Bat-Wing (14 page)

"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."

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 was
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.

I looked into Harley's room ere descending, and, as he had assured me
would be the case, there he was, propped up in bed, the
Daily
Telegraph
upon the floor beside him and the
Times
now open
upon the coverlet.

"I am ravenously hungry," I said, maliciously, "and am going down to
eat a hearty breakfast."

"Good," he returned, treating me to one of his quizzical smiles. "It is
delightful to know that someone is happy."

Manoel had removed my unopened newspapers from the bedroom, placing
them on the breakfast table on the south veranda; and I had propped the
Mail
up before me and had commenced to explore a juicy grapefruit
when something, perhaps a faint breath of perfume, a slight rustle of
draperies, or merely that indefinable aura which belongs to the
presence of a woman, drew my glance upward and to the left. And
there was Val Beverley smiling down at me.

"Good morning, Mr. Knox," she said. "Oh, please don't interrupt your
breakfast. May I sit down and talk to you?"

"I should be most annoyed if you refused."

She was dressed in a simple summery frock which left her round, sun-
browned arms bare above the elbow, and she laid a huge bunch of roses
upon the table beside my tray.

"I am the florist of the establishment," she explained. "These will
delight your eyes at luncheon. Don't you think we are a lot of
barbarians here, Mr. Knox?"

"Why?"

"Well, if I had not taken pity upon you, here you would have bat over a
lonely breakfast just as though you were staying at a hotel."

"Delightful," I replied, "now that you are here."

"Ah," said she, and smiled roguishly, "that afterthought just saved
you."

"But honestly," I continued, "the hospitality of Colonel Menendez is
true hospitality. To expect one's guests to perform their parlour
tricks around a breakfast table in the morning is, on the other hand,
true barbarism."

"I quite agree with you," she said, quietly. "There is a perfectly
delightful freedom about the Colonel's way of living. Only some horrid
old Victorian prude could possibly take exception to it. Did you enjoy
your ride?"

"Immensely," I replied, watching her delightedly as she arranged the
roses in carefully blended groups.

Her fingers were very delicate and tactile, and such is the character
which resides in the human hand, that whereas the gestures of Madame de
Stämer were curiously stimulating, there was something in the movement
of Val Beverley's pretty fingers amidst the blooms which I found most
soothing.

"I passed the Guest House on my return," I continued. "Do you know Mr.
Camber?"

She looked at me in a startled way.

"No," she replied, "I don't. Do you?"

"I met him by chance yesterday."

"Really? I thought he was quite unapproachable; a sort of ogre."

"On the contrary, he is a man of great charm."

"Oh," said Val Beverley, "well, since you have said so, I might as well
admit that he has always seemed a charming man to me. I have never
spoken to him, but he looks as though he could be very fascinating.
Have you met his wife?"

"No. Is she also American?"

My companion shook her head.

"I have no idea," she replied. "I have seen her several times of
course, and she is one of the daintiest creatures imaginable, but I
know nothing about her nationality."

"She is young, then?"

"Very young, I should say. She looks quite a child."

"The reason of my interest," I replied, "is that Mr. Camber asked me to
call upon him, and I propose to do so later this morning."

"Really?"

Again I detected the startled expression upon Val Beverley's face.

"That is rather curious, since you are staying here."

"Why?"

"Well," she looked about her nervously, "I don't know the reason, but
the name of Mr. Camber is anathema in Cray's Folly."

"Colonel Menendez told me last night that he had never met Mr. Camber."

Val Beverley shrugged her shoulders, a habit which it was easy to see
she had acquired from Madame de Stämer.

"Perhaps not," she replied, "but I am certain he hates him."

"Hates Mr. Camber?"

"Yes." Her expression grew troubled. "It is another of those mysteries
which seem to be part of Colonel Menendez's normal existence."

"And is this dislike mutual?"

"That I cannot say, since I have never met Mr. Camber."

"And Madame de Stämer, does she share it?"

"Fully, I think. But don't ask me what it means, because I don't know."

She dismissed the subject with a light gesture and poured me out a
second cup of coffee.

"I am going to leave you now," she said. "I have to justify my
existence in my own eyes."

"Must you really go?"

"I must really."

"Then tell me something before you go."

She gathered up the bunches of roses and looked down at me with a
wistful expression.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Did you detect those mysterious footsteps again last night?"

The look of wistfulness changed to another which I hated to see in her
eyes, an expression of repressed fear.

"No," she replied in a very low voice, "but why do you ask the
question?"

Doubt of her had been far enough from my mind, but that something in
the tone of my voice had put her on her guard I could see.

"I am naturally curious," I replied, gravely.

"No," she repeated, "I have not heard the sound for some time now.
Perhaps, after all, my fears were imaginary."

There was a constraint in her manner which was all too obvious, and
when presently, laden with the spoil of the rose garden, she gave me a
parting smile and hurried into the house, I sat there very still for a
while, and something of the brightness had faded from the coming, nor
did life seem so glad a business as I had thought it quite recently.

I presented myself at the Guest House at half-past eleven. My mental
state was troubled and indescribably complex. Perhaps my own uneasy,
thoughts were responsible for the idea, but it seemed to me that the
atmosphere of Cray's Folly had changed yet again. Never before had I
experienced a sense of foreboding like that which had possessed me
throughout the hours of this bright summer's morning.

Colonel Menendez had appeared about nine o'clock. He exhibiting no
traces of illness that were perceptible to me. But this subtle change
which I had detected, or thought I had detected, was more marked in
Madame Stämer than in any one. In her strange, still eyes I had read
what I can only describe as a stricken look. It had none of the heroic
resignation and acceptance of the inevitable which had so startled me
in the face of the Colonel on the previous day. There was a bitterness
in it, as of one who has made a great but unwilling sacrifice, and
again I had found myself questing that faint but fugitive memory,
conjured up by the eyes of Madame de Stämer.

Never had the shadow lain so darkly upon the house as it lay this
morning with the sun blazing gladly out of a serene sky. The birds, the
flowers, and Mother Earth herself bespoke the joy of summer. But
beneath the roof of Cray's Folly dwelt a spirit of unrest, of
apprehension. I thought of that queer lull which comes before a
tropical storm, and I thought I read a knowledge of pending evil even
in the glances of the servants.

I had spoken to Harley of this fear. He had smiled and nodded grimly,
saying:

"Evidently, Knox, you have forgotten that to-night is the night of the
full moon."

It was in no easy state of mind, then, that I opened the gate and
walked up to the porch of the Guest House. That the solution of the
grand mystery of Cray's Folly would automatically resolve these lesser
mysteries I felt assured, and I was supported by the idea that a clue
might lie here.

The house, which from the roadway had an air of neglect, proved on
close inspection to be well tended, but of an unprosperous aspect. The
brass knocker, door knob, and letter box were brilliantly polished,
whilst the windows and the window curtains were spotlessly clean. But
the place cried aloud for the service of the decorator, and it did not
need the deductive powers of a Paul Harley to determine that Mr. Colin
Camber was in straitened circumstances.