by Sax Rohmer
At this point I discovered several paragraphs underlined in pencil, and concluding that the underlining had been done by Paul Harley, I read them with particular care. They were as follows: “According to Hesketh J. Bell, the term Obeah is most probably derived from the substantive Obi, a word used on the East coast of Africa to denote witchcraft, sorcery, and fetishism in general. The etymology of Obi has been traced to a very antique source, stretching far back into Egyptian mythology. A serpent in the Egyptian language was called Ob or Aub. Obion is still the Egyptian name for a serpent. Moses, in the name of God, forbade the Israelites ever to enquire of the demon, Ob, which is translated in our Bible: Charmer or wizard, divinator or sorcerer. The Witch of Endor is called Oub or Ob, translated Pythonissa; and Oubois was the name of the basilisk or royal serpent, emblem of the Sun and an ancient oracular deity of Africa.”
A paragraph followed which was doubly underlined, and pursuing my reading I made a discovery which literally caused me to hold my breath. This is what I read:
“In a recent contribution to the Occult Review, Mr. Colin Camber, the American authority, offered some very curious particulars in support of a theory to show that whereas snakes and scorpions have always been recognized as sacred by Voodoo worshippers, the real emblem of their unclean religion is the bat, especially the Vampire Bat of South America.
“He pointed out that the symptoms of one dying beneath the spell of an Obeah man are closely paralleled in the cases of men and animals who have suffered from nocturnal attacks of blood-sucking bats.”
I laid the open book down upon the bed. My brain was in a tumult. The several theories, or outlines of theories which hitherto I had entertained, were, by these simple paragraphs, cast into the utmost disorder. I thought of the Colonel’s covert references to a neighbour whom he feared, of his guarded statement that the devotees of Voodoo were not confined to the West Indies, of the attack upon him in Washington, of the bat wing pinned to the door of Cray’s Folly.
Incredulously, I thought of my acquaintance of the Lavender Arms, with his bemused expression and his magnificent brow; and a great doubt and wonder grew up in my mind.
I became increasingly impatient for the return of Paul Harley. I felt that a clue of the first importance had fallen into my possession; so that when, presently, as I walked impatiently up and down the room, the door opened and Harley entered, I greeted him excitedly.
“Harley!” I cried, “Harley! I have learned a most extraordinary thing!”
Even as I spoke and looked into the keen, eager face, the expression in Harley’s eyes struck me. I recognized that in him, too, intense excitement was pent up. Furthermore, he was in one of his irritable moods. But, full of my own discoveries:
“I chanced to glance at this book,” I continued, “whilst I was waiting for you. You have underlined certain passages.”
He stared at me queerly.
“I discovered the book in my own library after you had gone last night, Knox, and it was then that I marked the passages which struck me as significant.”
“But, Harley,” I cried, “the man who is quoted here, Colin Camber, lives in this very neighbourhood!”
“I know.”
“What! You know?”
“I learned it from Inspector Aylesbury of the County Police half an hour ago.”
Harley frowned perplexedly. “Then, why, in Heaven’s name didn’t you tell me?” he exclaimed. “It would have saved me a most disagreeable journey into Market Hilton.”
“Market Hilton! What, have you been into the town?”
“That is exactly where I have been, Knox. I ‘phoned through to Innes from the village post-office after lunch to have the car sent down. There is a convenient garage by the Lavender Arms.”
“But the Colonel has three cars,” I exclaimed.
“The horse has four legs,” replied Harley, irritably, “but although I have only two, there are times when I prefer to use them. I am still wondering why you failed to mention this piece of information when you had obtained it.”
“My dear Harley,” said I, patiently, “how could I possibly be expected to attach any importance to the matter? You must remember that at the time I had never seen this work on negro sorcery.”
“No,” said Harley, dropping down upon the bed, “that is perfectly true, Knox. I am afraid I have a liver at times; a distinct Indian liver. Excuse me, old man, but to tell you the truth I feel strangely inclined to pack my bag and leave for London without a moment’s delay.”
