he cried, sharply. “I wish you to remain here.”

His detaining hand was already upon Camber’s shoulder when Harley’s arm shot out like a barrier across the Inspector’s chest, and Colin Camber proceeded on his way. Momentarily, he glanced aside, and I saw that his eyes were unnaturally bright.

“Thank you, Mr. Harley,” he said, and carried his wife from the room.

Harley dropped his arm, and crossing, stood staring out of the window. Inspector Aylesbury ran heavily to the door.

“Sergeant!” he called, “Sergeant! keep that man in sight. He must return here immediately.”

I heard the sound of heavy footsteps following Camber’s up the stairs, then Inspector Aylesbury turned, a bulky figure in the open doorway, and:

“Now, Mr. Harley,” said he, entering and reclosing the door, “you are a barrister, I understand. Very well, then, I suppose you are aware that you have resisted and obstructed an officer of the law in the execution of his duty.”

Paul Harley spun round upon his heel.

“Is that a charge,” he inquired, “or merely a warning?”

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238 The two glared at one another for a moment, then:

“From now onward,” continued the Inspector, “I am going to have no more trouble with you, Mr. Harley. In the first place, I’ll have you looked up in the Law List; in the second place, I shall ask you to stick to your proper duties, and leave me to look after mine.”

“I have endeavoured from the outset,” replied Harley, his good humour quite restored, “to assist you in every way in my power. You have declined all my offers, and finally, upon the most flimsy evidence, you have detained a perfectly innocent man.”

“Oh, I see. A perfectly innocent man, eh?”

“Perfectly innocent, Inspector. There are so many points that you have overlooked. For instance, do you seriously suppose that Mr. Camber had been waiting up here night after night on the off-chance that Colonel Menendez would appear in the grounds of Cray’s Folly?”

“No, I don’t. I have got that worked out.”

“Indeed? You interest me.”

“Mr. Camber has an accomplice at Cray’s Folly.”

“What?” exclaimed Harley, and into his keen grey eyes crept a look of real interest.

“He has an accomplice,” repeated the Inspector. “A certain witness was strangely reluctant to mention Mr. Camber’s name. It was only after very keen examination that I got it at last. Now, Colonel Menendez had not retired last night, neither had a certain other party. That other party, sir, knows why Colonel Menendez was wandering about the garden at midnight.”

At first, I think, this astonishing innuendo did not fully penetrate to my mind, but when it did so, it seemed to galvanize me. Springing up from the chair in which I had been seated:

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Rh “You preposterous fool!” I exclaimed, hotly.

It was the last straw. Inspector Aylesbury strode to the door and throwing it open once more, turned to me:

“Be good enough to leave the house, Mr. Knox,” he said. “I am about to have it officially searched, and I will have no strangers present.”

I think I could have strangled him with pleasure, but even in my rage I was not foolhardy enough to lay myself open to that of which the Inspector was quite capable at this moment.

Without another word I walked out of the study, took my hat and stick, and opening the front door, quitted the Guest House, from which I had thus a second time been dismissed ignominiously.

Appreciation of this fact, which came to me as I stepped into the porch, awakened my sense of humour—a gift truly divine which has saved many a man from desperation or worse. I felt like a schoolboy who had been turned out of a class-room, and I was glad that I could laugh at myself.

A constable was standing in the porch, and he looked at me suspiciously. No doubt he perceived something very sardonic in my merriment.

I walked out of the gate, before which a car was standing, and as I paused to light a cigarette I heard the door of the Guest House open and close. I glanced back, and there was Paul Harley coming to join me.

“Now, Knox,” he said, briskly, “we have got our hands full.”

“My dear Harley, I am both angry and bewildered. Too angry and too bewildered to think clearly.”

“I can quite understand it. I should become homicidal if I were forced to submit for long to the company of Inspector Aylesbury. Of course, I had anticipated

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240 the arrest of Colin Camber, and I fear there is worse to come.”

“What do you mean, Harley?”

“I mean that failing the apprehension of the real murderer, I cannot see, at the moment, upon what the case for the defence is to rest.”

“But surely you demonstrated out there in the garden that he could not possibly have fired the shot?”

“Words, Knox, words. I could pick a dozen loopholes in my own argument. I had only hoped to defer the inevitable. I tell you, there is worse to come. Two things we must do at once.”

“What are they?”

