Authors: Sax Rohmer
Never can I forget the spectacle which I beheld.
Colin Camber's peculiarly pale complexion had assumed a truly ghastly
pallor, and he stood with tightly clenched hands, glaring at me almost
insanely.
"Mr. Camber," I cried, with concern, "are you unwell?"
He moistened his dry lips, and:
"You are returning—to Cray's Folly?" he said, speaking, it seemed,
with difficulty.
"I am, sir. I am staying with Colonel Menendez."
"Ah!"
He clutched the collar of his pyjama jacket and wrenched so strongly
that the button was torn off. His passion was incredible, insane. The
power of speech had almost left him.
"You are a guest of—of Devil Menendez," he whispered, and the speaking
of the name seemed almost to choke him. "Of—Devil Menendez. You—you—
are a spy. You have stolen my hospitality—you have obtained access to
my house under false pretences. God! if I had known!"
"Mr. Camber," I said, sternly, and realized that I, too, had clenched
my fists, for the man's language was grossly insulting, "you forget
yourself."
"Perhaps I do," he muttered, thickly; "and therefore"—he raised a
quivering forefinger—"go! If you have any spark of compassion in your
breast, go! Leave my house."
Nostrils dilated, he stood with that quivering finger outstretched, and
now having become as speechless as he, I turned and walked rapidly up
to the house.
"Ah Tsong! Ah Tsong!" came a cry from behind me in tones which I can
only describe as hysterical—"Mr. Knox's hat and stick. Quickly."
As I walked in past the study door the Chinaman came to meet me,
holding my hat and cane. I took them from him without a word, and, the
door being held open by Ah Tsong, walked out on to the road.
My heart was beating rapidly. I did not know what to think nor what to
do. This ignominious dismissal afforded an experience new to me. I was
humiliated, mortified, but above all, wildly angry.
How far I had gone on my homeward journey I cannot say, when the sound
of quickly pattering footsteps intruded upon my wild reverie. I
stopped, turned, and there was Ah Tsong almost at my heels.
"Blinga chit flom lilly missee," he said, and held the note toward me.
I hesitated, glaring at him in a way that must have been very
unpleasant; but recovering myself I tore open the envelope, and read
the following note, written in pencil and very shakily:
MR. KNOX.
Please forgive him. If you knew what we have suffered from Senor Don
Juan Menendez, I know you would forgive him. Please, for my sake.
YSOLA CAMBER.
The Chinaman was watching me, that strangely pathetic expression in his
eyes, and:
"Tell your mistress that I quite understand and will write to her," I
said.
"Hoi, hoi."
Ah Tsong turned, and ran swiftly off, as I pursued my way back to
Cray's Folly in a mood which I shall not attempt to describe.
I sat in Paul Harley's room. Luncheon was over, and although, as on the
previous day, it had been a perfect repast, perfectly served, the sense
of tension which I had experienced throughout the meal had made me
horribly ill at ease.
That shadow of which I have spoken elsewhere seemed to have become
almost palpable. In vain I had ascribed it to a morbid imagination:
persistently it lingered.
Madame de Stämer's gaiety rang more false than ever. She twirled the
rings upon her slender fingers and shot little enquiring glances all
around the table. This spirit of unrest, from wherever it arose, had
communicated itself to everybody. Madame's several bon mots one and all
were failures. She delivered them without conviction like an amateur
repeating lines learned by heart. The Colonel was unusually silent,
eating little but drinking much. There was something unreal, almost
ghastly, about the whole affair; and when at last Madame de Stämer
retired, bearing Val Beverley with her, I felt certain that the Colonel
would make some communication to us. If ever knowledge of portentous
evil were written upon a man's face it was written upon his, as he sat
there at the head of the table, staring straightly before him. However:
"Gentlemen," he said, "if your enquiries here have led to no result of,
shall I say, a tangible character, at least I feel sure that you must
have realized one thing."
Harley stared at him sternly.
"I have realized, Colonel Menendez," he replied, "that something is
pending."
