CHAPTER XXVI. IN MADAME’S ROOM
Madame de Stämer’s apartment was a large and elegant one. From the window-drapings, which were of some light, figured satiny material, to the bed-cover, the lampshades and the carpet, it was French. Faintly perfumed, and decorated with many bowls of roses, it reflected, in its ornaments, its pictures, its slender-legged furniture, the personality of the occupant. In a large, high bed, reclining amidst a number of silken pillows, lay Madame de Stämer. The theme of the room was violet and silver, and to this everything conformed. The toilet service was of dull silver and violet enamel. The mirrors and some of the pictures had dull silver frames, There was nothing tawdry or glittering. The bed itself, which I thought resembled a bed of state, was of the same dull silver, with a coverlet of delicate violet I hue. But Madame’s décolleté robe was trimmed with white fur, so that her hair, dressed high upon her head, seemed to be of silver, too.
Reclining there upon her pillows, she looked like some grande dame of that France which was swept away by the Revolution. Immediately above the dressing-table I observed a large portrait of Colonel Menendez dressed as I had imagined he should be dressed when I had first set eyes on him, in tropical riding kit, and holding a broad-brimmed hat in his hand. A strikingly handsome, arrogant figure he made, uncannily like the Velasquez in the library.
At the face of Madame de Stämer I looked long and searchingly. She had not neglected the art of the toilette. Blinds tempered the sunlight which flooded her room; but that, failing the service of rouge, Madame had been pale this morning, I perceived immediately. In some subtle way the night had changed her. Something was gone out of her face, and something come into it. I thought, and lived to remember the thought, that it was thus Marie Antoinette might have looked when they told her how the drums had rolled in the Place de la Revolution on that morning of the twenty-first of January.
“Oh, M. Knox,” she said, sadly, “you are there, I see. Come and sit here beside me, my friend. Val, dear, remain. Is this Inspector Aylesbury who wishes to speak to me?”
The Inspector, who had entered with all the confidence in the world, seemed to lose some of it in the presence of this grand lady, who was so little impressed by the dignity of his office.
She waved one slender hand in the direction of a violet brocaded chair.
“Sit down, Monsieur l’inspecteur,” she commanded, for it was rather a command than an invitation.
Inspector Aylesbury cleared his throat and sat down.
“Ah, M. Knox!” exclaimed Madame, turning to me with one of her rapid movements, “is your friend afraid to face me, then? Does he think that he has failed? Does he think that I condemn him?”
“He knows that he has failed, Madame de Stämer,” I replied, “but his absence is due to the fact that at this hour he is hot upon the trail of the assassin.”
“What!” she exclaimed, “what!”—and bending forward touched my arm. “Tell me again! Tell me again!”
“He is following a clue, Madame de Stämer, which he hopes will lead to the truth.”
“Ah! if I could believe it would lead to the truth,” she said. “If I dared to believe this.”
“Why should it not?”
She shook her head, smiling with such a resigned sadness that I averted my gaze and glanced across at Val Beverley who was seated on the opposite side of the bed.
“If you knew—if you knew.”
I looked again into the tragic face, and realized that this was an older woman than the brilliant hostess I had known. She sighed, shrugged, and:
“Tell me, M. Knox,” she continued, “it was swift and merciful, eh?”
“Instantaneous,” I replied, in a low voice.
“A good shot?” she asked, strangely.
“A wonderful shot,” I answered, thinking that she imposed unnecessary torture upon herself.
“They say he must be taken away, M. Knox, but I reply: not until I have seen him.”
“Madame,” began Val Beverley, gently.
“Ah, my dear!” Madame de Stämer, without looking at the speaker, extended one hand in her direction, the fingers characteristically curled. “You do not know me. Perhaps it is a good job. You are a man, Mr. Knox, and men, especially men who write, know more of women than they know of themselves, is it not so? You will understand that I must see him again?”
“Madame de Stämer,” I said, “your courage is almost terrible.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I am not proud to be brave, my friend. The animals are brave, but many cowards are proud. Listen again. He suffered no pain, you think?”
“None, Madame de Stämer.”
