by Sax Rohmer
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 handsome, 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.”
“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.”
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 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.”
“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 t
ired 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:
“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.”
“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!”
Inspector Aylesbury stood up, his face very flushed.
“I am only doing my duty, Madame,” he said.
“Go, go!” commanded Madame, “I insist that you go!”
Convulsively she held Val Beverley to her side, and although I could not see the girl’s face, I knew that she was weeping.
Those implacable flaming eyes followed with their stare the figure of the Inspector right to the doorway, for he essayed no further speech, but retired.
I, also, rose, and:
“Madame de Stämer,” I said, speaking, I fear, very unnaturally, “I love your spirit.”
She threw back her head, smiling up at me. I shall never forget that look, nor shall I attempt to portray all which it conveyed — for I know I should fail.
“My friend!” she said, and extended her hand to be kissed.
CHAPTER XXVII. AN INSPIRATION
Inspector Aylesbury had disappeared when I came out of the hall, but Pedro was standing there to remind me of the fact that I had not breakfasted. I realized that despite all tragic happenings, I was ravenously hungry, and accordingly I agreed to his proposal that I should take breakfast on the south veranda, as on the previous morning.
To the south veranda accordingly I made my way, rather despising myself because I was capable of hunger at such a time and amidst such horrors. The daily papers were on my table, for Carter drove into Market Hilton every morning to meet the London train which brought them down; but I did not open any of them.
Pedro waited upon me in person. I could see that the man was pathetically anxious to talk. Accordingly, when he presently brought me a fresh supply of hot rolls:
“This has been a dreadful blow to you, Pedro?” I said.
“Dreadful, sir,” he returned; “fearful. I lose a splendid master, I lose my place, and I am far, far from home.”
“You are from Cuba?”
“Yes, yes. I was with Señor the Colonel Don Juan in Cuba.”
“And do you know anything of the previous attempts which had been made upon his life, Pedro?”
“Nothing, sir. Nothing at all.”
“But the bat wing, Pedro?”
He looked at me in a startled way.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I found it pinned to the door here.”
“And what did you think it meant?”
“I thought it was a joke, sir — not a nice joke — by someone who knew Cuba.”
“You know the meaning of Bat Wing, then?”
“It is Obeah. I have never seen it before, but I have heard of it.”
“And what did you think?” said I, proceeding with my breakfast.
“I thought it was meant to frighten.”
“But who did you think had done it?”
“I had heard Señor Don Juan say that Mr. Camber hated him, so I thought perhaps he had sent someone to do it.”
“But why should Mr. Camber have hated the Colonel?”
“I cannot say, sir. I wish I could tell.”
“Was your master popular in the West Indies?” I asked.
“Well, sir—” Pedro hesitated— “perhaps not so well liked.”
“No,” I said. “I had gathered as much.”
The man withdrew, and I continued my solitary meal, listening to the song of the skylarks, and thinking how complex was human existence, compared with any other form of life beneath the sun.
How to employ my time until Harley should return I knew not. Common delicacy dictated an avoidance of Val Beverley until she should have recovered from the effect of Inspector Aylesbury’s gross insinuations, and I was curiously disinclined to become involved in the gloomy formalities which ensue upon a crime of violence. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to remain within call, realizing that there might be unpleasant duties which Pedro could not perform, and which must therefore devolve upon Val Beverley.
I lighted my pipe and walked out on to the sloping lawn. A gardener was at work with a big syringe, destroying a patch of weeds which had appeared in one corner of the velvet turf. He looked up in a sort of startled way as I passed, bidding me good morning, and then resuming his task. I thought that this man’s activities were symbolic of the way of the world, in whose eternal progression one poor human life counts as nothing.
Presently I came in sight of that door which opened into the rhododendron shrubbery, the door by which Colonel Menendez had come out to meet his death. His bedroom was directly above, and as I picked my way through the closely growing bushes, which at an earlier time I had thought to be impassable, I paused in the very shadow of the tower and glanced back and upward. I could see the windows of the little smoke-room
in which we had held our last interview with Menendez; and I thought of the shadow which Harley had seen upon the blind. I was unable to disguise from myself the fact that when Inspector Aylesbury should learn of this occurrence, as presently he must do, it would give new vigour to his ridiculous and unpleasant suspicions.
I passed on, and considering the matter impartially, found myself faced by the questions — Whose was the shadow which Harley had seen upon the blind? And with what purpose did Colonel Menendez leave the house at midnight?
Somnambulism might solve the second riddle, but to the first I could find no answer acceptable to my reason. And now, pursuing my aimless way, I presently came in sight of a gable of the Guest House. I could obtain a glimpse of the hut which had once been Colin Camber’s workroom. The window, through which Paul Harley had stared so intently, possessed sliding panes. These were closed, and a ray of sunlight, striking upon the glass, produced, because of an over-leaning branch which crossed the top of the window, an effect like that of a giant eye glittering evilly through the trees. I could see a constable moving about in the garden. Ever and anon the sun shone upon the buttons of his tunic.
By such steps my thoughts led me on to the pathetic figure of Ysola Camber. Save for the faithful Ah Tsong she was alone in that house to which tragedy had come unbidden, unforeseen. I doubted if she had a woman friend in all the countryside. Doubtless, I reflected, the old housekeeper, to whom she had referred, would return as speedily as possible, but pending the arrival of someone to whom she could confide all her sorrows, I found it almost impossible to contemplate the loneliness of the tragic little figure.
Such was my mental state, and my thoughts were all of compassion, when suddenly, like a lurid light, an inspiration came to me.
I had passed out from the shadow of the tower and was walking in the direction of the sentinel yews when this idea, dreadfully complete, leapt to my mind. I pulled up short, as though hindered by a palpable barrier. Vague musings, evanescent theories, vanished like smoke, and a ghastly, consistent theory of the crime unrolled itself before me, with all the cold logic of truth.
“My God!” I groaned aloud, “I see it all. I see it all.”