“What!” I cried.
“Oh, I know you would be sorry to go, Knox,” said Harley, smiling, “and so, for many reasons, should I. But I have the strongest possible objection to being trifled with.”
“I am afraid I don’t quite understand you, Harley.”
“Well, just consider the matter for a moment. Do you suppose that Colonel Menendez is ignorant of the fact that his nearest neighbour is a recognized authority upon Voodoo and allied subjects?”
“You are speaking, of course, of Colin Camber?”
“Of none other.”
“No,” I replied, thoughtfully, “the Colonel must know, of course, that Camber resides in the neighbourhood.”
“And that he knows something of the nature of Camber’s studies his remarks sufficiently indicate,” added Harley. “The whole theory to account for these attacks upon his life rests on the premise that agents of these Obeah people are established in England and America. Then, in spite of my direct questions, he leaves me to find out for myself that Colin Camber’s property practically adjoins his own!”
“Really! Does he reside so near as that?”
“My dear fellow,” cried Harley, “he lives at a place called the Guest House. You can see it from part of the grounds of Cray’s Folly. We were looking at it to-day.”
“What! the house on the hillside?”
“That’s the Guest House! What do you make of it, Knox? That Menendez suspects this man is beyond doubt. Why should he hesitate to mention his name?”
“Well,” I replied, slowly, “probably because to associate practical sorcery and assassination with such a character would be preposterous.”
“But the man is admittedly a student of these things, Knox.”
“He may be, and that he is a genius of some kind I am quite prepared to believe. But having had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Colin Camber, I am not prepared to believe him capable of murder.”
I suppose I spoke with a certain air of triumph, for Paul Harley regarded me silently for a while.
“You seem to be taking this case out of my hands, Knox,” he said. “Whilst I have been systematically at work racing about the county in quest of information you would appear to have blundered further into the labyrinth than all my industry has enabled me to do.”
He remained in a very evil humour, and now the cause of this suddenly came to light.
“I have spent a thoroughly unpleasant afternoon,” he continued, “interviewing an impossible country policeman who had never heard of my existence!”
This display of human resentment honestly delighted me. It was refreshing to know that the omniscient Paul Harley was capable of pique.
“One, Inspector Aylesbury,” he went on, bitterly, “a large person bearing a really interesting resemblance to a walrus, but lacking that creature’s intelligence. It was not until Superintendent East had spoken to him from Scotland Yard that he ceased to treat me as a suspect. But his new attitude was almost more provoking than the old one. He adopted the manner of a regimental sergeant-major reluctantly interviewing a private with a grievance. If matters should so develop that we are compelled to deal with that fish-faced idiot, God help us all!”
He burst out laughing, his good humour suddenly quite restored, and taking out his pipe began industriously to load it.
“I can smoke while I am changing,” he said, “and you can sit there and tell me all about Colin Camber.”
I did as he requested, and Harley, who coul
d change quicker than any man I had ever known, had just finished tying his bow as I completed my story of the encounter at the Lavender Arms.
“Hm,” he muttered, as I ceased speaking. “At every turn I realize that without you I should have been lost, Knox. I am afraid I shall have to change your duties to-morrow.”
“Change my duties? What do you mean?”
“I warn you that the new ones will be less pleasant than the old! In other words, I must ask you to tear yourself away from Miss Val Beverley for an hour in the morning, and take advantage of Mr. Camber’s invitation to call upon him.”
“Frankly, I doubt if he would acknowledge me.”
“Nevertheless, you have a better excuse than I. In the circumstances it is most important that we should get in touch with this man.”
“Very well,” I said, ruefully. “I will do my best. But you don’t seriously think, Harley, that the danger comes from there?”
Paul Harley took his dinner jacket from the chair upon which the man had laid it out, and turned to me.
“My dear Knox,” he said, “you may remember that I spoke, recently, of retiring from this profession?”
