by Sax Rohmer
“Two o’clock?” I exclaimed.
“Yes. I think we might smoke, though. Have you any cigarettes? I have left my pipe behind.”
I managed to find my case, and in the dim light of the match which I presently struck I saw that Paul Harley’s face was very fixed and grim. He seated himself on the edge of my bed, and:
“I have been guilty of a breach of hospitality, Knox,” he began. “Not only have I secretly had my own car sent down here, but I have had something else sent, as well. I brought it in under my coat this evening.”
“To what do you refer, Harley?”
“You remember the silken rope-ladder with bamboo rungs which I brought from Hongkong on one occasion?”
“Yes—”
“Well, I have it in my bag now.”
“But, my dear fellow, what possible use can it be to you at Cray’s Folly?”
“It has been of great use,” he returned, shortly.
“It enabled me to descend from my window a couple of hours ago and to return again quite recently without disturbing the household. Don’t reproach me, Knox. I know it is a breach of confidence, but so is the behaviour of Colonel Menendez.”
“You refer to his reticence on certain points?”
“I do. I have a reputation to lose, Knox, and if an ingenious piece of Chinese workmanship can save it, it shall be saved.”
“But, my dear Harley, why should you want to leave the house secretly at night?”
Paul Harley’s cigarette glowed in the dark, then:
“My original object,” he replied, “was to endeavour to learn if any one were really watching the place. For instance, I wanted to see if all lights were out at the Guest House.”
“And were they?” I asked, eagerly.
“They were. Secondly,” he continued, “I wanted to convince myself that there were no nocturnal prowlers from within or without.”
“What do you mean by within or without?”
“Listen, Knox.” He bent toward me in the dark, grasping my shoulder firmly. “One window in Cray’s Folly was lighted up.”
“At what hour?”
“The light is there yet.”
That he was about to make some strange revelation I divined. I detected the fact, too, that he believed this revelation would be unpleasant to me; and in this I found an explanation of his earlier behaviour. He had seemed distraught and ill at ease when he had joined Madame de Stämer, Miss Beverley, and myself in the drawing room. I could only suppose that this and the abrupt parting with me outside my door had been due to his holding a theory which he had proposed to put to the test before confiding it to me. I remember that I spoke very slowly as I asked him the question:
“Whose is the lighted window, Harley?”
“Has Colonel Menendez taken you into a little snuggery or smoke-room which faces his bedroom in the southeast corner of the house?”
“No, but Miss Beverley has mentioned the room.”
“Ah. Well, there is a light in that room, Knox.”
“Possibly the Colonel has not retired?”
“According to Madame de Stämer he went to bed several hours ago, you may remember.”
“True,” I murmured, fumbling for the significance of his words.
“The next point is this,” he resumed. “You saw Madame retire to her own room, which, as you know, is on the ground floor, and I have satisfied myself that the door communicating with the servants’ wing is locked.”
“I see. But to what is all this leading, Harley?”
“To a very curious fact, and the fact is this: The Colonel is not alone.”
I sat bolt upright.
“What?” I cried.
“Not so loud,” warned Harley.
“But, Harley—”
“My dear fellow, we must face facts. I repeat, the Colonel is not alone.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Twice I have seen a shadow on the blind of the smoke-room.”
“His own shadow, probably.”
Again Paul Harley’s cigarette glowed in the darkness.
“I am prepared to swear,” he replied, “that it was the shadow of a woman.”
“Harley — —”
“Don’t get excited, Knox. I am dealing with the strangest case of my career, and I am jumping to no conclusions. But just let us look at the circumstances judicially. The whole of the domestic staff we may dismiss, with the one exception of Mrs. Fisher, who, so far as I can make out, occupies the position of a sort of working housekeeper, and whose rooms are in the corner of the west wing immediately facing the kitchen garden. Possibly you have not met Mrs. Fisher, Knox, but I have made it my business to interview the whole of the staff and I may say that Mrs. Fisher is a short, stout old lady, a native of Kent, I believe, whose outline in no way corresponds to that which I saw upon the blind. Therefore, unless the door which communicates with the servants’ quarters was unlocked again to-night — to what are we reduced in seeking to explain the presence of a woman in Colonel Menendez’s room? Madame de Stämer, unassisted, could not possibly have mounted the stairs.”
