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 felt 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.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I trust you do not regret your fishing excursion?”
“I could cheerfully pass the rest of my days in such ideal surroundings,” replied Paul Harley.
I nodded in agreement.
“But,” continued my friend, speaking very deliberately, “I have to remember that I am here upon business, and that my professional reputation is perhaps at stake.”
He stared very hard at Colonel Menendez.
“I have spoken with your butler, known as Pedro, and with some of the other servants, and have learned all that there is to be learned about the person unknown who gained admittance to the house a month ago, and concerning the wing of a bat, found attached to the door more recently.”
“And to what conclusion have you come?” asked Colonel Menendez, eagerly.
He bent forward, resting his elbows upon his knees, a pose which he frequently adopted. He was smoking a cigar, but his total absorption in the topic under discussion was revealed by the fact that from a pocket in his dinner jacket he had taken out a portion of tobacco, had laid it in a slip of rice paper, and was busily rolling one of his eternal cigarettes.
“I might be enabled to come to one,” replied Harley, “if you would answer a very simple question.”
“What is this question?”
“It is this—Have you any idea who nailed the bat’s wing to your door?”
Colonel Menendez’s eyes opened very widely, and his face became more aquiline than ever.
“You have heard my story, Mr. Harley,” he replied, softly. “If I know the explanation, why do I come to you?”
Paul Harley puffed at his pipe. His expression did not alter in the slightest.
“I merely wondered if your suspicions tended in the direction of Mr. Colin Camber,” he said.
“Colin Camber!”
As the Colonel spoke the name either I became victim of a strange delusion or his face was momentarily convulsed. If my senses served me aright then his pronouncing of the words “Colin Camber” occasioned him positive agony. He clutched the arms of his chair, striving, I thought, to retain composure, and in this he succeeded, for when he spoke again his voice was quite normal.
“Have you any particular reason for your remark, Mr. Harley?”
“I have a reason,” replied Paul Harley, “but don’t misunderstand me. I suggest nothing against Mr. Camber. I should be glad, however, to know if you are acquainted with him?”
“We have never met.”
“You possibly know him by repute?”
“I have heard of him, Mr. Harley. But to be perfectly frank, I have little in common with citizens of the United States.”
A note of arrogance, which at times crept into his high, thin voice, became perceptible now, and the aristocratic, aquiline face looked very supercilious.
How the conversation would have developed I know not, but at this moment Pedro entered and delivered a message in Spanish to the Colonel, whereupon the latter arose and with very profuse apologies begged permission to leave us for a few moments.
When he had retired:
“I am going upstairs to write a letter, Knox,” said Paul Harley. “Carry on with your old duties to-day, your new ones do not commence until to-morrow.”
With that he laughed and walked out of the dining room, leaving me wondering whether to be grateful or annoyed. However, it did not take me long to find my way to the drawing room where the two ladies were seated side by side upon a settee, Madame’s chair having been wheeled into a corner.
“Ah, Mr. Knox,” exclaimed Madame as I entered, “have the others deserted, then?”
“Scarcely deserted, I think. They are merely straggling.”
“Absent without leave,” murmured Val Beverley.
I laughed, and drew up a chair. Madame de Stämer was smoking, but Miss Beverley was not. Accordingly, I offered her a cigarette, which she accepted, and as I was lighting it with elaborate care, every moment finding a new beauty in her charming face, Pedro again appeared and addressed some ............