“You did.”
“My retirement will not be voluntary, Knox. I shall be kicked out as an incompetent ass; for, respecting the connection, if any, between the narrative of Colonel Menendez, the bat wing nailed to the door of the house, and Mr. Colin Camber, I have not the foggiest notion. In this, at last, I have triumphed over Auguste Dupin. Auguste Dupin never confessed defeat.”
CHAPTER X. THE NIGHT WALKER
If luncheon had seemed extravagant, dinner at Cray’s Folly proved to be a veritable Roman banquet. To associate ideas of selfishness with Miss Beverley was hateful, but the more I learned of the luxurious life of this queer household hidden away in the Surrey Hills the less I wondered at any one’s consenting to share such exile. I had hitherto counted an American freak dinner, organized by a lucky plunger and held at the Café de Paris, as the last word in extravagant feasting. But I learned now that what was caviare in Monte Carlo was ordinary fare at Cray’s Folly.
Colonel Menendez was an epicure with an endless purse. The excellence of one of the courses upon which I had commented led to a curious incident.
“You approve of the efforts of my chef?” said the Colonel.
“He is worthy of his employer,” I replied.
Colonel Menendez bowed in his cavalierly fashion and Madame de Stämer positively beamed upon me.
“You shall speak for him,” said the Spaniard. “He was with me in Cuba, but has no reputation in London. There are hotels that would snap him up.”
I looked at the speaker in surprise.
“Surely he is not leaving you?” I asked.
The Colonel exhibited a momentary embarrassment.
“No, no. No, no,” he replied, waving his hand gracefully, “I was only thinking that he—” there was a scarcely perceptible pause— “might wish to better himself. You understand?”
I understood only too well; and recollecting the words spoken by Paul Harley that afternoon, respecting the Colonel’s will to live, I became conscious of an uncomfortable sense of chill.
If I had doubted that in so speaking he had been contemplating his own death, the behaviour of Madame de Stämer must have convinced me. Her complexion was slightly but cleverly made up, with all the exquisite art of the Parisienne, but even through the artificial bloom I saw her cheeks blanch. Her face grew haggard and her eyes burned unnaturally. She turned quickly aside to address Paul Harley, but I knew that the significance of this slight episode had not escaped him.
He was by no means at ease. In the first place, he was badly puzzled; in the second place, he was angry. He felt it incumbent upon him to save this man from a menace which he, Paul Harley, evidently recognized to be real, although to me it appeared wildly chimerical, and the very person upon whose active coöperation he naturally counted not only seemed resigned to his fate, but by deliberate omission of important data added to Harley’s difficulties.
How much of this secret drama proceeding in Cray’s Folly was appreciated by Val Beverley I could not determine. On this occasion, I remember, she was simply but perfectly dressed and, in my eyes, seemed the most sweetly desirable woman I had ever known. Realizing that I had already revealed my interest in the girl, I was oddly self-conscious, and a hundred times during the progress of dinner I glanced across at Harley, expecting to detect his quizzical smile. He was very stern, however, and seemed more reserved than usual. He was uncertain of his ground, I could see. He resented the understanding which evidently existed between Colonel Menendez and Madame de Stämer, and to which, although his aid had been sought, he was not admitted.
It seemed to me, personally, that an almost palpable shadow lay upon the room. Although, save for this one lapse, our host throughout talked gaily and entertainingly, I was obsessed by a memory of the expression which I had detected upon his face that morning, the expression of a doomed man.
What, in Heaven’s name, I asked myself, did it all mean? If ever I saw the fighting spirit looking out of any man’s eyes, it looked out of the eyes of Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez. Why, then, did he lie down to the menace of this mysterious Bat Wing, and if he counted opposition futile, why had he summoned Paul Harley to Cray’s Folly?
With the passing of every moment I sympathized more fully with the perplexity of my friend, and no longer wondered that even his highly specialized faculties had failed to detect an explanation.
