Bat-Wing (19 page)

I wondered now, as I gazed down into the moon-bathed gardens, if Harley
and I were the only wakeful members of the household at that hour. I
should have been prepared to wager that there were others. I thought of
the strange footsteps which so often passed Miss Beverley's room, and I
discovered this thought to be an uncomfortable one.

Normally, I was sceptical enough, but on this night of the full moon as
I stood there at the window, the horrors which Colonel Menendez had
related to us grew very real in my eyes, and I thought that the
mysteries of Voodoo might conceal strange and ghastly truths, "The
scientific employment of darkness against light." Colin Camber's words
leapt unbidden to my mind; and, such is the magic of moonlight, they
became invested with a new and a deeper significance. Strange, that
theories which one rejects whilst the sun is shining should assume a
spectral shape in the light of the moon.

Such were my musings, when suddenly I heard a faint sound as of
footsteps crunching upon gravel. I leaned farther out of the window,
listening intently. I could not believe that Harley would be guilty of
such an indiscretion as this, yet who else could be walking upon the
path below?

As I watched, craning from the window, a tall figure appeared, and,
slowly crossing the gravel path, descended the moss-grown steps to the
Tudor garden.

It was Colonel Menendez!

He was bare-headed, but fully dressed as I had seen him in the smoking-
room; and not yet grasping the portent of his appearance at that hour,
but merely wondering why he had not yet retired, I continued to watch
him. As I did so, something in his gait, something unnatural in his
movements, caught hold of my mind with a sudden great conviction. He
had reached the path which led to the sun-dial, and with short, queer,
ataxic steps was proceeding in its direction, a striking figure in the
brilliant moonlight which touched his gray hair with a silvery sheen.

His unnatural, automatic movements told their own story. He was walking
in 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 his
fists 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 the
influence 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 the window ledge, and began to grope for the bamboo rungs beneath
me. I had found the first of these, and, turning, had begun to descend,
when:

"Knox! Knox!" came softly from the opening in the box hedge, "what the
devil are you about?"

It was Paul Harley returned from his tour of the building.

"Harley!" I whispered, descending, "quick! the Colonel has just gone
into the Tudor garden!"

"What!" There was a note of absolute horror in the exclamation. "You
should have stopped him, Knox, you should have stopped him!" cried
Harley, and with that he ran off in the same direction.

Disentangling my foot from the rungs of the ladder which lay upon the
ground, I was about to follow, when it happened—that strange and
ghastly thing toward which, secretly, darkly, events had been tending.

The crack of a rifle sounded sharply in the stillness, echoing and re-
echoing from wing to wing of Cray's Folly and then, more dimly, up the
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 I
came to it and raced down the steps I heard another sound the memory of
which haunts me to this day.

Where it came from I had no idea. Perhaps I was too confused to judge
accurately. It might have come from the house, or from the slopes
beyond the house, But it was a sort of shrill, choking laugh, and it
set the ultimate touch of horror upon a
scène macabre
which, even as
I write of 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 that
I had come to a state of stupefaction. Face downward on the grass, arms
outstretched and fists clenched, lay Colonel Menendez. I think I saw
him move convulsively, but as I gained his side Harley looked up at me,
and beneath the tan which he never lost his face had grown pale. He
spoke through 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's
skull, and then swayed backward in a sort of nausea. To see a man die
in the heat of battle, a man one has known and called friend, is
strange and terrible. Here in this moon-bathed Tudor garden it was a
horror almost beyond my powers to endure.

Paul Harley, without touching the prone figure, stood up. Indeed no
examination of the victim was necessary. A rifle bullet had pierced his
brain, and he lay there dead with his head toward the hills.

I clutched at Harley's shoulder, but he stood rigidly, staring up the
slope past the angle of the tower, to where a gable of the Guest House
jutted 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 was
facing 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
a cordon round the hills what can be done? How can I move?"

He had somewhat relaxed, but now as I continued to clutch his arm, I
felt the muscles grow rigid again.

"Look, Knox!" he whispered—"look!"

I followed the direction of his fixed stare, and through the trees on
the hillside a dim light shone out. Someone had lighted a lamp in the
Guest House.

A faint, sibilant sound drew my glance upward, and there overhead a bat
circled—circled—dipped—and flew off toward the distant woods. So
still was the night that I could distinguish the babble of the little
stream which ran down into the lake. Then, suddenly, came a loud
flapping 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 keep
the women away. Get Pedro, and send Manoel for the nearest doctor. It's
useless but usual. Let no one deface his footprints. My worst
anticipations have come true. The local police must be informed."

Throughout the time that he spoke he continued to search the moon-
bathed landscape with feverish eagerness, but except for a faint
movement of birds in the trees, for they, like the swans on the lake,
had been alarmed 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 running
toward the gate in the southern corner of the garden.

