by Sax Rohmer
The luncheon was so good as to be almost ostentatious. One could nothave lunched better at the Carlton. Yet, since this luxurious living wasevidently customary in the colonel's household, a charge of ostentationwould not have been deserved. The sinister-looking Pedro proved to bean excellent servant; and because of the excitement of feeling myselfto stand upon the edge of unusual things, the enjoyment of a perfectlyserved repast, and the sheer delight which I experienced in watching theplay of expression upon the face of Miss Beverley, I count that luncheonat 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 agirl so freshly and typically English. I had thought at the moment ofmeeting her that she was provokingly pretty; I determined, as the lunchproceeded, that she was beautiful. Once I caught Harley smiling at me inhis quizzical fashion, and I wondered guiltily if I were displaying anundue interest in the companion of Madame.
Many topics were discussed, I remember, and beyond doubt the colonel'scousin-housekeeper dominated the debate. She possessed extraordinaryforce of personality. Her English was not nearly so fluent as thatspoken by the colonel, but this handicap only served to emphasize themasculine strength of her intellect. Truly she was a remarkable woman.With her blanched hair and her young face, and those fine, velvety eyeswhich possessed a quality almost hypnotic, she might have posed for thefigure of a sorceress. She had unfamiliar gestures and employed her longwhite hands in a manner that was new to me and utterly strange.
I could detect no family resemblance between the cousins, and I wonderedif their kinship were very distant. One thing was evident enough: Madamede Staemer was devoted to the Colonel. Her expression when she looked athim changed entirely. For a woman of such intense vitality her eyes wereuncannily still; that is to say that whilst she frequently moved herhead she rarely moved her eyes. Again and again I found myself wonderingwhere I had seen such eyes before. I lived to identify that memory, as Ishall presently relate.
In vain I endeavoured to define the relationship between these threepeople, so incongruously set beneath one roof. Of the fact that MissBeverly was not happy I became assured. But respecting her exactposition in the household I was reduced to surmises.
The Colonel improved on acquaintance. I decided that he belonged to anorder of Spanish grandees now almost extinct. I believed he would havemade a very staunch friend; I felt sure he would have proved a mostimplacable enemy. Altogether, it was a memorable meal, and one notableresult of that brief companionship was a kind of link of understandingbetween myself and Miss Beverley.
Once, when I had been studying Madame de Staemer, and again, as I removedmy glance from the dark face of Colonel Menendez, I detected the girlwatching me; and her eyes said, "You understand; so do I."
Some things perhaps I did understand, but how few the near future was toshow.
The signal for our departure from table was given by Madame de Staemer.She whisked her chair back with extraordinary rapidity, the contrastbetween her swift, nervous movements and those still, basilisk eyesbeing almost uncanny.
"Off you go, Juan," she said; "your visitors would like to see thegarden, no doubt. I must be away for my afternoon siesta. Come, mydear"--to the girl--"smoke one little cigarette with me, then I will letyou go."
She retired, wheeling herself rapidly out of the room, and my glancelingered upon the graceful figure of Val Beverley until both she andMadame were out of sight.
"Now, gentlemen," said the Colonel, resuming his seat and pushing thedecanter toward Paul Harley, "I am at your service either for businessor amusement. I think"--to Harley--"you expressed a desire to see thetower?"
"I did," my friend replied, lighting his cigar, "but only if it wouldamuse 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 perfectluncheon 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 behappy."
"Join you in a few minutes, Knox," said Harley as he went out with ourhost.
"All right," I replied, "I should like to take a stroll around thegardens. You will join me there later, no doubt."
As I walked out into the bright sunshine I wondered why Paul Harley hadwished to be left alone with Colonel Menendez, but knowing that I shouldlearn his motive later, I strolled on through the gardens, my mindfilled with speculations respecting these unusual people with whom Fatehad brought me in contact. I felt that Miss Beverley needed protectionof some kind, and I was conscious of a keen desire to afford her thatprotection. In her glance I had read, or thought I had read, an appealfor 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 whichhad been puzzling me. Val Beverley's gaiety was a cloak. Once I haddetected her watching Madame de Staemer with a look strangely like thatof fear.
Puffing contentedly at my cigar I proceeded to make a tour of the house.It was constructed irregularly. Practically the entire building wasof gray stone, which created a depressing effect even in the blazingsunlight, lending Cray's Folly something of an austere aspect. Therewere fine lofty windows, however, to most of the ground-floor roomsoverlooking the lawns, and some of those above had balconies of the samegray stone. Quite an extensive kitchen garden and a line of glasshousesadjoined the west wing, and here were outbuildings, coach-houses and agarage, 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 onour arrival resembled the entrance to a monastery.
Passing the massive oaken door by which we had entered and which was nowclosed again, I walked on through the opening in the box hedge into apart of the grounds which was not so sprucely groomed as the rest. Onone side were the yews flanking the Tudor garden and before me uprosethe famous tower. As I stared up at the square structure, with itsuncurtained windows, I wondered, as others had wondered before me, whatcould have ever possessed any man to build it.
Visible at points for many miles around, it undoubtedly disfigured anotherwise beautiful landscape.
I pressed on, noting that the windows of the rooms in the east wing wereshuttered and the apartments evidently disused. I came to the base ofthe tower, To the south, the country rose up to the highest point inthe crescent of hills, and peeping above the trees at no great distanceaway, 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 noVoodoo devilry could find a home in this peaceful English countryside,I detected a faint sound of voices far above. Someone had evidently comeout upon the gallery of the tower. I looked upward, but I could not seethe speakers. I pursued my stroll, until, near the eastern base of thetower, I encountered a perfect thicket of rhododendrons. Finding nopath through this shrubbery, I retraced my steps, presently enteringthe Tudor garden; and there strolling toward me, a book in her hand, wasMiss 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 Iaccepted the invitation without demur.