“We must persuade the man on duty to allow us to examine the Tudor garden, and we must see the Chief Constable, whoever he may be, and prevail upon him to requisition the assistance of Scotland Yard. With Wessex in charge of the case I might have a chance. Whilst this disastrous man Aylesbury holds the keys there is none.”

“You heard what he said about Miss Beverley?”

We were now walking rapidly along the high road, and Harley nodded.

“I did,” he said. “I had expected it. He was inspired with this brilliant idea last night, and his ideas are too few to be lightly scrapped. If the Chief Constable is anything like the Inspector, what we are going to do heaven only knows.”

“I take it, Harley, that you are convinced of Colin Camber’s innocence?”

Harley did not answer for a moment, whereupon I glanced at him anxiously, then:

“Colin Camber,” he replied, “is of so peculiar a type that I could not presume to say of what he is capable

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Rh or is not capable. The most significant point in his favour is this: He is a man of unusual intellect. The planning of this cunning crime to such a man would have been child’s play—child’s play, Knox. But is it possible to believe that his genius would have failed him upon the most essential detail of all, namely, an alibi?”

“It is not.”

“Of course it is not. Which, continuing to regard Camber as an assassin, reduces us to the theory that the crime was committed in a moment of passion. This I maintain to be also impossible. It was no deed of impulse.”

“I agree with you.”

“Now, I believe that the enquiry is going to turn upon a very delicate point. If I am wrong in this, then perhaps I am wrong in my whole conception of the case. But have you considered the mass of evidence against Colin Camber?”

“I have, Harley,” I replied, sadly, “I have.”

“Think of all that we know, and which the Inspector does not know. Every single datum points in the same direction. No prosecution could ask for a more perfect case. Upon this fact I pin my hopes. Where an Aylesbury rushes in I fear to tread. The analogy with an angel was accidental, Knox!” he added, smilingly. “In other words, it is all too obvious. Yet I have failed once, Knox, failed disastrously, and it may be that in my anxiety to justify myself I am seeking for subtlety where no subtlety exists.”

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 CHAPTER XXV AYLESBURY’S THEORY

HERE were strangers about Cray’s Folly and a sort of furtive activity, horribly suggestive. We had not pursued the circular route by the high road which would have brought us to the lodge, but had turned aside where the swing-gate opened upon a footpath into the meadows. It was the path which I had pursued upon the day of my visit to the Lavender Arms. A second private gate here gave access to the grounds at a point directly opposite the lake; and as we crossed the valley, making for the terraced lawns, I saw unfamiliar figures upon the veranda, and knew that the cumbersome processes of the law were already in motion.

I was longing to speak to Val Beverley and to learn what had taken place during her interview with Inspector Aylesbury, but Harley led the way toward the tower wing, and by a tortuous path through the rhododendrons we finally came out on the northeast front and in sight of the Tudor garden.

Harley crossed to the entrance, and was about to descend the steps, when the constable on duty there held out his arm.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I have orders to admit no one to this part of the garden.”

“Oh,” said Harley, pulling up short, “but I am acting in this case. My name is Paul Harley.”

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Rh “Sorry, sir,” replied the constable, “but you will have to see Inspector Aylesbury.”

My friend uttered an impatient exclamation, but, turning aside:

“Very well, constable,” he muttered; “I suppose I must submit. Our friend, Aylesbury,” he added to me, as we walked away, “would appear to be a martinet as well as a walrus. At every step, Knox, he proves himself a tragic nuisance. This means waste of priceless time.”

“What had you hoped to do, Harley?”

“Prove my theory,” he returned; “but since every moment is precious, I must move in another direction.”

He hurried on through the opening in the box hedge and into the courtyard. Manoel had just opened the doors to a sepulchral-looking person who proved to be the coroner’s officer, and:

“Manoel!” cried Harley, “tell Carter to bring a car round at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I haven’t time to fetch my own,” he explained.

“Where are you off to?”

“I am off to see the Chief Constable, Knox. Aylesbury must be superseded at whatever cost. If the Chief Constable fails I shall not hesitate to go higher. I will get along to the garage. I don’t expect to be more than an hour. Meanwhile, do your best to act as a buffer between Aylesbury and the women. You understand me?”

“Quite,” I returned, shortly. “But the task may prove no light one, Harley.”

“It won’t,” he assured me, smiling grimly. “How you must regret, Knox, that we didn’t go fishing!”

