From the ensuing consultation in the library we did not rise until closeupon midnight. To the turbid intelligence of Inspector Aylesbury thefact by this time had penetrated that Colin Camber was innocent, thathe was the victim of a frame-up, and that Colonel Juan Menendez had beenshot from a window of his own house.
By a process of lucid reasoning which must have convinced a juniorschoolboy, Paul Harley, there in the big library, with its garishbookcases and its Moorish ornaments, had eliminated every member of thehousehold 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 wenow find ourselves reduced to four, any one of whom, from the pointof view of an impartial critic uninfluenced by personal character,question, or motive, or any consideration other than that of physicalpossibility, might have shot Colonel Menendez. They are, firstly:Myself.
"In order to believe me guilty, it would be necessary to discount theevidence of Knox, who saw me on the gravel path below at the time thatthe shot was fired from the tower window.
"Secondly: Knox; whose guilt, equally, could only be assumed by means ofeliminating _my_ evidence, since I saw him at the window of my room atthe time that the shot was fired.
"Thirdly: Madame de Staemer. Regarding this suspect, in the first placeshe could not have gained access to the tower room without assistance,and in the second place she was so passionately devoted to the lateColonel Menendez that Dr. Rolleston is of opinion that her reason mayremain permanently impaired by the shock of his death. Fourthly andlastly: Miss Val Beverley."
Over my own feelings, as he had uttered the girl's name, I must pass insilence.
"Miss Val Beverley is the only one of the four suspects who is not in aposition 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 thepossibility that some stranger had gained access to the house. Thisopens up a province of speculation which we must explore at greaterleisure, for it would be profitless to attempt such an exploration now."
Thus the gathering had broken up, Inspector Aylesbury returning toMarket Hilton to make his report and to release Colin Camber and AhTsong, 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 ValBeverley came quietly from Madame de Staemer's room and spoke to us.
"Pedro has told me what you have done, Mr. Harley," she said in a lowvoice. "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 ahard one, that which remains before me looks more nearly hopeless thananything 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 somestranger in the house----"
"You have told me so."
"Conundrums! Conundrums!" muttered Harley, irritably. "Where am I tobegin, upon what am I to erect any feasible theory?" He turned abruptlyto Val Beverley. "Does Madame de Staemer know?"
"Yes," she answered, nodding her head; "and hearing the others depart,she asked me to tell you that sleep is impossible until you havepersonally 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 requestsMr. Knox to visit her." She paused, biting her lip. "Madame's manner isvery, very odd. Dr. Rolleston cannot understand her at all. I expect hehas 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. "Shedeclines to tell me, or to show me what she has written. But there isquite a little stack of manuscript upon the table beside her bed. Won'tyou come in?"
I could see that she was more troubled than she cared to confess, andI wondered if Dr. Rolleston's unpleasant suspicions might have solidfoundation, and if the loss of her cousin had affected Madame deStaemer's brain.
Presently, then, ushered by Val Beverley, I found myself once more inthe violet and silver room in which on that great bed of state Madamereclined amid silken pillows. Her art never deserted her, not even inmoments of ultimate stress, and that she had prepared herself for thisinterview was evident enough.
I had thought previously that one night of horror had added five yearsto her apparent age. I thought now that she looked radiantly beautiful.That expression in her eyes, which I knew I must forevermore associatewith the memory of the dying tigress, had faded entirely. They remainedstill, as of old, but to-night they were velvety soft. The lips wererelaxed in a smile of tenderness. I observed, with surprise, that shewore much jewelery, and upon her white bosom gleamed the famous ropeof pearls which I knew her to treasure above almost anything in herpossession.
Again the fear touched me coldly that much sorrow had made her mad. Butat 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 wasafraid that you had deserted me, sir. If you had done so I should havebeen 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 youare both so fond of a smoke."
Paul Harley excused himself but I accepted a cigarette which ValBeverley offered me from a silver box on the table, and presently:
"I am here, like a prisoner of the Bastille," declared Madame, shruggingher shoulders, "where only echoes reach me. Now, Mr. Harley, tell me ofthis wonderful discovery of yours."
Harley inclined his head gravely, and in that succinct fashion which hehad 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 isagain a free man, the poor Colin Camber. And his wife is happy oncemore?"
"Thank God," I murmured. "Her sorrow was pathetic."
"Only the pure in heart can thank God," said Madame, strangely, "butI, too, am glad. I have written, here"--she pointed to a little heapof violet note-paper upon a table placed at the opposite side of thebed--"how glad I am."