“Stop, Harley!” I said, sternly. “Stop.”
He ceased speaking, and I watched the steady glow of his cigarette in the darkness. It lighted up his bronzed face and showed me the steely gleam of his eyes.
“You are counting too much on the locking of the door by Pedro,” I continued, speaking very deliberately. “He is a man I would trust no farther than I could see him, and if there is anything dark underlying this matter you depend that he is involved in it. But the most natural explanation, and also the most simple, is this — Colonel Menendez has been taken seriously ill, and someone is in his room in the capacity of a nurse.”
“Her behaviour was scarcely that of a nurse in a sick-room,” murmured Harley.
“For God’s sake tell me the truth,” I said. “Tell me all you saw.”
“I am quite prepared to do so, Knox. On three occasions, then, I saw the figure of a woman, who wore some kind of loose robe, quite clearly silhouetted upon the linen blind. Her gestures strongly resembled those of despair.”
“Of despair?”
“Exactly. I gathered that she was addressing someone, presumably Colonel Menendez, and I derived a strong impression that she was in a condition of abject despair.”
“Harley,” I said, “on your word of honour did you recognize anything in the movements, or in the outline of the figure, by which you could identify the woman?”
“I did not,” he replied, shortly. “It was a woman who wore some kind of loose robe, possibly a kimono. Beyond that I could swear to nothing, except that it was not Mrs. Fisher.”
We fell silent for a while. What Paul Harley’s thoughts may have been I know not, but my own were strange and troubled. Presently I found my voice again, and:
“I think, Harley,” I said, “that I should report to you something which Miss Beverley told me this evening.”
“Yes?” said he, eagerly. “I am anxious to hear anything which may be of the slightest assistance. You are no doubt wondering why I retired so abruptly to-night. My reason was this: I could see that you were full of some story which you had learned from Miss Beverley, and I was anxious to perform my tour of inspection with a perfectly unprejudiced mind.”
“You mean that your suspicions rested upon an inmate of Cray’s Folly?”
“Not upon any particular inmate, but I had early perceived a distinct possibility that these manifestations of which the Colonel complained might be due to the agency of someone inside the house. That this person might be no more than an accomplice of the prime mover I also recognized, of course. But what did you learn to-night, Knox?”
I repeated Val Beverley’s story of the mysterious footsteps and of the cries which had twice awakened her in the night.
“Hm,” muttered Harley, when I had ceased speaking. “Assuming her account to be true — —”
“Why should you doubt it?” I interrupted, hotly.
“My dear Knox, it is my business to doubt everything until I have indisputable evidence of its truth. I say, assuming her story to be true, we find ourselves face to face with the fantastic theory that some woman unknown is living secretly in Cray’s Folly.”
“Perhaps in one of the tower rooms,” I suggested, eagerly. “Why, Harley, that would account for the Colonel’s marked unwillingness to talk about this part of the house.”
My sight was now becoming used to the dusk, and I saw Harley vigorously shake his head.
“No, no,” he replied; “I have seen all the tower rooms. I can swear that no one inhabits them. Besides, is it feasible?”
“Then whose were the footsteps that Miss Beverley heard?”
“Obviously those of the woman who, at this present moment, so far as I know, is in the smoking-room with Colonel Menendez.”
I sighed wearily.
“This is a strange business, Harley. I begin to think that the mystery is darker than I ever supposed.”
We fell silent again. The weird cry of a night hawk came from somewhere in the valley, but otherwise everything within and without the great house seemed strangely still. This stillness presently imposed its influence upon me, for when I spoke again, I spoke in a low voice.