“So Dr. Rolleston assures me. He died in his sleep? You do not think he was awake, eh?”
“Most certainly he was not awake.”
“It is the best way to die,” she said, simply. “Yet he, who was brave and had faced death many times, would have counted it”——she snapped her white fingers, glancing across the room to where Inspector Aylesbury, very subdued, sat upon the brocaded chair twirling his cap between his hands. “And now, Inspector Aylesbury,” she asked, “what is it you wish me to tell you?”
“Well, Madame,” began the Inspector, and stood up, evidently in an endeavour to recover his dignity, but:
“Sit down, Mr. Inspector! I beg of you be seated,” cried Madame. “I will not be questioned by one who stands. And if you were to walk about I should shriek.”
He resumed his seat, clearing his throat nervously.
“Very well, Madame,” he continued, “I have come to you particularly for information respecting a certain Mr. Camber.”
“Oh, yes,” said Madame.
Her vibrant voice was very low.
“You know him, no doubt?”
“I have never met him.”
“What?” exclaimed the Inspector.
Madame shrugged and glanced at me eloquently.
“Well,” he continued, “this gets more and more funny. I am told by Pedro, the butler, that Colonel Menendez looked upon Mr. Camber as an enemy, and Miss Beverley, here, admitted that it was true. Yet although he was an enemy, nobody ever seems to have spoken to him, and he swears that he had never spoken to Colonel Menendez.”
“Yes?” said Madame, listlessly, “is that so?”
“It is so, Madame, and now you tell me that you have never met him.”
“I did tell you so, yes.”
“His wife, then?”
“I never met his wife,” said Madame, rapidly.
“But it is a fact that Colonel Menendez regarded him as an enemy?”
“It is a fact-yes.”
“Ah, now we are coming to it. What was the cause of this?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Do you mean that you don’t know?”
“I mean that I cannot tell you.”
“Oh,” said the Inspector, blankly, “I see. That’s not helping me very much, is it?”
“No, it is no help,” said Madame, twirling a ring upon her finger.
The Inspector cleared his throat again, then:
“There had been other attempts, I believe, at assassination?” he asked.
Madame nodded.
“Several.”
“Did you witness any of these?”
“None of them.”
“But you know that they took place?”
“Juan—Colonel Menendez—had told me so.”
“And he suspected that there was someone lurking about this house?”
“Yes.”
“Also, someone broke in?”
“There were doors unfastened, and a great disturbance, so I suppose someone must have done so.”
I wondered if he would refer to the bat wing nailed to the door, but he had evidently decided that this clue was without importance, nor did he once refer to the aspect of the case which concerned Voodoo. He possessed a sort of mulish obstinacy, and was evidently determined to use no scrap of information which he had obtained from Paul Harley.
“Now, Madame,” said he, “you heard the shot fired last night?”
“I did.”
“It woke you up?”
“I was already awake.”
“Oh, I see: you were awake?”
“I was awake.”
“Where did you think the sound came from?”
“From back yonder, beyond the east wing.”
“Beyond the east wing?” muttered Inspector Aylesbury. “Now, let me see.” He turned ponderously in his chair, gazing out of the windows. “We look out on the south here? You say the sound of the shot came from the east?”
“So it seemed to me.”
“Oh.” This piece of information seemed badly to puzzle him. “And what then?”
“I was so startled that I ran to the door before I remembered that I could not walk.”
She glanced aside at me with a tired smile, and laid her hand upon my arm in an oddly caressing way, as if to say, “He is so stupid; I should not have expressed myself in that way.”
Truly enough the Inspector misunderstood, for:
“I don’t follow what you mean, Madame,” he declared. “You say you forgot that you could not walk?”
“No, no, I expressed myself wrongly,” Madame replied in a weary voice. “The fright, the terror, gave me strength to stagger to the door, and there I fell and swooned.”
“Oh, I see. You speak of fright and terror. Were these caused by the sound of the shot?”
“For some reason my cousin believed himself to be in peril,” explained Madame. “He went in dread of assassination, you understand? Very well, he caused me to feel this dread, also. When I heard the shot, something told me, something told me that—” she paused, and suddenly placing her hands before her face, added in a whisper—“that it had come.”