Harley and I stared vaguely across at the table. I saw Val Beverleyglancing uneasily in the same direction. Save for the writing materialsand little heap of manuscript, it held only a cup and saucer, a fewsandwiches, 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, andafterward 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. Sheis beautiful, in her golden doll way. You think so?" Then, ere I hadtime to reply: "She told you, I suppose, eh?"
"She told me," I replied with a certain embarrassment, "that she had metyou 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 JuanMenendez?"
"She did not, Madame de Staemer."
"No-no? Well, it was nice of her. No matter. _I_ will tell you. I washis mistress."
She spoke without bravado, but quite without shame, seeming to glory inthe statement.
"I met him in Paris," she continued, half closing her eyes. "I w
asstaying at the house of my sister, and my sister, you understand, wasmarried to Juan's cousin. That is how we met. I was married. Yes, it istrue. But in France our parents find our husbands and our lovers findour hearts. Yet sometimes these marriages are happy. To me this goodthing had not happened, and in the moment when Juan's hand touched minea 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 haveloved, and I am content. I went with him to Cuba, and from Cuba toanother island where he had estates, and the name of which I shall notpronounce, because it hurts me so, even yet. There he set eyes uponYsola 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 callhim Devil Menendez for nothing. There was a scene, a dreadful scene, andafter that another, and yet a third. I have pride. If I had seemed toforget it, still it was there. I left him, and went back to France. Itried to forget. I entered upon works of charity for the soldiers at atime when others were becoming tired. I spent a great part of my fortuneupon establishing a hospital, and this child"--she threw her arm aroundVal 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 dressedlike 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 Bernhardtgesture--"with me it would have gone hard. But in France a woman's smilegoes farther than in England. I had had my fun. They called me 'goodcomrade!' Perhaps I paid with a kiss. What does it matter? But theyheard of me, those Prussian dogs. They knew and could not forgive. Howoften 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 blackvillains! Let me not think of it."
She clenched her hands and closed her eyes entirely, but presentlyresumed again:
"If they had killed me I should have been glad, but they only made ofme a cripple. M. de Staemer had been killed a few weeks before this. Iam sorry I forgot to mention it. I was a widow. And when after thiscatastrophe I could be moved, I went to a little villa belonging to myhusband at Nice, to gain strength, and this child came with me, like aray 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 whichbelongs to his race, which is so different from the pride of France, butfor which all the same I could never hate him.
"Ysola de Valera had run away from his great house in Cuba. Yes! A womanhad dared to leave him, the man who had left so many women. To me it waspathetic. 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. Butto me he came with his broken heart, and I"--her voice trembled--"I tookhim back. He still cared for me, you understand. Ah!" She laughed. "I amnot a woman who is lightly forgotten. But the great passion that burnedin his Spanish soul was revenge.
"He was a broken man not only in mind, but in body. Let me tell you. Inthat island which I have not named there is a horrible disease calledby the natives the Creeping Sickness. It is supposed to come from apoisonous place named the Black Belt, and a part of this Black Belt isnear, 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, thework of the Obeah man. It is of two kinds, rapid and slow. Those whosuffer from the first kind just decline and decline and die in greatagony. Others recover, or seem to do so. It is, I suppose, a matter ofconstitution. Juan had had this sickness and had recovered, or so thedoctors 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 isexquisite, 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 causedit. But, my friends, it is a death warning!
"If it comes here"--she raised one delicate white hand--"you may havefive years to live; if in the foot, ten, or more. But"--she sank hervoice dramatically--"the nearer it is to the heart, the less are thedays that remain to you of life."
"You mean that it recurs?" asked Harley.
"Perhaps in a week, perhaps not for another year, it comes again, thatquick agony. This time in the shoulder, in the knee. It is the secondwarning. Three times it may come, four times, but at last"--she laidher hand upon her breast--"it comes here, in the heart, and all isfinished."
She paused as if exhausted, closing her eyes again, whilst we threewho listened looked at one another in an awestricken silence, until thevibrant voice resumed:
"There is only one man in Europe who understands this thing, thisCreeping Sickness. He is a Frenchman who lives in Paris. To him Juan hadbeen, and he had told him, this clever man, 'If you are very quiet anddo not exert yourself, and only take as much exercise as is necessaryfor your general health, you have one year to live--'"
"My God!" groaned Harley.
