by Sax Rohmer
“Looks like a monastery,” muttered Harley.
Indeed that part of the building — the north front — which was visible from this point had a strangely monastic appearance, being built of solid gray blocks and boasting only a few small, heavily barred windows. The eccentricity of the Victorian gentleman who had expended thousands of pounds upon erecting this house was only equalled, I thought, by that of Colonel Menendez, who had chosen it for a home. An out-jutting wing shut us in on the west, and to the east the prospect was closed by the tallest and most densely grown box hedge I had ever seen, trimmed most perfectly and having an arched opening in the centre. Thus, the entrance to Cray’s Folly lay in a sort of bay.
But even as we stepped from the car, the great church-like oaken doors were thrown open, and there, framed in the monkish porch, stood the tall, elegant figure of the Colonel.
“Gentlemen,” he cried, “welcome to Cray’s Folly.”
He advanced smiling, and in the bright sunlight seemed even more Mephistophelean than he had seemed in Harley’s office.
“Pedro,” he called, and a strange-looking Spanish butler who wore his side-whiskers like a bull fighter appeared behind his master; a sallow, furtive fellow with whom I determined I should never feel at ease.
However, the Colonel greeted us heartily enough, and conducted us through a kind of paved, covered courtyard into a great lofty hall. Indeed it more closely resembled a studio, being partly lighted by a most curious dome. It was furnished in a manner quite un-English, but very luxuriously. A magnificent oaken staircase communicated with a gallery on the left, and at the foot of this staircase, in a mechanical chair which she managed with astonishing dexterity, sat Madame de Stämer.
She had snow-white hair crowning the face of a comparatively young woman, and large, dark-brown eyes which reminded me strangely of the eyes of some animal although in the first moment of meeting I could not identify the resemblance. Her hands were very slender and beautiful, and when, as the Colonel presented us, she extended her fingers, I was not surprised to see Harley stoop and kiss them in Continental fashion; for this Madame evidently expected. I followed suit; but truth to tell, after that first glance at the masterful figure in the invalid chair I had had no eyes for Madame de Stämer, being fully employed in gazing at someone who stood beside her.
This was an evasively pretty girl, or such was my first impression. That is to say, that whilst her attractiveness was beyond dispute, analysis of her small features failed to detect from which particular quality this charm was derived. The contour of her face certainly formed a delightful oval, and there was a wistful look in her eyes which was half appealing and half impish. Her demure expression was not convincing, and there rested a vague smile, or promise of a smile, upon lips which were perfectly moulded, and indeed the only strictly regular feature of a nevertheless bewitching face. She had slightly curling hair and the line of her neck and shoulder was most graceful and charming. Of one thing I was sure: She was glad to see visitors at Cray’s Folly.
“And now, gentlemen,” said Colonel Menendez, “having presented you to Madame, my cousin, permit me to present you to Miss Val Beverley, my cousin’s companion, and our very dear friend.”
The girl bowed in a formal English fashion, which contrasted sharply with the Continental manner of Madame. Her face flushed slightly, and as I met her glance she lowered her eyes.
“Now M. Harley and M. Knox,” said Madame, vivaciously, “you are quite at home. Pedro will show you to your rooms and lunch will be ready in half an hour.”
She waved her white hand coquettishly, and ignoring the proffered aid of Miss Beverley, wheeled her chair away at a great rate under a sort of arch on the right of the hall, which communicated with the domestic offices of the establishment.
“Is she not wonderful?” exclaimed Colonel Menendez, taking Harley’s left arm and my right and guiding us upstairs followed by Pedro and the chauffeur, the latter carrying our grips. “Many women would be prostrated by such an affliction, but she—” he shrugged his shoulders.
Harley and I had been placed in adjoining rooms. I had never seen such rooms as those in Cray’s Folly. The place contained enough oak to have driven a modern builder crazy. Oak had simply been lavished upon it. My own room, which was almost directly above the box hedge to which I have referred, had a beautiful carved ceiling and a floor as highly polished as that of a ballroom. It was tastefully furnished, but the foreign note was perceptible everywhere.
“We have here some grand prospects,” said the Colonel, and truly enough the view from the great, high, wide window was a very fine one.
I perceived that the grounds of Cray’s Folly were extensive and carefully cultivated. I had a glimpse of a Tudor sunken garden, but the best view of this was from the window of Harley’s room, which because it was the end room on the north front overlooked another part of the grounds, and offered a prospect of the east lawns and distant park land.
When presently Colonel Menendez and I accompanied my friend there I was charmed by the picturesque scene below. Here was a real old herbal garden, gay with flowers and intersected by tiled moss-grown paths. There were bushes exhibiting fantastic examples of the topiary art, and here, too, was a sun-dial. My first impression of this beautiful spot was one of delight. Later I was to regard that enchanted demesne with something akin to horror; but as we stood there watching a gardener clipping the bushes I thought that although Cray’s Folly might be adjudged ugly, its grounds were delightful.
Suddenly Harley turned to our host. “Where is the famous tower?” he enquired. “It is not visible from the front of the house, nor from the drive.”
