by Sax Rohmer
I stood at Harley's open window--looking down in the Tudor garden. Themoon, like a silver mirror, hung in a cloudless sky. Over an hour hadelapsed since I had heard Pedro making his nightly rounds. Nothingwhatever of an unusual nature had occurred, and although Harley and Ihad listened for any sound of nocturnal footsteps, our vigilance hadpassed unrewarded. Harley, unrolling the Chinese ladder, had set outupon a secret tour of the grounds, warning me that it must be a longbusiness, since the brilliance of the moonlight rendered it necessarythat he should make a wide detour, in order to avoid possibleobservation from the windows. I had wished to join him, but:
"I count it most important that one of us should remain in the house,"he had replied.
As a result, here was I at the open window, questioning the shadows toright and left of me, and every moment expecting to see Harley reappear.I wondered what discoveries he would make. It would not have surprisedme to learn that there were lights in many windows of Cray's Follyto-night.
Although, when we had rejoined the ladies for half an hour, afterleaving Colonel Menendez's room, there had been no overt reference tothe menace overhanging the house, yet, as we separated for the night, Ihad detected again in Val Beverley's eyes that look of repressed fear.Indeed, she was palpably disinclined to retire, but was carried off bythe masterful Madame, who declared that she looked tired.
I wondered now, as I gazed down into the moon-bathed gardens, if Harleyand I were the only wakeful members of the household at that hour. Ishould have been prepared to wager that there were others. I thought ofthe strange footsteps which so often passed Miss Beverley's room, and Idiscovered this thought to be an uncomfortable one.
Normally, I was sceptical enough, but on this night of the full moonas I stood there at the window, the horrors which Colonel Menendezhad related to us grew very real in my eyes, and I thought that themysteries of Voodoo might conceal strange and ghastly truths, "Thescientific employment of darkness against light." Colin Camber's wordsleapt unbidden to my mind; and, such is the magic of moonlight, theybecame invested with a new and a deeper significance. Strange, thattheories which one rejects whilst the sun is shining should assume aspectral shape in the light of the moon.
Such were my musings, when suddenly I heard a faint sound as offootsteps crunching upon gravel. I leaned farther out of the window,listening intently. I could not believe that Harley would be guilty ofsuch an indiscretion as this, yet who else could be walking upon thepath below?
As I watched, craning from the window, a tall figure appeared, and,slowly crossing the gravel path, descended the moss-grown steps to theTudor garden.
It was Colonel Menendez!
He was bare-headed, but fully dressed as I had seen him in thesmoking-room; and not yet grasping the portent of his appearance at thathour, but merely wondering why he had not yet retired, I continued towatch him. As I did so, something in his gait, something unnatural inhis movements, caught hold of my mind with a sudden great conviction. Hehad reached the path which led to the sun-dial, and with short, queer,ataxic steps was proceeding in its direction, a striking figure in thebrilliant moonlight which touched his gray hair with a silvery sheen.
His unnatural, automatic movements told their own story. He was walkingin his sleep! Could it be in obedience to the call of M'kombo?
My throat grew dry and I knew not how to act. Unwillingly it seemed,with ever-halting steps, the figure moved onward. I could see that hisfists were tightly clenched and that he held his head rigidly upright.All horrors, real and imaginary, which I had ever experienced,culminated in the moment when I saw this man of inflexible character,I could have sworn of indomitable will, moving like a puppet under theinfluence of some unnameable force.
He was almost come to the sun-dial when I determined to cry out. Then,remembering the shock experienced by a suddenly awakened somnambulist,and remembering that the Chinese ladder hung from the window at my feet,I changed my mind. Checking the cry upon my lips, I got astride of thewindow ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath me. I hadfound the first of these, and, turning, had begun to descend, when:
"Knox! Knox!" came softly from the opening in the box hedge, "what thedevil are you about?"
It was Paul Harley returned from his tour of the building.
"Harley!" I whispered, descending, "quick! the Colonel has just goneinto the Tudor garden!"
"What!" There was a note of absolute horror in the exclamation. "Youshould have stopped him, Knox, you should have stopped him!" criedHarley, and with that he ran off in the same direction.
Disentangling my foot from the rungs of the ladder which lay uponthe ground, I was about to follow, when it happened--that strange andghastly thing toward which, secretly, darkly, events had been tending.
The crack of a rifle sounded sharply in the stillness, echoing andre-echoing from wing to wing of Cray's Folly and then, more dimly, upthe wooded slopes beyond! Somewhere ahead of me I heard Harley cry out:
"My God, I am too late! They have got him!"
Then, hotfoot, I was making for the entrance to the garden. Just as Icame to it and raced down the steps I heard another sound the memory ofwhich haunts me to this day.
Where it came from I had no idea. Perhaps I was too confused to judgeaccurately. It might have come from the house, or from the slopes beyondthe house, But it was a sort of shrill, choking laugh, and it set theultimate touch of horror upon a _scene macabre_ which, even as I writeof it, seems unreal to me.
I ran up the path to where Harley was kneeling beside the sun-dial.Analysis of my emotions at this moment were futile; I can only say thatI had come to a state of stupefaction. Face downward on the grass, armsoutstretched and fists clenched, lay Colonel Menendez. I think I saw himmove convulsively, but as I gained his side Harley looked up at me, andbeneath the tan which he never lost his face had grown pale. He spokethrough clenched teeth.
"Merciful God," he said, "he is shot through the head."
One glance I gave at the ghastly wound in the base of the Colonel'sskull, and then swayed backward in a sort of nausea. To see a man diein the heat of battle, a man one has known and called friend, is strangeand terrible. Here in this moon-bathed Tudor garden it was a horroralmost beyond my powers to endure.
