Bat-Wing (34 page)

I stepped across the room, bent down, and stared out of the window,
across the Tudor garden. Plainly I could see the sun-dial with the ash
stick planted before it. I could see the piece of cardboard which
surmounted it—and, through the hole cut in the cardboard, I could see
the feeble flame of the candle nailed to the ninth yew tree!

I stood upright, knowing that I had grown pale, and conscious of a
moist sensation upon my forehead.

"Merciful God!" I said in a hollow voice. "It was from
this
window
that the shot was fired which killed him!"

From the ensuing consultation in the library we did not rise until
close upon midnight. To the turbid intelligence of Inspector Aylesbury
the fact by this time had penetrated that Colin Camber was innocent,
that he was the victim of a frame-up, and that Colonel Juan Menendez
had been shot from a window of his own house.

By a process of lucid reasoning which must have convinced a junior
schoolboy, Paul Harley, there in the big library, with its garish
bookcases and its Moorish ornaments, had eliminated every member of the
household from the list of suspects. His concluding words, I remember,
were as follows:

"Of the known occupants of Cray's Folly on the night of the tragedy we
now find ourselves reduced to four, any one of whom, from the point of
view of an impartial critic uninfluenced by personal character,
question, or motive, or any consideration other than that of physical
possibility, might have shot Colonel Menendez. They are, firstly:
Myself.

"In order to believe me guilty, it would be necessary to discount the
evidence of Knox, who saw me on the gravel path below at the time that
the shot was fired from the tower window.

"Secondly: Knox; whose guilt, equally, could only be assumed by means
of eliminating
my
evidence, since I saw him at the window of my
room at the time that the shot was fired.

"Thirdly: Madame de Stämer. Regarding this suspect, in the first place
she could not have gained access to the tower room without assistance,
and in the second place she was so passionately devoted to the late
Colonel Menendez that Dr. Rolleston is of opinion that her reason may
remain permanently impaired by the shock of his death. Fourthly and
lastly: Miss Val Beverley."

Over my own feelings, as he had uttered the girl's name, I must pass in
silence.

"Miss Val Beverley is the only one of the four suspects who is not in a
position to establish a sound alibi so far as I can see at the moment;
but in this case entire absence of motive renders the suspicion absurd.
Having dealt with the
known
occupants, I shall not touch upon
the possibility that some stranger had gained access to the house. This
opens up a province of speculation which we must explore at greater
leisure, for it would be profitless to attempt such an exploration
now."

Thus the gathering had broken up, Inspector Aylesbury returning to
Market Hilton to make his report and to release Colin Camber and Ah
Tsong, and Wessex to seek his quarters at the Lavender Arms.

I remember that having seen them off, Harley and I stood in the hall,
staring at one another in a very odd way, and so we stood when Val
Beverley came quietly from Madame de Stämer's room and spoke to us.

"Pedro has told me what you have done, Mr. Harley," she said in a low
voice. "Oh, thank God you have cleared him. But what, in Heaven's name,
does your new discovery mean?"

"You may well ask," Harley answered, grimly. "If my first task was a
hard one, that which remains before me looks more nearly hopeless than
anything I have ever been called upon to attempt."

"It is horrible, it is horrible," said the girl, shudderingly. "Oh, Mr.
Knox," she turned to me, "I have felt all along that there was some
stranger in the house—"

"You have told me so."

"Conundrums! Conundrums!" muttered Harley, irritably. "Where am I to
begin, upon what am I to erect any feasible theory?" He turned abruptly
to Val Beverley. "Does Madame de Stämer know?"

"Yes," she answered, nodding her head; "and hearing the others depart,
she asked me to tell you that sleep is impossible until you have
personally given her the details of your discovery."

"She wishes to see me?" asked Harley, eagerly.

"She insists upon seeing you," replied the girl, "and also requests Mr.
Knox to visit her." She paused, biting her lip. "Madame's manner is
very, very odd. Dr. Rolleston cannot understand her at all. I expect he
has told you? She has been sitting there for hours and hours, writing."