Val Beverley was watching Madame de Stämer anxiously, and the fact that she was unfit to undergo further examination was so obvious that any other than an Inspector Aylesbury would have withdrawn. The latter, however, seemed now to be glued to his chair, and:
“Oh, I see,” he said; “and now there’s another point: Have you any idea what took Colonel Menendez out into the grounds last night?”
Madame de Stämer lowered her hands and gazed across at the speaker.
“What is that, Monsieur l’inspecteur?”
“Well, you don’t think he might have gone out to talk to someone?”
“To someone? To what one?” demanded Madame, scornfully.
“Well, it isn’t natural for a man to go walking about the garden at midnight, when he’s unwell, is it? Not alone. But if there was a lady in the case he might go.”
“A lady?” said Madame, softly. “Yes—continue.”
“Well,” resumed the Inspector, deceived by the soft voice, “the young lady sitting beside you was still wearing her evening dress when I arrived here last night. I found that out, although she didn’t give me a chance to see her.”
His words had an effect more dramatic than he could have foreseen.
Madame de Stämer threw her arm around Val Beverley, and hugged her so closely to her side that the girl’s curly brown head was pressed against Madame’s shoulder. Thus holding her, she sat rigidly upright, her strange, still eyes glaring across the room at Inspector Aylesbury. Her whole pose was instinct with challenge, with defiance, and in that moment I identified the illusive memory which the eyes of Madame so often had conjured up in my mind.
Once, years before, I had seen a wounded tigress standing over her cubs, a beautiful, fearless creature, blazing defiance with dying eyes upon those who had destroyed her, the mother-instinct supreme to the last; for as she fell to rise no more she had thrown her paw around the cowering cubs. It was not in shape, nor in colour, but in expression and in their stillness, that the eyes of Madame de Stämer resembled the eyes of the tigress.
“Oh, Madame, Madame,” moaned the girl, “how dare he!”
“Ah!” Madame de Stämer raised her head yet higher, a royal gesture, that unmoving stare set upon the face of the discomfited Inspector Aylesbury. “Leave my apartment.” Her left hand shot out dramatically in the direction of the door, but even yet the fingers remained curled. “Stupid, gross fool!”
Inspector Aylesbury stood up, his face very flushed.
“I am only doing my duty, Madame,” he said.
“Go, go!” commanded Madame, “I insist that you go!”
Convulsively she held Val Beverley to her side, and although I could not see the girl’s face, I knew that she was weeping.
Those implacable flaming eyes followed with their stare the figure of the Inspector right to the doorway, for he essayed no further speech, but retired.
I, also, rose, and:
“Madame de Stämer,” I said, speaking, I fear, very unnaturally, “I love your spirit.”
She threw back her head, smiling up at me. I shall never forget that look, nor shall I attempt to portray all which it conveyed—for I know I should fail.
“My friend!” she said, and extended her hand to be kissed.
CHAPTER XXVII. AN INSPIRATION
Inspector Aylesbury had disappeared when I came out of the hall, but Pedro was standing there to remind me of the fact that I had not breakfasted. I realized that despite all tragic happenings, I was ravenously hungry, and accordingly I agreed to his proposal that I should take breakfast on the south veranda, as on the previous morning.
To the south veranda accordingly I made my way, rather despising myself because I was capable of hunger at such a time and amidst such horrors. The daily papers were on my table, for Carter drove into Market Hilton every morning to meet the London train which brought them down; but I did not open any of them.
Pedro waited upon me in person. I could see that the man was pathetically anxious to talk. Accordingly, when he presently brought me a fresh supply of hot rolls:
“This has been a dreadful blow to you, Pedro?” I said.
“Dreadful, sir,” he returned; “fearful. I lose a splendid master, I lose my place, and I am far, far from home.”
“You are from Cuba?”
“Yes, yes. I was with Señor the Colonel Don Juan in Cuba.”
“And do you know anything of the previous attempts which had been made upon his life, Pedro?”
“Nothing, sir. Nothing at all.”