With that he was off, eager-eyed and alert, the mood

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244 of dreamy abstraction dropped like a cloak discarded. He fully realized, as I did, that his unique reputation was at stake. I wondered, as I had wondered at the Guest House, whether, in undertaking to clear Colin Camber, he had acted upon sheer conviction, or, embittered by the death of his client, had taken a gambler’s chance. It was unlike him to do so. But now beyond reach of that charm of manner which Colin Camber possessed, and discounting the pathetic sweetness of his girl-wife, I realized how black was the evidence against him.

Occupied with these, and even more troubled thoughts, I was making my way toward the library, undetermined how to act, when I saw Val Beverley coming along the corridor which communicated with Madame de Stämer’s room.

I read a welcome in her eyes which made my heart beat the faster.

“Oh, Mr. Knox,” she cried, “I am so glad you have returned. Tell me all that has happened, for I feel in some way that I am responsible for it.”

I nodded gravely.

“You know, then, where Inspector Aylesbury went when he left here, after his interview with you?”

She looked at me pathetically.

“He went to the Guest House, of course.”

“Yes,” I said; “he was close behind us.”

“And”—she hesitated—“Mr. Camber?”

“He has been detained.”

“Oh!” she moaned. “I could hate myself! Yet what could I say, what could I do?”

“Just tell me all about it,” I urged. “What were the Inspector’s questions?”

“Well,” explained the girl, “he had evidently learned

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 from someone, presumably one of the servants, that there was enmity between Mr. Camber and Colonel Menendez. He asked me if I knew of this, and of course I had to admit that I did. But when I told him that I had no idea of its cause, he did not seem to believe me.”

“No,” I murmured. “Any evidence which fails to dove-tail with his preconceived theories he puts down as a lie.”

“He seemed to have made up his mind for some reason,” she continued, “that I was intimately acquainted with Mr. Camber. Whereas, of course, I have never spoken to him in my life, although whenever he has passed me in the road he has always saluted me with quite delightful courtesy. Oh, Mr. Knox, it is horrible to think of this great misfortune coming to those poor people.” She looked at me pleadingly. “How did his wife take it?”

“Poor little girl,” I replied, “it was an awful blow.”

“I feel that I want to set out this very minute,” declared Val Beverley, “and go to her, and try to comfort her. Because I feel in my very soul that her husband is innocent. She is such a sweet little thing. I have wanted to speak to her since the very first time I ever saw her, but on the rare occasions when we have met in the village she has hurried past as though she were afraid of me. Mr. Harley surely knows that her husband is not guilty?”

“I think he does,” I replied, “but he may have great difficulty in proving it. And what else did Inspector Aylesbury wish to know?”

“How can I tell you?” she said in a low voice; and biting her lip agitatedly she turned her head aside.

“Perhaps I can guess.”

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 “Can you?” she asked, looking at me quickly. “Well, then, he seemed to attach a ridiculous importance to the fact that I had not retired last night at the time of the tragedy.”

“I know,” said I, grimly. “Another preconceived idea of his.”

“I told him the truth of the matter, which is surely quite simple, and at first I was unable to understand the nature of his suspicions. Then, after a time, his questions enlightened me. He finally suggested, quite openly, that I had not come down from my room to the corridor in which Madame de Stämer was lying, but had actually been there at the time!”

“In the corridor outside her room?”

“Yes. He seemed to think that I had just come in from the door near the end of the east wing and beside the tower, which opens into the shrubbery.”

“That you had just come in?” I exclaimed. “He thinks, then, that you had been out in the grounds?”

Val Beverley’s face had been very pale, but now she flushed indignantly, and glanced away from me as she replied:

“He dared to suggest that I had been to keep an assignation.”

“The fool!” I cried. “The ignorant, impudent fool!”

“Oh,” she declared, “I felt quite ill with indignation. I am afraid I may regard Inspector Aylesbury as an enemy from now onward, for when I had recovered from the shock I told him very plainly what I thought about his intellect, or lack of it.”

“I am glad you did,” I said, warmly. “Before Inspector Aylesbury is through with this business I fancy he will know more about his limitations than he knows at present. The fact of the matter is that he is

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Rh badly out of his depth, but is not man enough to acknowledge the fact even to himself.”

She smiled at me pathetically.

“Whatever should I have done if I had been alone?” she said.

I was tempted to direct the conversation into a purely personal channel, but common sense prevailed, and:

“Is Madame de Stämer awake?” I asked.