"Writing?" exclaimed Harley. "Letters?"

"I don't know what she has been writing," confessed Val Beverley. "She
declines to tell me, or to show me what she has written. But there is
quite a little stack of manuscript upon the table beside her bed. Won't
you come in?"

I could see that she was more troubled than she cared to confess, and I
wondered if Dr. Rolleston's unpleasant suspicions might have solid
foundation, and if the loss of her cousin had affected Madame de
Stämer's brain.

Presently, then, ushered by Val Beverley, I found myself once more in
the violet and silver room in which on that great bed of state Madame
reclined amid silken pillows. Her art never deserted her, not even in
moments of ultimate stress, and that she had prepared herself for this
interview was evident enough.

I had thought previously that one night of horror had added five years
to her apparent age. I thought now that she looked radiantly beautiful.
That expression in her eyes, which I knew I must forevermore associate
with the memory of the dying tigress, had faded entirely. They remained
still, as of old, but to-night they were velvety soft. The lips were
relaxed in a smile of tenderness. I observed, with surprise, that she
wore much jewelery, and upon her white bosom gleamed the famous rope of
pearls which I knew her to treasure above almost anything in her
possession.

Again the fear touched me coldly that much sorrow had made her mad. But
at her very first word of greeting I was immediately reassured.

"Ah, my friend," she said, as I entered, a caressing note in her deep,
vibrant voice, "you have great news, they tell me? Mr. Harley, I was
afraid that you had deserted me, sir. If you had done so I should have
been very angry with you. Set the two armchairs here on my right, Val,
dear, and sit close beside me."

Then, as we seated ourselves:

"You are not smoking, my friends," she continued, "and I know that you
are both so fond of a smoke."

Paul Harley excused himself but I accepted a cigarette which Val
Beverley offered me from a silver box on the table, and presently:

"I am here, like a prisoner of the Bastille," declared Madame,
shrugging her shoulders, "where only echoes reach me. Now, Mr. Harley,
tell me of this wonderful discovery of yours."

Harley inclined his head gravely, and in that succinct fashion which he
had at command acquainted Madame with the result of his two
experiments. As he completed the account:

"Ah," she sighed, and lay back upon her pillows, "so to-night he is
again a free man, the poor Colin Camber. And his wife is happy once
more?"

"Thank God," I murmured. "Her sorrow was pathetic."

"Only the pure in heart can thank God," said Madame, strangely, "but I,
too, am glad. I have written, here"—she pointed to a little heap of
violet note-paper upon a table placed at the opposite side of the bed—
"how glad I am."

Harley and I stared vaguely across at the table. I saw Val Beverley
glancing uneasily in the same direction. Save for the writing materials
and little heap of manuscript, it held only a cup and saucer, a few
sandwiches, and a medicine bottle containing the prescription which Dr.
Rolleston had made up for the invalid.

"I am curious to know what you have written, Madame," declared Harley.

"Yes, you are curious?" she said. "Very well, then, I will tell you,
and afterward you may read if you wish." She turned to me. "You, my
friend," she whispered, and reaching over she laid her jewelled hand
upon my arm, "you have spoken with Ysola de Valera this afternoon, they
tell me?"

"With Mrs. Camber?" I asked, startled. "Yes, that is true."

"Ah, Mrs. Camber," murmured Madame. "I knew her as Ysola de Valera. She
is beautiful, in her golden doll way. You think so?" Then, ere I had
time to reply: "She told you, I suppose, eh?"

"She told me," I replied with a certain embarrassment, "that she had
met you some years ago in Cuba."

"Ah, yes, although
I
told the fat Inspector it was not so. How
we lie, we women! And of course she told you in what relation I stood
to Juan Menendez?"

"She did not, Madame de Stämer."

"No-no? Well, it was nice of her. No matter.
I
will tell you. I
was his mistress."

She spoke without bravado, but quite without shame, seeming to glory in
the statement.