“Harley,” I said, “my imagination is playing me tricks. I thought I heard the fluttering of wings at that moment.”
“Fortunately, my imagination remains under control,” he replied, grimly; “therefore I am in a position to inform you that you did hear the fluttering of wings. An owl has just flown into one of the trees immediately outside the window.”
“Oh,” said I, and uttered a sigh of relief.
“It is extremely fortunate that my imagination is so carefully trained,” continued Harley; “otherwise, when the woman whose shadow I saw upon the blind to-night raised her arms in a peculiar fashion, I could not well have failed to attach undue importance to the shape of the shadow thus created.”
“What was the shape of the shadow, then?”
“Remarkably like that of a bat.”
He spoke the words quietly, but in that still darkness, with dawn yet a long way off, they possessed the power which belongs to certain chords in music, and to certain lines in poetry. I was chilled unaccountably, and I peopled the empty corridors of Cray’s Folly with I know not what uncanny creatures; nightmare fancies conjured up from memories of haunted manors.
Such was my mood, then, when suddenly Paul Harley stood up. My eyes were growing more and more used to the darkness, and from something strained in his attitude I detected the fact that he was listening intently.
He placed his cigarette on the table beside the bed and quietly crossed the room. I knew from his silent tread that he wore shoes with rubber soles. Very quietly he turned the handle and opened the door.
“What is it, Harley?” I whispered.
Dimly I saw him raise his hand. Inch by inch he opened the door. My nerves in a state of tension, I sat there watching him, when without a sound he slipped out of the room and was gone. Thereupon I arose and followed as far as the doorway.
Harley was standing immediately outside in the corridor. Seeing me, he stepped back, and: “Don’t move, Knox,” he said, speaking very close to my ear. “There is someone downstairs in the hall. Wait for me here.”
With that he moved stealthily off, and I stood there, my heart beating with unusual rapidity, listening — listening for a challenge, a cry, a scuffle — I knew not what to expect.
Cavernous and dimly lighted, the corridor stretched away to my left. On the right it branched sharply in the direction of the gallery overlooking the hall.
The seconds passed, but no sound rewarded my alert listening — until, very faintly, but echoing in a muffled, church-like fashion around that peculiar building, came a slight, almost sibilant sound, which I took to be the gentle closing of a distant door.
Whilst I was still wondering if I had really heard this sound or merely imagined it:
“Who goes there?” came sharply in Harley’s voice.
I heard a faint click, and knew that he had shone the light of an electric torch down into the hall.
I hesitated no longer, but ran along to join him. As I came to the head of the main staircase, however, I saw him crossing the hall below. He was making in the direction of the door which shut off the servants’ quarters. Here he paused, and I saw him trying the handle. Evidently the door was locked, for he turned and swept the white ray all about the place. He tried several other doors, but found them all to be locked, for presently he came upstairs again, smiling grimly when he saw me there awaiting him.
“Did you hear it, Knox?” he said.
“A sound like the closing of a door?”
Paul Harley nodded.
“It was the closing of a door,” he replied; “but before that I had distinctly heard a stair creak. Someone crossed the hall then, Knox. Yet, as you perceive for yourself, it affords no hiding-place.”
His glance met and challenged mine.
“The Colonel’s visitor has left him,” he murmured. “Unless something quite unforeseen occurs, I shall throw up the case to-morrow.”
CHAPTER XII. MORNING MISTS
The man known as Manoel awakened me in the morning. Although characteristically Spanish, he belonged to a more sanguine type than the butler and spoke much better English than Pedro. He placed upon the table beside me a tray containing a small pot of China tea, an apple, a peach, and three slices of toast.
“How soon would you like your bath, sir?” he enquired.
“In about half an hour,” I replied.
“Breakfast is served at 9.30 if you wish, sir,” continued Manoel, “but the ladies rarely come down. Would you prefer to breakfast in your room?”