"Yes, such was the verdict. And there is no cure. The poor sufferer mustwait and wait, always wait, for that sudden pang, not knowing if it willcome in his heart and be the finish. Yes. This living death, then, andrevenge, were the things ruling Juan's life at the time of which I tellyou. He had traced Ysola de Valera to England. A chance remark in aLondon hotel had told him that a Chinaman had been seen in a Surreyvillage and of course had caused much silly chatter. He enquired atonce, and he found out that Colin Camber, the man who had taken Ysolafrom him, was living with her at the Guest House, here, on the hill. Howshall I tell you the rest?"
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Harley, his glance set upon her, with asort of horror in his gray eyes, "I think I can guess."
She turned to him rapidly.
"M. Harley," she said, "you are a clever man. I believe you are agenius. And I have the strength to tell you because I am happy to-night.Because of his great wealth Juan succeeded in buying Cray's Folly fromSir James Appleton to whom it belonged. He told everybody he leased it,but really he bought it. He paid him more than twice its value, and soobtained possession.
"But the plan was not yet complete, although it had taken form inthat clever, wicked brain of his. Oh! I could tell you stories of theMenendez, and of the things they have done for love and revenge, whicheven you, who know much of life, would doubt, I think. Yes, you wouldnot believe. But to continue. Shall I tell you upon what terms he hadreturned to me, eh? I will. Once more he would suffer that pang of deathin life, for he had courage, ah! such great courage, and then, when thewaiting for the next grew more than even his fearless heart could bear,I, who also had courage, and who loved him, should----" She paused, "Doyou understand?"
Harley nodded dumbly, and suddenly I found Val Beverley's little fingerstwined about mine.
"I agreed," continued the deep voice. "It was a boon which I, too, wouldhave asked from one who loved me. But to die, knowing another cherishedthe woman who had been torn from him, was an impossibility forJuan Menendez. What he had schemed to do at first I never knew. Butpresently, because of our situation here, and because of that which hehad asked of me, it came, the great plan.
"On the night he told me, a night I shall never forget, I drew back inhorror from him--I, Marie de Staemer, who thought I knew the blackestthat was in him. I shrank. And because of that scene it came to himagain in the early morning--the moment of agony, the needle pain, here,low down in his left breast.
"He pleaded with me to do the wicked thing t
hat he had planned,and because I dared not refuse, knowing he might die at my feet, Iconsented. But, my friends, I had my own plan, too, of which he knewnothing. On the next day he went to Paris, and was told he had twomonths to live, with great, such great care, but perhaps only a week,a day, if he should permit his hot passions to inflame that threatenedheart. Very well.
"I said yes, yes, to all that he suggested, and he began to lay thetrail--the trail to lead to his enemy. It was his hobby, this vengeance.He was like a big, cruel boy. It was he, himself, Juan Menendez, whobroke into Cray's Folly. It was he who nailed the bat wing to the door.It was he who bought two rifles of a kind of which so many millions weremade during the war that anybody might possess one. And it was he whoconcealed the first of these, one cartridge discharged, under the floorof the hut in the garden of the Guest House. The other, which was to beused, he placed--"
"In the shutter-case of one of the tower rooms," continued Paul Harley."I know! I found it there to-night."
"What?" I asked, "you found it, Harley?"
"I returned to look for it," he said. "At the present moment it isupstairs in my room."
"Ah, M. Harley," exclaimed Madame, smiling at him radiantly, "I loveyour genius. Then it was," she continued, "that he thought himselfready, ready for revenge and ready for death. He summoned you, M.Harley, to be an expert witness. He placed with you evidence which couldnot fail to lead to the arrest of M. Camber. Very well. I allowed him todo all this. His courage, _mon Dieu_, how I worshipped his courage!
"At night, when everyone slept, and he could drop the mask, I have seenwhat he suffered. I have begged him, begged him upon my knees, to allowme to end it then and there; to forget his dream of revenge, to diewithout this last stain upon his soul. But he, expecting at any hour, atany minute, to know again the agony which cannot be described, which isunlike any other suffered by the flesh--refused, refused! And I"--sheraised her eyes ecstatically--"I have worshipped this courage of his,although it was evil--bad.
"The full moon gives the best light, and so he planned it for the nightof the full moon. But on the night before, because of some scene whichhe had with you, M. Harley, nearly I thought his plans would come tonothing. Nearly I thought the last act of love which he asked of mewould never be performed. He sat there, up in the little room which heliked best, the coldness upon him which always came before the pang,waiting, waiting, a deathly dew on his forehead, for the end; and I, Iwho loved him better than life, watched him. And, so Fate willed it, thepang never came."
"You watched him?" I whispered.
Harley turned to me slowly.
"Don't you understand, Knox?" he said, in a voice curiously unlike hisown.