“No, no,” replied the Colonel, “it is right out at the end of the east wing, which is disused. I keep it locked up. There are four rooms in the tower and a staircase, of course, but it is inconvenient. I cannot imagine why it was built.”
“The architect may have had some definite object in view,” said Harley, “or it may have been merely a freak of his client. Is there anything characteristic about the topmost room, for instance?”
Colonel Menendez shrugged his massive shoulders. “Nothing,” he replied. “It is the same as the others below, except that there is a stair leading to a gallery on the roof. Presently I will take you up, if you wish.”
“I should be interested,” murmured Harley, and tactfully changed the subject, which evidently was not altogether pleasing to our host. I concluded that he had found the east wing of the house something of a white elephant, and was accordingly sensitive upon the point.
Presently, then, he left us and I returned to my own room, but before long I rejoined Harley. I did not knock but entered unceremoniously.
“Halloa!” I exclaimed. “What have you seen?”
He was standing staring out of the window, nor did he turn as I entered.
“What is it?” I said, joining him.
He glanced at me oddly.
“An impression,” he replied; “but it has gone now.”
“I understand,” I said, quietly.
Familiarity with crime in many guises and under many skies had developed in Paul Harley a sort of sixth sense. It was a fugitive, fickle thing, as are all the powers which belong to the realm of genius or inspiration. Often enough it failed him entirely, he had assured me, that odd, sudden chill as of an abrupt lowering of the temperature, which, I understood, often advised him of the nearness of enmity actively malignant.
Now, standing at the window, looking down into that old-world garden, he was “sensing” the atmosphere keenly, seeking for the note of danger. It was sheer intuition, perhaps, but whilst he could never rely upon its answering his summons, once active it never misled him.
“You think some real menace overhangs Colonel Menendez?”
“I am sure of it.” He stared into my face. “There is something very, very strange about this bat wing business.”
“Do you still incline to the idea that he has been followed to England?”
Paul Harley reflected for a moment, then:
“That explanation would be almost too simple,” he said. “There is something bizarre, something unclean — I had almost said unholy — at work in this house, Knox.”
“He has foreign servants.”
Harley shook his head.
“I shall make it my business to become acquainted with all of them,” he replied, “but the danger does not come from there. Let us go down to lunch.”
CHAPTER V. VAL BEVERLEY
The luncheon was so good as to be almost ostentatious. One could not have lunched better at the Carlton. Yet, since this luxurious living was evidently customary in the colonel’s household, a charge of ostentation would not have been deserved. The sinister-looking Pedro proved to be an excellent servant; and because of the excitement of feeling myself to stand upon the edge of unusual things, the enjoyment of a perfectly served repast, and the sheer delight which I experienced in watching the play of expression upon the face of Miss Beverley, I count that luncheon at Cray’s Folly a memorable hour of my life.
Frankly, Val Beverley puzzled me. It may or may not have been curious, that amidst such singular company I selected for my especial study a girl so freshly and typically English. I had thought at the moment of meeting her that she was provokingly pretty; I determined, as the lunch proceeded, that she was beautiful. Once I caught Harley smiling at me in his quizzical fashion, and I wondered guiltily if I were displaying an undue interest in the companion of Madame.
Many topics were discussed, I remember, and beyond doubt the colonel’s cousin-housekeeper dominated the debate. She possessed extraordinary force of personality. Her English was not nearly so fluent as that spoken by the colonel, but this handicap only served to emphasize the masculine strength of her intellect. Truly she was a remarkable woman. With her blanched hair and her young face, and those fine, velvety eyes which possessed a quality almost hypnotic, she might have posed for the figure of a sorceress. She had unfamiliar gestures and employed her long white hands in a manner that was new to me and utterly strange.
I could detect no family resemblance between the cousins, and I wondered if their kinship were very distant. One thing was evident enough: Madame de Stämer was devoted to the Colonel. Her expression when she looked at him changed entirely. For a woman of such intense vitality her eyes were uncannily still; that is to say that whilst she frequently moved her head she rarely moved her eyes. Again and again I found myself wondering where I had seen such eyes before. I lived to identify that memory, as I shall presently relate.
In vain I endeavoured to define the relationship between these three people, so incongruously set beneath one roof. Of the fact that Miss Beverly was not happy I became assured. But respecting her exact position in the household I was reduced to surmises.
The Colonel improved on acquaintance. I decided that he belonged to an order of Spanish grandees now almost extinct. I believed he would have made a very staunch friend; I felt sure he would have proved a most implacable enemy. Altogether, it was a memorable meal, and one notable result of that brief companionship was a kind of link of understanding between myself and Miss Beverley.
Once, when I had been studying Madame de Stämer, and again, as I removed my glance from the dark face of Colonel Menendez, I detected the girl watching me; and her eyes said, “You understand; so do I.”
Some things perhaps I did understand, but how few the near future was to show.
The signal for our departure from table was given by Madame de Stämer. She whisked her chair back with extraordinary rapidity, the contrast between her swift, nervous movements and those still, basilisk eyes being almost uncanny.
“Off you go, Juan,” she said; “your visitors would like to see the garden, no doubt. I must be away for my afternoon siesta. Come, my dear” — to the girl— “smoke one little cigarette with me, then I will let you go.”