Paul Harley, without touching the prone figure, stood up. Indeed noexamination of the victim was necessary. A rifle bullet had pierced hisbrain, and he lay there dead with his head toward the hills.
I clutched at Harley's shoulder, but he stood rigidly, staring up theslope past the angle of the tower, to where a gable of the Guest Housejutted out from the trees.
"Did you hear--that cry?" I whispered, "immediately after the shot?"
"I heard it."
A moment longer he stood fixedly watching, and then:
"Not a wisp of smoke," he said. "You note the direction in which he wasfacing when he fell?"
He spoke in a stern and unnatural voice.
"I do. He must have turned half right when he came to the sun-dial."
"Where were you when the shot was fired?"
"Running in this direction."
"You saw no flash?"
"None."
"Neither did I," groaned Harley; "neither did I. And short of throwing acordon round the hills what can be done? How can I move?"
He had somewhat relaxed, but now as I continued to clutch his arm, Ifelt the muscles grow rigid again.
"Look, Knox!" he whispered--"look!"
I followed the direction of his fixed stare, and through the trees onthe hillside a dim light shone out. Someone had lighted a lamp in theGuest House.
A faint, sibilant sound drew my glance upward, and there overhead abat circled--circled--dipped--and flew off toward the distant woods. Sostill was the night that I could distinguish the babble of the littlestream which ran down into the lake. Then, suddenly, came a loudflapping of wings. The swans had been awakened by the sound of the shot.Others had been awakened, too, for now distant voices became audible,and then a muffled
scream from somewhere within Cray's Folly.
"Back to the house, Knox," said Harley, hoarsely. "For God's sake keepthe women away. Get Pedro, and send Manoel for the nearest doctor.It's useless but usual. Let no one deface his footprints. My worstanticipations have come true. The local police must be informed."
Throughout the time that he spoke he continued to search the moon-bathedlandscape with feverish eagerness, but except for a faint movementof birds in the trees, for they, like the swans on the lake, had beenalarmed by the shot, nothing stirred.
"It came from the hillside," he muttered. "Off you go, Knox."
And even as I started on my unpleasant errand, he had set out runningtoward the gate in the southern corner of the garden.
For my part I scrambled unceremoniously up the bank, and emerged wherethe yews stood sentinel beside the path. I ran through the gap in thebox hedge just as the main doors were thrown open by Pedro.
He started back as he saw me.
"Pedro! Pedro!" I cried, "have the ladies been awakened?"
"Yes, yes! there is terrible trouble, sir. What has happened? What hashappened?"
"A tragedy," I said, shortly. "Pull yourself together. Where is Madamede Staemer?"
Pedro uttered some exclamation in Spanish and stood, pale-faced, swayingbefore me, a dishevelled figure in a dressing gown. And now in thebackground Mrs. Fisher appeared. One frightened glance she cast in mydirection, and would have hurried across the hall but I intercepted her.
"Where are you going, Mrs. Fisher?" I demanded. "What has happenedhere?"
"To Madame, to Madame," she sobbed, pointing toward the corridor whichcommunicated with Madame de Staemer's bedchamber.
I heard a frightened cry proceeding from that direction, and recognizedthe voice of Nita, the girl who acted as Madame's maid. Then I heard ValBeverley.
"Go and fetch Mrs. Fisher, Nita, at once--and try to behave yourself. Ihave trouble enough."
I entered the corridor and pulled up short. Val Beverley, fully dressed,was kneeling beside Madame de Staemer, who wore a kimono over hernight-robe, and who lay huddled on the floor immediately outside thedoor of her room!
"Oh, Mr. Knox!" cried the girl, pitifully, and raised frightened eyes tome. "For God's sake, what has happened?"
Nita, the Spanish girl, who was sobbing hysterically, ran along to joinMrs. Fisher.
"I will tell you in a moment," I said, quietly, rendered cool, as onealways is, by the need of others. "But first tell me--how did Madame deStaemer get here?"
"I don't know, I don't know! I was startled by the shot. It has awakenedeverybody. And just as I opened my door to listen, I heard Madame cryout in the hall below. I ran down, turned on the light, and found herlying here. She, too, had been awakened, I suppose, and was endeavouringto drag herself from her room when her strength failed her and sheswooned. She is too heavy for me to lift," added the girl, pathetically,"and Pedro is out of his senses, and Nita, who was the first of theservants to come, is simply hysterical, as you can see."
I nodded reassuringly, and stooping, lifted the swooning woman. She wasmuch heavier than I should have supposed, but, Val Beverley leading theway, I carried her into her apartment and placed her upon the bed.
"I will leave her to you," I said. "You have courage, and so I will tellyou what has happened."
"Yes, tell me, oh, tell me!"
She laid her hands upon my shoulders appealingly, and looked up into myeyes in a way that made me long to take her in my arms and comfort her,an insane longing which I only crushed with difficulty.
"Someone has shot Colonel Menendez," I said, in a low voice, for Mrs.Fisher had just entered.
"You mean--"
I nodded.
"Oh!"
Val Beverley opened and closed her eyes, clutching at me dizzily for amoment, then:
"I think," she whispered, "she must have known, and that was why sheswooned. Oh, my God! how horrible."
I made her sit down in an armchair, and watched her anxiously, butalthough every speck of colour had faded from her cheeks, she wassplendidly courageous, and almost immediately she smiled up at me, verywanly, but confidently.
"I will look after her," she said. "Mr. Harley will need yourassistance."
When I returned to the hall I found it already filled with a number ofservants incongruously attired. Carter the chauffeur, who lived at thelodge, was just coming in at the door, and:
"Carter," I said, "get a car out quickly, and bring the nearest doctor.If there is another man who can drive, send him for the police. Yourmaster has been shot."
CHAPTER XVIII
INSPECTOR AYLESBURY OF MARKET HILTON