"Ah!" murmured the Colonel, and he clutched the edge of the table with
his strong brown hands.
"But," continued my friend, "I have realized something more. You have
asked for my aid, and I am here. Now you have deliberately tied my
hands."
"What do you mean, sir?" asked the other, softly.
"I will speak plainly. I mean that you know more about the nature of
this danger than you have ever communicated to me. Allow me to proceed,
if you please, Colonel Menendez. For your delightful hospitality I
thank you. As your guest I could be happy, but as a professional
investigator whose services have been called upon under most unusual
circumstances, I cannot be happy and I do not thank you."
Their glances met. Both were angry, wilful, and self-confident.
Following a few moments of silence:
"Perhaps, Mr. Harley," said the Colonel, "you have something further to
say?"
"I have this to say," was the answer: "I esteem your friendship, but I
fear I must return to town without delay."
The Colonel's jaws were clenched so tightly that I could see the
muscles protruding. He was fighting an inward battle; then:
"What!" he said, "you would desert me?"
"I never deserted any man who sought my aid."
"I have sought your aid."
"Then accept it!" cried Harley. "This, or allow me to retire from the
case. You ask me to find an enemy who threatens you, and you withhold
every clue which could aid me in my search."
"What clue have I withheld?"
Paul Harley stood up.
"It is useless to discuss the matter further, Colonel Menendez," he
said, coldly.
The Colonel rose also, and:
"Mr. Harley," he replied, and his high voice was ill-controlled, "if I
give you my word of honour that I dare not tell you more, and if,
having done so, I beg of you to remain at least another night, can you
refuse me?"
Harley stood at the end of the table watching him.
"Colonel Menendez," he said, "this would appear to be a game in which
my handicap rests on the fact that I do not know against whom I am
pitted. Very well. You leave me no alternative but to reply that I will
stay."
"I thank you, Mr. Harley. As I fear I am far from well, dare I hope to
be excused if I retire to my room for an hour's rest?"
Harley and I bowed, and the Colonel, returning our salutations, walked
slowly out, his bearing one of grace and dignity. So that memorable
luncheon terminated, and now we found ourselves alone and faced with a
problem which, from whatever point one viewed it, offered no single
opening whereby one might hope to penetrate to the truth.
Paul Harley was pacing up and down the room in a state of such nervous
irritability as I never remembered to have witnessed in him before.
I had just finished an account of my visit to the Guest House and of
the indignity which had been put upon me, and:
"Conundrums! conundrums!" my friend exclaimed. "This quest of Bat Wing
is like the quest of heaven, Knox. A hundred open doors invite us, each
one promising to lead to the light, and if we enter where do they
lead?—to mystification. For instance, Colonel Menendez has broadly
hinted that he looks upon Colin Camber as an enemy. Judging from your
reception at the Guest House to-day, such an enmity, and a deadly
enmity, actually exists. But whereas Camber has resided here for three
years, the Colonel is a newcomer. We are, therefore, offered the
spectacle of a trembling victim seeking the sacrifice. Bah! it is
preposterous."
"If you had seen Colin Camber's face to-day, you might not have thought
it so preposterous."
"But I should, Knox! I should! It is impossible to suppose that Colonel
Menendez was unaware when he leased Cray's Folly that Camber occupied
the Guest House."
"And Mrs. Camber is a Cuban," I murmured.
"Don't, Knox!" my friend implored. "This case is driving me mad. I have
a conviction that it is going to prove my Waterloo."
"My dear fellow," I said, "this mood is new to you."
"Why don't you advise me to remember Auguste Dupin?" asked Harley,
bitterly. "That great man, preserving his philosophical calm, doubtless
by this time would have pieced together these disjointed clues, and
have produced an elegant pattern ready to be framed and exhibited to
the admiring public."
He dropped down upon the bed, and taking his briar from his pocket,
began to load it in a manner which was almost vicious. I stood watching
him and offered no remark, until, having lighted the pipe, he began to
smoke. I knew that these "Indian moods" were of short duration, and,
sure enough, presently:
"God bless us all, Knox," he said, breaking into an amused smile, "how
we bristle when someone tries to prove that we are not infallible! How
human we are, Knox, but how fortunate that we can laugh at ourselves."