"I met him in Paris," she continued, half closing her eyes. "I was
staying at the house of my sister, and my sister, you understand, was
married to Juan's cousin. That is how we met. I was married. Yes, it is
true. But in France our parents find our husbands and our lovers find
our hearts. Yet sometimes these marriages are happy. To me this good
thing had not happened, and in the moment when Juan's hand touched mine
a living fire entered into my heart and it has been burning ever since;
burning-burning, always till I die.

"Very well, I am a shameless woman, yes. But I have lived, and I have
loved, and I am content. I went with him to Cuba, and from Cuba to
another island where he had estates, and the name of which I shall not
pronounce, because it hurts me so, even yet. There he set eyes upon
Ysola de Valera, the daughter of his manager, and, pouf!"

She shrugged and snapped her fingers.

"He was like that, you understand? I knew it well. They did not call
him Devil Menendez for nothing. There was a scene, a dreadful scene,
and after that another, and yet a third. I have pride. If I had seemed
to forget it, still it was there. I left him, and went back to France.
I tried to forget. I entered upon works of charity for the soldiers at
a time when others were becoming tired. I spent a great part of my
fortune upon establishing a hospital, and this child"—she threw her
arm around Val Beverley—"worked with me night and day. I think I
wanted to die. Often I tried to die. Did I not, dear?"

"You did, Madame," said the girl in a very low voice.

"Twice I was arrested in the French lines, where I had crept dressed
like a
poilu
, from where I shot down many a Prussian. Is it not
so?"

"It is true," answered the girl, nodding her head.

"They caught me and arrested me," said Madame, with a sort of triumph.
"If it had been the British"—she raised her hand in that Bernhardt
gesture—"with me it would have gone hard. But in France a woman's
smile goes farther than in England. I had had my fun. They called me
'good comrade!' Perhaps I paid with a kiss. What does it matter? But
they heard of me, those Prussian dogs. They knew and could not forgive.
How often did they come over to bomb us, Val, dear?"

"Oh, many, many times," said the girl, shudderingly.

"And at last they succeeded," added Madame, bitterly. "God! the black
villains! Let me not think of it."

She clenched her hands and closed her eyes entirely, but presently
resumed again:

"If they had killed me I should have been glad, but they only made of
me a cripple. M. de Stämer had been killed a few weeks before this. I
am sorry I forgot to mention it. I was a widow. And when after this
catastrophe I could be moved, I went to a little villa belonging to my
husband at Nice, to gain strength, and this child came with me, like a
ray of sunshine.

"Here, to wake the fire in my heart, came Juan, deserted, broken,
wounded in soul, but most of all in pride, in that evil pride which
belongs to his race, which is so different from the pride of France,
but for which all the same I could never hate him.

"Ysola de Valera had run away from his great house in Cuba. Yes! A
woman had dared to leave him, the man who had left so many women. To me
it was pathetic. I was sorry for him. He had been searching the world
for her. He loved this little golden-haired girl as he had never loved
me. But to me he came with his broken heart, and I"—her voice
trembled—"I took him back. He still cared for me, you understand. Ah!"
She laughed. "I am not a woman who is lightly forgotten. But the great
passion that burned in his Spanish soul was revenge.

"He was a broken man not only in mind, but in body. Let me tell you. In
that island which I have not named there is a horrible disease called
by the natives the Creeping Sickness. It is supposed to come from a
poisonous place named the Black Belt, and a part of this Black Belt is
near, too near, to the hacienda in which Juan sometimes lived."

Paul Harley started and glanced at me significantly.

"They think, those simple negroes, that it is witchcraft, Voodoo, the
work of the Obeah man. It is of two kinds, rapid and slow. Those who
suffer from the first kind just decline and decline and die in great
agony. Others recover, or seem to do so. It is, I suppose, a matter of
constitution. Juan had had this sickness and had recovered, or so the
doctors said, but, ah!"

She lay back, shaking her finger characteristically.

"In one year, in two, three, a swift pain comes, like a needle, you
understand? Perhaps in the foot, in the hand, in the arm. It is
exquisite, deathly, while it lasts, but it only lasts for a few
moments. It is agony. And then it goes, leaving nothing to show what
has caused it. But, my friends, it is a death warning!