“Yes.” The girl nodded. “Dr. Rolleston is with her now.”

“And does she know?”

“Yes. She sent for me directly she awoke, and asked me.”

“And you told her?”

“How could I do otherwise? She was quite composed, wonderfully composed; and the way she heard the news was simply heroic. But here is Dr. Rolleston, coming now.”

I glanced along the corridor, and there was the physician approaching briskly.

“Good morning, Mr. Knox,” he said.

“Good morning, doctor. I hear that your patient is much improved?”

“Wonderfully so,” he answered. “She has enough courage for ten men. She wishes to see you, Mr. Knox, and to hear your account of the tragedy.”

“Do you think it would be wise?”

“I think it would be best.”

“Do you hold any hope of her permanently recovering the use of her limbs?”

Dr. Rolleston shook his head doubtfully.

“It may have only been temporary,” he replied. “These obscure nervous affections are very fickle. It is unsafe to make predictions. But mentally, at

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248 least, she is quite restored from the effects of last night’s shock. You need apprehend no hysteria or anything of that nature, Mr. Knox.”

“Oh, I see,” exclaimed a loud voice behind us.

We all three turned, and there was Inspector Aylesbury crossing the hall in our direction.

“Good morning, Dr. Rolleston,” he said, deliberately ignoring my presence. “I hear that your patient is quite well again this morning?”

“She is much improved,” returned the physician, dryly.

“Then I can get her testimony, which is most important to my case?”

“She is somewhat better. If she cares to see you I do not forbid the interview.”

“Oh, that’s good of you, doctor.” He bowed to Miss Beverley. “Perhaps, Miss, you would ask Madame de Stämer to see me for a few minutes.”

Val Beverley looked at me appealingly then shrugged her shoulders, turned aside, and walked in the direction of Madame de Stämer’s door.

“Well,” said Dr. Rolleston, in his brisk way, shaking me by the hand, “I must be getting along. Good morning, Mr. Knox. Good morning, Inspector Aylesbury.”

He walked rapidly out to his waiting car. The presence of Inspector Aylesbury exercised upon Dr. Rolleston a similar effect to that which a red rag has upon a bull. As he took his departure, the Inspector drew out his pocket-book, and, humming gently to himself, began to consult certain entries therein, with a portentous air of reflection which would have been funny if it had not been so irritating.

Thus we stood when Val Beverley returned, and:

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Rh “Madame de Stämer will see you, Inspector Aylesbury,” she said, “but wishes Mr. Knox to be present at the interview.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector, lowering his chin, “I see. Oh, very well.”

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 CHAPTER XXVI IN MADAME’S ROOM

ADAME DE STÄMER’S apartment was a large and elegant one. From the window-drapings, which were of some light, figured satiny material, to the bed-cover, the lampshades and the carpet, it was French. Faintly perfumed, and decorated with many bowls of roses, it reflected, in its ornaments, its pictures, its slender-legged furniture, the personality of the occupant. In a large, high bed, reclining amidst a number of silken pillows, lay Madame de Stämer. The theme of the room was violet and silver, and to this everything conformed. The toilet service was of dull silver and violet enamel. The mirrors and some of the pictures had dull silver frames, There was nothing tawdry or glittering. The bed itself, which I thought resembled a bed of state, was of the same dull silver, with a coverlet of delicate violet hue. But Madame’s décolleté robe was trimmed with white fur, so that her hair, dressed high upon her head, seemed to be of silver, too.

Reclining there upon her pillows, she looked like some grande dame of that France which was swept away by the Revolution. Immediately above the dressing-table I observed a large portrait of Colonel Menendez dressed as I had imagined he should be dressed when I had first set eyes on him, in tropical riding kit, and holding a broad-brimmed hat in his hand. A strikingly

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Rh, arrogant figure he made, uncannily like the Velasquez in the library.

At the face of Madame de Stämer I looked long and searchingly. She had not neglected the art of the toilette. Blinds tempered the sunlight which flooded her room; but that, failing the service of rouge, Madame had been pale this morning, I perceived immediately. In some subtle way the night had changed her. Something was gone out of her face, and something come into it. I thought, and lived to remember the thought, that it was thus Marie Antoinette might have looked when they told her how the drums had rolled in the Place de la Revolution on that morning of the twenty-first of January.