"Ah, my friend," Madame de Staemer laid her hand upon my arm with thatcaressing gesture which I knew, "you do understand, don't you? The powerto use my limbs returned to me during the last week that I lived inNice."
She bent forward and raised her face, in an almost agonized appeal toVal Beverley.
"My dear, my dear," she said, "forgive me, forgive me! But I loved himso. One day, I think"--her glance sought my face--"you will know. Thenyou will forgive."
"Oh, Madame, Madame," whispered the girl, and began to sob silently.
"Is it enough?" asked Madame de Staemer, raising her head, and lookingdefiantly at Paul Harley. "Last night, you, M. Harley, who have genius,nearly brought it all to nothing. You passed the door in the shrubberyjust when Juan was preparing to go out. I was watching from the windowabove. Then, when you had gone, he came out--smoking his last cigarette.
"I went to my place, entering the tower room by the door from thatcorridor. I opened the window. It had been carefully oiled. It wassoundless. I was cold as one already dead, but love made me strong. Ihad seen him suffer. I took the rifle from its hiding-place, the heavyrifle which so few women could use. It was no heavier than some which Ihad used before, and to good purpose."
Again she paused, and I saw her lips trembling. Before my mind's eyethe picture arose which I had seen from Harley's window, the pictureof Colonel Juan Menendez walking in the moonlight along the path tothe sun-dial, with halting steps, with clenched fists, but upright as asoldier on parade. Walking on, dauntlessly, to his execution. Out of asort of haze, which seemed to obscure both sight and hearing, I heardMadame speaking again.
"He turned his head toward me. He threw me a kiss--and I fired. Did youthink a woman lived who could perform such a deed, eh? If you did notthink so, it is because you have never looked into the eyes of one wholoved with her body, her mind, and with her soul. I think, yes, I thinkI went mad. The rifle I remember I replaced. But I remember no more.Ah!"
She sighed in a resigned, weary way, untwining her arm from about ValBeverley, and falling back upon her pillows.
"It is all written here," she said; "every word of it, my friends, andsigned at the bottom. I am a murderess, but it was a merciful deed. Yousee, I had a plan of which Juan knew nothing. This was my plan." Shepointed to the heap of manuscript. "I would give him relief from hisagonies, yes. For although he was an evil man, I loved him better thanlife. I would let him die happy, thinking his revenge complete. Butothers to suffer? No, no! a thousand times no! Ah, I am so tired."
She took up the little medicine bottle, poured its contents into theglass, and emptied it at a draught.
Paul Harley, as though galvanized, sprang to his feet. "My God!" hecried, huskily, "Stop her, stop her!" Val Beverley, now desperatelywhite, clutched at me with quivering fingers, her agonized glance setupon the smiling face of Madame de Staemer.
"No fuss, dear friends," said Madame, gently, "no trouble, no nastystomach-pumps; for it is useless. I shall just fall asleep in a fewmoments now, and when I wake Juan will be with me."
Her face was radiant. It became lighted up magically. I knew in thatgrim hour what a beautiful woman Madame de Staemer must have been. Sherested her hand upon Val Beverley's head, and looked at me with herstrange, still eyes.
"Be good to her, my friend," she whispered. "She is English, but notcold like some. She, too, can love."
She closed her eyes and dropped back upon her pillows for the last time.
CHAPTER XXXV
AN AFTERWORD
This shall be a brief afterword, for I have little else to say. AsMadame had predicted, all antidotes and restoratives were of no avail.She had taken enough of some drug which she had evidently had in herpossession for this very purpose to ensure that there should be noawakening, and although Dr. Rolleston was on the spot within half anhour, Madame de Staemer was already past human aid.
There are perhaps one or two details which may be of interest. Forinstance, as a result of the post-mortem examination of ColonelMenendez, no trace of disease was discovered in any of the organs, butfrom information supplied by his solicitors, Harley succeeded in tracingthe Paris specialist to whom Madame de Staemer had referred; and heconfirmed her statement in every particular. The disease, to which hegave some name which I have forgotten, was untraceable, he declared, byany means thus far known to science.
As we had anticipated, the bulk of Colonel Don Juan's wealth he hadbequeathed to Madame de Staemer, and she in turn had provided that allof which she might die possessed should be divided between certaincharities and Val Beverley.
I thus found myself at the time when all these legal processesterminated engaged to marry a girl as wealthy as she was beautiful.Therefore, except for the many grim memories which it had left with me,nothing but personal good fortune resulted from my sojourn at Cray'sFolly, beneath the shadow of that Bat Wing which had had no existenceoutside the cunning imagination of Colonel Juan Menendez.
THE END
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