"I love this old garden," she declared, "although of course it is reallyno older than the rest of the place. I always think there should bepeacocks, 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 ofmerry laughter.
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p; "Do you know, Miss Beverley," I said, watching her, "I find it hard toplace 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 heis 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 Staemer in a little villa onthe Promenade des Anglaise," she replied. "That was after Madame wasinjured."
"She sustained her injuries during the war, I understand?"
"Yes. Poor Madame. The hospital of which she was in charge was bombedand the shock left her as you see her. I was there, too, but I luckilyescaped without injury."
"What, you were there?"
"Yes. That was where I first met Madame de Staemer. She used to be verywealthy, you see, and she established this hospital in France at her ownexpense, and I was one of her assistants for a time. She lost both herhusband and her fortune in the war, and as if that were not bad enough,lost the use of her limbs, too."
"Poor woman," I said. "I had no idea her life had been so tragic. Shehas wonderful courage."
"Courage!" exclaimed the girl, "if you knew all that I know about her."
Her face grew sweetly animated as she bent toward me excitedly andconfidentially.
"Really, she is simply wonderful. I learned to respect her in those daysas I have never respected any other woman in the world; and when, afterall her splendid work, she, so vital and active, was stricken down likethat, I felt that I simply could not leave her, especially as she askedme to stay."
"So you went with her to Nice?"
"Yes. Then the Colonel took this house, and we came here, but--"
She hesitated, and glanced at me curiously.
"Perhaps you are not quite happy?"
"No," she said, "I am not. You see it was different in France. I knew somany people. But here at Cray's Folly it is so lonely, and Madame is--"
Again she hesitated.
"Yes?"
"Well," she laughed in an embarrassed fashion, "I am afraid of her attimes."
"In what way?"
"Oh, in a silly, womanish sort of way. Of course she is a wonderfulmanager; she rules the house with a rod of iron. But really I haven'tanything to do here, and I feel frightfully out of place sometimes. Thenthe Colonel--Oh, but what am I talking about?"
"Won't you tell me what it is that the Colonel fears?"
"You know that he fears something, then?"
"Of course. That is why Paul Harley is here."
A change came over the girl's face; a look almost of dread.
"I wish I knew what it all meant."
"You are aware, then, that there is something wrong?"
"Naturally I am. Sometimes I have been so frightened that I have made upmy mind to leave the very next day."
"You mean that you have been frightened at night?" I asked withcuriosity.
"Dreadfully frightened."
"Won't you tell me in what way?"
She looked up at me swiftly, then turned her head aside, and bit herlip.
"No, not now," she replied. "I can't very well."
"Then at least tell me why you stayed?"
"Well," she smiled rather pathetically, "for one thing, I haven'tanywhere else to go."
"Have you no friends in England?"
She shook her head.
"No. There was only poor daddy, and he died over two years ago. That waswhen I went to Nice."
"Poor little girl," I said; and the words were spoken before I realizedtheir undue familiarity.
An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but Miss Beverley did not seemto have noticed the indiscretion. Indeed my sympathy was sincere, and Ithink she had appreciated the fact.
She looked up again with a bright smile.
"Why are we talking about such depressing things on this simply heavenlyday?" she exclaimed.
"Goodness knows," said I. "Will you show me round these lovely gardens?"
"Delighted, sir!" replied the girl, rising and sweeping me a mockingcurtsey.
Thereupon we set out, and at every step I found a new delight in somewayward curl, in a gesture, in the sweet voice of my companion. Hermerry laugh was music, but in wistful mood I think she was even morealluring.
The menace, if menace there were, which overhung Cray's Folly, ceased toexist--for me, at least, and I blessed the lucky chance which had led tomy presence there.
We were presently rejoined by Colonel Menendez and Paul Harley, and Igathered that my surmise that it had been their voices which I had heardproceeding from the top of the tower to have been only partly accurate.
"I know you will excuse me, Mr. Harley," said the Colonel, "fordetailing the duty to Pedro, but my wind is not good enough for thestairs."
He used idiomatic English at times with that facility which someforeigners acquire, but always smiled in a self-satisfied way when hehad employed a slang term.
"I quite understand, Colonel," replied Harley. "The view from the topwas very fine."
"And now, gentlemen," continued the Colonel, "if Miss Beverley willexcuse us, we will retire to the library and discuss business."
"As you wish," said Harley; "but I have an idea that it is your customto rest in the afternoon."
Colonel Menendez shrugged his shoulders. "It used to be," he admitted,"but I have too much to think about in these days."
"I can see that you have much to tell me," admitted Harley; "andtherefore I am entirely at your service."
Val Beverley smiled and walked away swinging her book, at the same timetreating me to a glance which puzzled me considerably. I wondered if Ihad mistaken its significance, for it had seemed to imply that she hadaccepted me as an ally. Certainly it served to awaken me to the factthat I had discovered a keen personal interest in the mystery which hungover this queerly assorted household.
I glanced at my friend as the Colonel led the way into the house. Isaw him staring upward with a peculiar expression upon his face, andfollowing the direction of his glance I could see an awning spread overone of the gray-stone balconies. Beneath it, reclining in a long canechair, lay Madame de Staemer. I think she was asleep; at any rate,she gave no sign, but lay there motionless, as Harley and I walked inthrough the open French window followed by Colonel Menendez.
Odd and unimportant details sometimes linger long in the memory. AndI remember noticing that a needle of sunlight, piercing a crack in thegaily-striped awning rested upon a ring which Madame wore, so that thediamonds glittered like sparks of white-hot fire.
CHAPTER VI
THE BARRIER