“But the bat wing, Pedro?”
He looked at me in a startled way.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I found it pinned to the door here.”
“And what did you think it meant?”
“I thought it was a joke, sir—not a nice joke—by someone who knew Cuba.”
“You know the meaning of Bat Wing, then?”
“It is Obeah. I have never seen it before, but I have heard of it.”
“And what did you think?” said I, proceeding with my breakfast.
“I thought it was meant to frighten.”
“But who did you think had done it?”
“I had heard Señor Don Juan say that Mr. Camber hated him, so I thought perhaps he had sent someone to do it.”
“But why should Mr. Camber have hated the Colonel?”
“I cannot say, sir. I wish I could tell.”
“Was your master popular in the West Indies?” I asked.
“Well, sir—” Pedro hesitated—“perhaps not so well liked.”
“No,” I said. “I had gathered as much.”
The man withdrew, and I continued my solitary meal, listening to the song of the skylarks, and thinking how complex was human existence, compared with any other form of life beneath the sun.
How to employ my time until Harley should return I knew not. Common delicacy dictated an avoidance of Val Beverley until she should have recovered from the effect of Inspector Aylesbury’s gross insinuations, and I was curiously disinclined to become involved in the gloomy formalities which ensue upon a crime of violence. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to remain within call, realizing that there might be unpleasant duties which Pedro could not perform, and which must therefore devolve upon Val Beverley.
I lighted my pipe and walked out on to the sloping lawn. A gardener was at work with a big syringe, destroying a patch of weeds which had appeared in one corner of the velvet turf. He looked up in a sort of startled way as I passed, bidding me good morning, and then resuming his task. I thought that this man’s activities were symbolic of the way of the world, in whose eternal progression one poor human life counts as nothing.
Presently I came in sight of that door which opened into the rhododendron shrubbery, the door by which Colonel Menendez had come out to meet his death. His bedroom was directly above, and as I picked my way through the closely growing bushes, which at an earlier time I had thought to be impassable, I paused in the very shadow of the tower and glanced back and upward. I could see the windows of the little smoke-room in which we had held our last interview with Menendez; and I thought of the shadow which Harley had seen upon the blind. I was unable to disguise from myself the fact that when Inspector Aylesbury should learn of this occurrence, as presently he must do, it would give new vigour to his ridiculous and unpleasant suspicions.
I passed on, and considering the matter impartially, found myself faced by the questions—Whose was the shadow which Harley had seen upon the blind? And with what purpose did Colonel Menendez leave the house at midnight?
Somnambulism might solve the second riddle, but to the first I could find no answer acceptable to my reason. And now, pursuing my aimless way, I presently came in sight of a gable of the Guest House. I could obtain a glimpse of the hut which had once been Colin Camber’s workroom. The window, through which Paul Harley had stared so intently, possessed sliding panes. These were closed, and a ray of sunlight, striking upon the glass, produced, because of an over-leaning branch which crossed the top of the window, an effect like that of a giant eye glittering evilly through the trees. I could see a constable moving about in the garden. Ever and anon the sun shone upon the buttons of his tunic.
By such steps my thoughts led me on to the pathetic figure of Ysola Camber. Save for the faithful Ah Tsong she was alone in that house to which tragedy had come unbidden, unforeseen. I doubted if she had a woman friend in all the countryside. Doubtless, I reflected, the old housekeeper, to whom she had referred, would return as speedily as possible, but pending the arrival of someone to whom she could confide all her sorrows, I found it almost impossible to contemplate the loneliness of the tragic little figure.
Such was my mental state, and my thoughts were all of compassion, when suddenly, like a lurid light, an inspiration came to me.
I had passed out from the shadow of the tower and was walking in the direction of the sentinel yews when this idea, dreadfully complete, leapt to my mind. I pulled up short, as though hindered by a palpable barrier. Vague musings, evanescent theories, vanished like smoke, and a ghastly, consistent theory of the crime unrolled itself before me, with all the cold logic of truth.
“My God!” I groaned aloud, “I see it all. I see it all.”
CHAPTER XXVIII. MY THEORY OF THE CRIME
The afternoon was well advanced before Paul Harley returned.