Remembering Colin Camber as I had seen him at the Lavender Arms, it was simply impossible to suppose that such a man as Menendez could fear such a man as Camber. True, I had seen the latter at a disadvantage, and I knew well enough that many a genius has been also a drunkard. But although I was prepared to find that Colin Camber possessed genius, I found it hard to believe that this was of a criminal type. That such a character could be the representative of some remote negro society was an idea too grotesque to be entertained for a moment.
I was tempted to believe that his presence in the neighbourhood of this haunted Cuban was one of those strange coincidences which in criminal history have sometimes proved so tragic for their victims.
Madame de Stämer, avoiding the Colonel’s glances, which were pathetically apologetic, gradually recovered herself, and:
“My dear,” she said to Val Beverley, “you look perfectly sweet to-night. Don’t you think she looks perfectly sweet, Mr. Knox?”
Ignoring a look of entreaty from the blue-gray eyes:
“Perfectly,” I replied.
“Oh, Mr. Knox,” cried the girl, “why do you encourage her? She says embarrassing things like that every time I put on a new dress.”
Her reference to a new dress set me speculating again upon the apparent anomaly of her presence at Cray’s Folly. That she was not a professional “companion” was clear enough. I assumed that her father had left her suitably provided for, since she wore such expensively simple gowns. She had a delightful trick of blushing when attention was focussed upon her, and said Madame de Stämer:
“To be able to blush like that I would give my string of pearls — no, half of it.”
“My dear Marie,” declared Colonel Menendez, “I have seen you blush perfectly.”
“No, no,” Madame disclaimed the suggestion with one of those Bernhardt gestures, “I blushed my last blush when my second husband introduced me to my first husband’s wife.”
“Madame!” exclaimed Val Beverley, “how can you say such things?” She turned to me. “Really, Mr. Knox, they are all fables.”
“In fables we renew our youth,” said Madame.
“Ah,” sighed Colonel Menendez; “our youth, our youth.”
“Why sigh, Juan, why regret?” cried Madame, immediately. “Old age is only tragic to those who have never been young.”
She directed a glance toward him as she spoke those words, and as I had felt when I had seen his tragic face on the veranda that morning I f
elt again in detecting this look of Madame de Stämer’s. The yearning yet selfless love which it expressed was not for my eyes to witness.
“Thank God, Marie,” replied the Colonel, and gallantly kissed his hand to her, “we have both been young, gloriously young.”
When, at the termination of this truly historic dinner, the ladies left us:
“Remember, Juan,” said Madame, raising her white, jewelled hand, and holding the fingers characteristically curled, “no excitement, no billiards, no cards.”
Colonel Menendez bowed deeply, as the invalid wheeled herself from the room, followed by Miss Beverley. My heart was beating delightfully, for in the moment of departure the latter had favoured me with a significant glance, which seemed to say, “I am looking forward to a chat with you presently.”
“Ah,” said Colonel Menendez, when we three men found ourselves alone, “truly I am blessed in the autumn of my life with such charming companionship. Beauty and wit, youth and discretion. Is he not a happy man who possesses all these?”
“He should be,” said Harley, gravely.
The saturnine Pedro entered with some wonderful crusted port, and Colonel Menendez offered cigars.
“I believe you are a pipe-smoker,” said our courteous host to Harley, “and if this is so, I know that you will prefer your favourite mixture to any cigar that ever was rolled.”
“Many thanks,” said Harley, to whom no more delicate compliment could have been paid.
He was indeed an inveterate pipe-smoker, and only rarely did he truly enjoy a cigar, however choice its pedigree. With a sigh of content he began to fill his briar. His mood was more restful, and covertly I watched him studying our host. The night remained very warm and one of the two windows of the dining room, which was the most homely apartment in Cray’s Folly, was wide open, offering a prospect of sweeping velvet lawns touched by the magic of the moonlight.
A short silence fell, to be broken by the Colonel.