She retired, wheeling herself rapidly out of the room, and my glance lingered upon the graceful figure of Val Beverley until both she and Madame were out of sight.
“Now, gentlemen,” said the Colonel, resuming his seat and pushing the decanter toward Paul Harley, “I am at your service either for business or amusement. I think” — to Harley— “you expressed a desire to see the tower?”
“I did,” my friend replied, lighting his cigar, “but only if it would amuse you to show me.”
“Decidedly. Mr. Knox will join us?”
Harley, unseen by the Colonel, glanced at me in a way which I knew.
“Thanks all the same,” I said, smiling, “but following a perfect luncheon I should much prefer to loll upon the lawn, if you don’t mind.”
“But certainly I do not mind,” cried the Colonel. “I wish you to be happy.”
“Join you in a few minutes, Knox,” said Harley as he went out with our host.
“All right,” I replied, “I should like to take a stroll around the gardens. You will join me there later, no doubt.”
As I walked out into the bright sunshine I wondered why Paul Harley had wished to be left alone with Colonel Menendez, but knowing that I should learn his motive later, I strolled on through the gardens, my mind filled with speculations respecting these unusual people with whom Fate had brought me in contact. I felt that Miss Beverley needed protection of some kind, and I was conscious of a keen desire to afford her that protection. In her glance I had read, or thought I had read, an appeal for sympathy.
Not the least mystery of Cray’s Folly was the presence of this girl. Only toward the end of luncheon had I made up my mind upon a point which had been puzzling me. Val Beverley’s gaiety was a cloak. Once I had detected her watching Madame de Stämer with a look strangely like that of fear.
Puffing contentedly at my cigar I proceeded to make a tour of the house. It was constructed irregularly. Practically the entire building was of gray stone, which created a depressing effect even in the blazing sunlight, lending Cray’s Folly something of an austere aspect. There were fine lofty windows, however, to most of the ground-floor rooms overlooking the lawns, and some of those above had balconies of the same gray stone. Quite an extensive kitchen garden and a line of glasshouses adjoined the west wing, and here were outbuildings, coach-houses and a garage, all connected by a covered passage with the servants’ quarters.
Pursuing my enquiries, I proceeded to the north front of the building, which was closely hemmed in by trees, and which as we had observed on our arrival resembled the entrance to a monastery.
Passing the massive oaken door by which we had entered and which was now closed again, I walked on through the opening in the box hedge into a part of the grounds which was not so sprucely groomed as the rest. On one side were the yews flanking the Tudor garden and before me uprose the famous tower. As I stared up at the square structure, with its uncurtained windows, I wondered, as others had wondered before me, what could have ever possessed any man to build it.
Visible at points for many miles around, it undoubtedly disfigured an otherwise beautiful landscape.
I pressed on, noting that the windows of the rooms in the east wing were shuttered and the apartments evidently disused. I came to the base of the tower, To the south, the country rose up to the highest point in the crescent of hills, and peeping above the trees at no great distance away, I detected the red brick chimneys of some old house in the woods. North and east, velvet sward swept down to the park.
As I stood there admiring the prospect and telling myself that no Voodoo devilry could find a home in this peaceful English countryside, I detected a faint sound of voices far above. Someone had evidently come out upon the gallery of the tower. I looked upward, but I could not see the speakers. I pursued my stroll, until, near the eastern base of the tower, I encountered a perfect thicket of rhododendrons. Finding no path through this shrubbery, I retraced my steps, presently entering the Tudor garden; and there strolling toward me, a book in her hand, was Miss Beverley.
“Holloa, Mr. Knox
,” she called; “I thought you had gone up the tower?”
“No,” I replied, laughing, “I lack the energy.”
“Do you?” she said, softly, “then sit down and talk to me.”
She dropped down upon a grassy bank, looking up at me invitingly, and I accepted the invitation without demur.
“I love this old garden,” she declared, “although of course it is really no older than the rest of the place. I always think there should be peacocks, though.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “peacocks would be appropriate.”
“And little pages dressed in yellow velvet.”
She met my glance soberly for a moment and then burst into a peal of merry laughter.
“Do you know, Miss Beverley,” I said, watching her, “I find it hard to place you in the household of the Colonel.”
“Yes?” she said simply; “you must.”
“Oh, then you realize that you are—”
“Out of place here?”
“Quite.”
“Of course I am.”
She smiled, shook her head, and changed the subject.
“I am so glad Mr. Paul Harley has come down,” she confessed.
“You know my friend by name, then?”
“Yes,” she replied, “someone I met in Nice spoke of him, and I know he is very clever.”
“In Nice? Did you live in Nice before you came here?”
Val Beverley nodded slowly, and her glance grew oddly retrospective.
“I lived for over a year with Madame de Stämer in a little villa on the Promenade des Anglaise,” she replied. “That was after Madame was injured.”
“She sustained her injuries during the war, I understand?”
“Yes. Poor Madame. The hospital of which she was in charge was bombed and the shock left her as you see her. I was there, too, but I luckily escaped without injury.”