“What is Mr. Harley doing?”
“He tells me that he does not take breakfast, sir. Colonel Don Juan Menendez will be unable to ride with you this morning, but a groom will accompany you to the heath if you wish, which is the best place for a gallop. Breakfast on the south veranda is very pleasant, sir, if you are riding first.”
“Good,” I replied, for indeed I felt strangely heavy; “it shall be the heath, then, and breakfast on the veranda.”
Having drunk a cup of tea and dressed I went into Harley’s room, to find him propped up in bed reading the Daily Telegraph and smoking a cigarette.
“I am off for a ride,” I said. “Won’t you join me?”
He fixed his pillows more comfortably, and slowly shook his head.
“Not a bit of it, Knox,” he replied, “I find exercise to be fatal to concentration.”
“I know you have weird theories on the subject, but this is a beautiful morning.”
“I grant you the beautiful morning, Knox, but here you will find me when you return.”
I knew him too well to debate the point, and accordingly I left him to his newspaper and cigarette, and made my way downstairs. A housemaid was busy in the hall, and in the courtyard before the monastic porch a negro groom awaited me with two fine mounts. He touched his hat and grinned expansively as I appeared. A spirited young chestnut was saddled for my use, and the groom, who informed me that his name was Jim, rode a smaller, Spanish horse, a beautiful but rather wicked-looking creature.
We proceeded down the drive. Pedro was standing at the door of the lodge, talking to his surly-looking daughter. He saluted me very ceremoniously as I passed.
Pursuing an easterly route for a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a narrow lane which branched off to the left in a tremendous declivity. Indeed it presented the appearance of the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and in wet weather a torrent this lane became, so I was informed by Jim. It was very rugged and dangerous, and here we dismounted, the groom leading the horses.
Then we were upon a well-laid main road, and along this we trotted on to a tempting stretch of heath-land. There was a heavy mist, but the scent of the heather in the early morning was delightful, and there w
as something exhilarating in the dull thud of the hoofs upon the springy turf. The negro was a natural horseman, and he seemed to enjoy the ride every bit as much as I did. For my own part I was sorry to return. But the vapours of the night had been effectively cleared from my mind, and when presently we headed again for the hills, I could think more coolly of those problems which overnight had seemed well-nigh insoluble.
We returned by a less direct route, but only at one point was the path so steep as that by which we had descended. This brought us out on a road above and about a mile to the south of Cray’s Folly. At one point, through a gap in the trees, I found myself looking down at the gray stone building in its setting of velvet lawns and gaily patterned gardens. A faint mist hovered like smoke over the grass.
Five minutes later we passed a queer old Jacobean house, so deeply hidden amidst trees that the early morning sun had not yet penetrated to it, except for one upstanding gable which was bathed in golden light. I should never have recognized the place from that aspect, but because of its situation I knew that this must be the Guest House. It seemed very gloomy and dark, and remembering how I was pledged to call upon Mr. Colin Camber that day, I apprehended that my reception might be a cold one.
Presently we left the road and cantered across the valley meadows, in which I had walked on the previous day, reentering Cray’s Folly on the south, although we had left it on the north. We dismounted in the stable-yard, and I noted two other saddle horses in the stalls, a pair of very clean-looking hunters, as well as two perfectly matched ponies, which, Jim informed me, Madame de Stämer sometimes drove in a chaise.
Feeling vastly improved by the exercise, I walked around to the veranda, and through the drawing room to the hall. Manoel was standing there, and:
“Your bath is ready, sir,” he said.
I nodded and went upstairs. It seemed to me that life at Cray’s Folly was quite agreeable, and such was my mood that the shadowy Bat Wing menace found no place in it save as the chimera of a sick man’s imagination. One thing only troubled me: the identity of the woman who had been with Colonel Menendez on the previous night.
However, such unconscious sun worshippers are we all that in the glory of that summer morning I realized that life was good, and I resolutely put behind me the dark suspicions of the night.