“Oh, M. Knox,” she said, sadly, “you are there, I see. Come and sit here beside me, my friend. Val, dear, remain. Is this Inspector Aylesbury who wishes to speak to me?”

The Inspector, who had entered with all the confidence in the world, seemed to lose some of it in the presence of this grand lady, who was so little impressed by the dignity of his office.

She waved one slender hand in the direction of a violet brocaded chair.

“Sit down, Monsieur l’inspecteur,” she commanded, for it was rather a command than an invitation.

Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and sat down.

“Ah, M. Knox!” exclaimed Madame, turning to me with one of her rapid movements, “is your friend afraid to face me, then? Does he think that he has failed? Does he think that I condemn him?”

“He knows that he has failed, Madame de Stämer,” I replied, “but his absence is due to the fact that at this hour he is hot upon the trail of the assassin.”

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 “What!” she exclaimed, “what!”—and bending forward touched my arm. “Tell me again! Tell me again!”

“He is following a clue, Madame de Stämer, which he hopes will lead to the truth.”

“Ah! if I could believe it would lead to the truth,” she said. “If I dared to believe this.”

“Why should it not?”

She shook her head, smiling with such a resigned sadness that I averted my gaze and glanced across at Val Beverley who was seated on the opposite side of the bed.

“If you knew—if you knew.”

I looked again into the tragic face, and realized that this was an older woman than the brilliant hostess I had known. She sighed, shrugged, and:

“Tell me, M. Knox,” she continued, “it was swift and merciful, eh?”

“Instantaneous,” I replied, in a low voice.

“A good shot?” she asked, strangely.

“A wonderful shot,” I answered, thinking that she imposed unnecessary torture upon herself.

“They say he must be taken away, M. Knox, but I reply: not until I have seen him.”

“Madame,” began Val Beverley, gently.

“Ah, my dear!” Madame de Stämer, without looking at the speaker, extended one hand in her direction, the fingers characteristically curled. “You do not know me. Perhaps it is a good job. You are a man, Mr. Knox, and men, especially men who write, know more of women than they know of themselves, is it not so? You will understand that I must see him again?”

“Madame de Stämer,” I said, “your courage is almost terrible.”

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Rh She shrugged her shoulders.

“I am not proud to be brave, my friend. The animals are brave, but many cowards are proud. Listen again. He suffered no pain, you think?”

“None, Madame de Stämer.”

“So Dr. Rolleston assures me. He died in his sleep? You do not think he was awake, eh?”

“Most certainly he was not awake.”

“It is the best way to die,” she said, simply. “Yet he, who was brave and had faced death many times, would have counted it”she snapped her white fingers, glancing across the room to where Inspector Aylesbury, very subdued, sat upon the brocaded chair twirling his cap between his hands. “And now, Inspector Aylesbury,” she asked, “what is it you wish me to tell you?”

“Well, Madame,” began the Inspector, and stood up, evidently in an endeavour to recover his dignity, but:

“Sit down, Mr. Inspector! I beg of you be seated,” cried Madame. “I will not be questioned by one who stands. And if you were to walk about I should shriek.”

He resumed his seat, clearing his throat nervously.

“Very well, Madame,” he continued, “I have come to you particularly for information respecting a certain Mr. Camber.”

“Oh, yes,” said Madame.

Her vibrant voice was very low.

“You know him, no doubt?”

“I have never met him.”

“What?” exclaimed the Inspector.

Madame shrugged and glanced at me eloquently.

“Well,” he continued, “this gets more and more funny. I am told by Pedro, the butler, that Colonel Menendez looked upon Mr. Camber as an enemy, and

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254 Miss Beverley, here, admitted that it was true. Yet although he was an enemy, nobody ever seems to have spoken to him, and he swears that he had never spoken to Colonel Menendez.”

“Yes?” said Madame, listlessly, “is that so?”

“It is so, Madame, and now you tell me that you have never met him.”

“I did tell you so, yes.”

“His wife, then?”

“I never met his wife,” said Madame, rapidly.

“But it is a fact that Colonel Menendez regarded him as an enemy?”

“It is a fact—yes.”

“Ah, now we are coming to it. What was the cause of this?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Do you mean that you don’t know?”

“I mean that I cannot tell you.”

“Oh,” said the Inspector, blankly, “I see. That’s not helping me very much, is it?”

“No, it is no help,” said Madame, twirling a ring upon her finger.