For my part I scrambled unceremoniously up the bank, and emerged where
the yews stood sentinel beside the path. I ran through the gap in the
box 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 has
happened?"

"A tragedy," I said, shortly. "Pull yourself together. Where is Madame
de Stämer?"

Pedro uttered some exclamation in Spanish and stood, pale-faced,
swaying before me, a dishevelled figure in a dressing gown. And now in
the background Mrs. Fisher appeared. One frightened glance she cast in
my direction, and would have hurried across the hall but I intercepted
her.

"Where are you going, Mrs. Fisher?" I demanded. "What has happened
here?"

"To Madame, to Madame," she sobbed, pointing toward the corridor which
communicated with Madame de Stämer's bedchamber.

I heard a frightened cry proceeding from that direction, and recognized
the voice of Nita, the girl who acted as Madame's maid. Then I heard
Val Beverley.

"Go and fetch Mrs. Fisher, Nita, at once—and try to behave yourself. I
have trouble enough."

I entered the corridor and pulled up short. Val Beverley, fully
dressed, was kneeling beside Madame de Stämer, who wore a kimono over
her night-robe, and who lay huddled on the floor immediately outside
the door of her room!

"Oh, Mr. Knox!" cried the girl, pitifully, and raised frightened eyes
to me. "For God's sake, what has happened?"

Nita, the Spanish girl, who was sobbing hysterically, ran along to join
Mrs. Fisher.

"I will tell you in a moment," I said, quietly, rendered cool, as one
always is, by the need of others. "But first tell me—how did Madame de
Stämer get here?"

"I don't know, I don't know! I was startled by the shot. It has
awakened everybody. And just as I opened my door to listen, I heard
Madame cry out in the hall below. I ran down, turned on the light, and
found her lying here. She, too, had been awakened, I suppose, and was
endeavouring to drag herself from her room when her strength failed her
and she swooned. 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 the servants to come, is simply hysterical, as you can see."

I nodded reassuringly, and stooping, lifted the swooning woman. She was
much heavier than I should have supposed, but, Val Beverley leading the
way, 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
tell you what has happened."

"Yes, tell me, oh, tell me!"

She laid her hands upon my shoulders appealingly, and looked up into my
eyes 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 a
moment, then:

"I think," she whispered, "she must have known, and that was why she
swooned. Oh, my God! how horrible."

I made her sit down in an armchair, and watched her anxiously, but
although every speck of colour had faded from her cheeks, she was
splendidly courageous, and almost immediately she smiled up at me, very
wanly, but confidently.

"I will look after her," she said. "Mr. Harley will need your
assistance."

When I returned to the hall I found it already filled with a number of
servants incongruously attired. Carter the chauffeur, who lived at the
lodge, 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. Your
master has been shot."

"Now, gentlemen," said Inspector Aylesbury, "I will take evidence."

Dawn was creeping grayly over the hills, and the view from the library
windows resembled a study by Bastien-Lepage. The lamps burned yellowly,
and the exotic appointments of the library viewed in that cold light
for some reason reminded me of a stage set seen in daylight. The
Velasquez portrait mentally translated me to the billiard room where
something lay upon the settee with a white sheet drawn over it; and I
wondered if my own face looked as wan and comfortless as did the faces
of my companions, that is, of two of them, for I must except Inspector
Aylesbury.

Squarely before the oaken mantel he stood, a large, pompous man, but in
this hour I could find no humour in Paul Harley's description of him as
resembling a walrus. He had a large auburn moustache tinged with gray,
and prominent brown eyes, but the lower part of his face, which
terminated in a big double chin, was ill-balanced by his small
forehead. He was bulkily built, and I had conceived an unreasonable
distaste for his puffy hands. His official air and oratorical manner
were provoking.

Harley sat in the chair which he had occupied during our last interview
with Colonel Menendez in the library, and I had realized—a realization
which had made me uncomfortable—that I was seated upon the couch on
which the Colonel had reclined. Only one other was present, Dr.
Rolleston of Mid-Hatton, a slight, fair man with a brisk, military
manner, acquired perhaps during six years of war service. He was
standing beside me smoking a cigarette.

"I have taken all the necessary particulars concerning the position of
the body," continued the Inspector, "the nature of the wound, contents
of pockets, etc., and I now turn to you, Mr. Harley, as the first
person to discover the murdered man."

Paul Harley lay back in the armchair watching the speaker.

"Before we come to what happened here to-night I should like to be
quite clear about your own position in the matter, Mr. Harley. Now"—
Inspector Aylesbury raised one finger in forensic manner—"now, you
visited me yesterday afternoon, Mr. Harley, and asked for certain
information regarding the neighbourhood."