I sighed with relief, for Harley at these times imposed a severe strain
even upon my easy-going disposition.
"Let us go down to the billiard room," he continued. "I will play you a
hundred up. I have arrived at a point where my ideas persistently work
in circles. The best cure is golf; failing golf, billiards."
The billiard room was immediately beneath us, adjoining the last
apartment in the east wing, and there we made our way. Harley played
keenly, deliberately, concentrating upon the game. I was less
successful, for I found myself alternately glancing toward the door and
the open window, in the hope that Val Beverley would join us. I was
disappointed, however. We saw no more of the ladies until tea-time, and
if a spirit of constraint had prevailed throughout luncheon, a
veritable demon of unrest presided upon the terrace during tea.
Madame de Stämer made apologies on behalf of the Colonel. He was
prolonging his siesta, but he hoped to join us at dinner.
"Is the Colonel's heart affected?" Harley asked.
Madame de Stämer shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, blankly.
"It is mysterious, the state of his health," she replied. "An old
trouble, which began years and years ago in Cuba."
Harley nodded sympathetically, but I could see that he was not
satisfied. Yet, although he might doubt her explanation, he had noted,
and so had I, that Madame de Stämer's concern was very real. Her
slender hands were strangely unsteady; indeed her condition bordered on
one of distraction.
Harley concealed his thoughts, whatever they may have been, beneath
that mask of reserve which I knew so well, whilst I endeavoured in vain
to draw Val Beverley into conversation with me.
I gathered that Madame de Stämer had been to visit the invalid, and
that she was all anxiety to return was a fact she was wholly unable to
conceal. There was a tired look in her still eyes, as though she had
undertaken a task beyond her powers to perform, and, so unnatural a
quartette were we, that when presently she withdrew I was glad,
although she took Val Beverley with her.
Paul Harley resumed his seat, staring at me with unseeing eyes. A sound
reached us through the drawing room which told us that Madame de
Stämer's chair was being taken upstairs, a task always performed when
Madame desired to visit the upper floors by Manoel and Pedro's
daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame's maid. These sounds died away, and
I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still,
and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky
above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering
loftily overhead.
Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.
"Ah," he murmured, "a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests.
Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox."
Over the remainder of that afternoon I will pass in silence. Indeed,
looking backward now, I cannot recollect that it afforded one incident
worthy of record. But because great things overshadow small, so it may
be that whereas my recollections of quite trivial episodes are sharp
enough up to a point, my memories from this point onward to the
horrible and tragic happening which I have set myself to relate are
hazy and indistinct. I was troubled by the continued absence of Val
Beverley. I thought that she was avoiding me by design, and in Harley's
gloomy reticence I could find no shadow of comfort.
We wandered aimlessly about the grounds, Harley staring up in a vague
fashion at the windows of Cray's Folly; and presently, when I stopped
to inspect a very perfect rose bush, he left me without a word, and I
found myself alone.
Later, as I sauntered toward the Tudor garden, where I had hoped to
encounter Miss Beverley, I heard the clicking of billiard balls; and
there was Harley at the table, practising fancy shots.
He glanced up at me as I paused by the open window, stopped to relight
his pipe, and then bent over the table again.
"Leave me alone, Knox," he muttered; "I am not fit for human society."
Understanding his moods as well as I did, I merely laughed and
withdrew.
I strolled around into the library and inspected scores of books
without forming any definite impression of the contents of any of them.
Manoel came in whilst I was there and I was strongly tempted to send a
message to Miss Beverley, but common sense overcame the inclination.
When at last my watch told me that the hour for dressing was arrived, I
heaved a sigh of relief. I cannot say that I was bored, my ill-temper
sprang from a deeper source than this. The mysterious disappearance of
the inmates of Cray's Folly, and a sort of brooding stillness which lay
over the great house, had utterly oppressed me.