The Inspector cleared his throat again, then:

“There had been other attempts, I believe, at assassination?” he asked.

Madame nodded.

“Several.”

“Did you witness any of these?”

“None of them.”

“But you know that they took place?”

“Juan—Colonel Menendez—had told me so.”

“And he suspected that there was someone lurking about this house?”

“Yes.”

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 “Also, someone broke in?”

“There were doors unfastened, and a great disturbance, so I suppose someone must have done so.”

I wondered if he would refer to the bat wing nailed to the door, but he had evidently decided that this clue was without importance, nor did he once refer to the aspect of the case which concerned Voodoo. He possessed a sort of mulish obstinacy, and was evidently determined to use no scrap of information which he had obtained from Paul Harley.

“Now, Madame,” said he, “you heard the shot fired last night?”

“I did.”

“It woke you up?”

“I was already awake.”

“Oh, I see: you were awake?”

“I was awake.”

“Where did you think the sound came from?”

“From back yonder, beyond the east wing.”

“Beyond the east wing?” muttered Inspector Aylesbury. “Now, let me see.” He turned ponderously in his chair, gazing out of the windows. “We look out on the south here? You say the sound of the shot came from the east?”

“So it seemed to me.”

“Oh.” This piece of information seemed badly to puzzle him. “And what then?”

“I was so startled that I ran to the door before I remembered that I could not walk.”

She glanced aside at me with a tired smile, and laid her hand upon my arm in an oddly caressing way, as if to say, “He is so stupid; I should not have expressed myself in that way.”

Truly enough the Inspector misunderstood, for:

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 “I don’t follow what you mean, Madame,” he declared. “You say you forgot that you could not walk?”

“No, no, I expressed myself wrongly,” Madame replied in a weary voice. “The fright, the terror, gave me strength to stagger to the door, and there I fell and swooned.”

“Oh, I see. You speak of fright and terror. Were these caused by the sound of the shot?”

“For some reason my cousin believed himself to be in peril,” explained Madame. “He went in dread of assassination, you understand? Very well, he caused me to feel this dread, also. When I heard the shot, something told me, something told me that—” she paused, and suddenly placing her hands before her face, added in a whisper—“that it had come.”

Val Beverley was watching Madame de Stämer anxiously, and the fact that she was unfit to undergo further examination was so obvious that any other than an Inspector Aylesbury would have withdrawn. The latter, however, seemed now to be glued to his chair, and:

“Oh, I see,” he said; “and now there’s another point: Have you any idea what took Colonel Menendez out into the grounds last night?”

Madame de Stämer lowered her hands and gazed across at the speaker.

“What is that, Monsieur l’inspecteur?”

“Well, you don’t think he might have gone out to talk to someone?”

“To someone? To what one?” demanded Madame, scornfully.

“Well, it isn’t natural for a man to go walking about the garden at midnight, when he’s unwell, is it? Not alone. But if there was a lady in the case he might go.”

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 “A lady?” said Madame, softly. “Yes—continue.”

“Well,” resumed the Inspector, deceived by the soft voice, “the young lady sitting beside you was still wearing her evening dress when I arrived here last night. I found that out, although she didn’t give me a chance to see her.”

His words had an effect more dramatic than he could have foreseen.

Madame de Stämer threw her arm around Val Beverley, and hugged her so closely to her side that the girl’s curly brown head was pressed against Madame’s shoulder. Thus holding her, she sat rigidly upright, her strange, still eyes glaring across the room at Inspector Aylesbury. Her whole pose was instinct with challenge, with defiance, and in that moment I identified the illusive memory which the eyes of Madame so often had conjured up in my mind.

Once, years before, I had seen a wounded tigress standing over her cubs, a beautiful, fearless creature, blazing defiance with dying eyes upon those who had destroyed her, the mother-instinct supreme to the last; for as she fell to rise no more she had thrown her paw around the cowering cubs. It was not in shape, nor in colour, but in expression and in their stillness, that the eyes of Madame de Stämer resembled the eyes of the tigress.

“Oh, Madame, Madame,” moaned the girl, “how dare he!”

“Ah!” Madame de Stämer raised her head yet higher, a royal gesture, that unmoving stare set upon the face of the discomfited Inspector Aylesbury. “Leave my apartment.” Her left hand shot out dramatically in the direction of the door, but even yet the fingers remained curled. “Stupid, gross fool!”

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