So deep was my conviction that I had hit upon the truth, and so well did my theory stand every test which I could apply to it, that I felt disinclined for conversation with any one concerned in the tragedy until I should have submitted the matter to the keen analysis of Harley. Upon the sorrow of Madame de Stämer I naturally did not intrude, nor did I seek to learn if she had carried out her project of looking upon the dead man.
About mid-day the body was removed, after which an oppressive and awesome stillness seemed to descend upon Cray’s Folly.
Inspector Aylesbury had not returned from his investigations at the Guest House, and learning that Miss Beverley was remaining with Madame de Stämer, I declined to face the ordeal of a solitary luncheon in the dining room, and merely ate a few sandwiches, walking over to the Lavender Arms for a glass of Mrs. Wootton’s excellent ale.
Here I found the bar-parlour full of local customers, and although a heated discussion was in progress as I opened the door, silence fell upon my appearance. Mrs. Wootton greeted me sadly.
“Ah, sir,” she said, as she placed a mug before me; “of course you’ve heard?”
“I have, madam,” I replied, perceiving that she did not know me to be a guest at Cray’s Folly.
“Well, well!” She shook her head. “It had to come, with all these foreign folk about.”
She retired to some sanctum at the rear of the bar, and I drank my beer amid one of those silences which sometimes descend upon such a gathering when a stranger appears in its midst. Not until I moved to depart was this silence broken, then:
“Ah, well,” said an old fellow, evidently a farm-hand, “we know now why he was priming of hisself with the drink, we do.”
“Aye!” came a growling chorus.
I came out of the Lavender Arms full of a knowledge that so far as Mid-Hatton was concerned, Colin Camber was already found guilty.
I had hoped to see something of Val Beverley on my return, but she remained closeted with Madame de Stämer, and I was left in loneliness to pursue my own reflections, and to perfect that theory which had presented itself to my mind.
In Harley’s absence I had taken it upon myself to give an order to Pedro to the effect that no reporters were to be admitted; and in this I had done well. So quickly does evil news fly that, between mid-day and the hour of Harley’s return, no fewer than five reporters, I believe, presented themselves at Cray’s Folly. Some of the more persistent continued to haunt the neighbourhood, and I had withdrawn to the deserted library, in order to avoid observation, when I heard a car draw up in the courtyard, and a moment later heard Harley asking for me.
I hurried out to meet him, and as I appeared at the door of the library:
“Hullo, Knox,” he called, running up the steps. “Any developments?”
“No actual development?” I replied, “except that several members of the Press have been here.”
“You told them nothing?” he asked, eagerly.
“No; they were not admitted.”
“Good, good,” he muttered.
“I had expected you long before this, Harley.”
“Naturally,” he said, with a sort of irritation. “I have been all the way to Whitehall and back.”
“To Whitehall! What, you have been to London?”
“I had half anticipated it, Knox. The Chief Constable, although quite a decent fellow, is a stickler for routine. On the strength of those facts which I thought fit to place before him he could see no reason for superseding Aylesbury. Accordingly, without further waste of time, I headed straight for Whitehall. You may remember a somewhat elaborate report which I completed upon the eve of our departure from Chancery Lane?”
I nodded.
“A very thankless job for the Home Office, Knox. But I received my reward to-day. Inspector Wessex has been placed in charge of the case and I hope he will be down here within the hour. Pending his arrival I am tied hand and foot.”
We had walked into the library, and, stopping, suddenly, Harley stared me very hard in the face.
“You are bottling something up, Knox,” he declared. “Out with it. Has Aylesbury distinguished himself again?”
“No,” I replied; “on the contrary. He interviewed Madame de Stämer, and came out with a flea in his ear.”
“Good,” said Harley, smiling. “A clever woman, and a woman of spirit, Knox.”
“You are right,” I replied, “and you are also right in supposing that I have a communication to make to you.”
“Ah, I thought so. What is it?”
“It is a theory, Harley, which appears to me to cover the facts of the case.”
“Indeed?” said he, continuing to stare at me. “And what inspired it?”
“I was staring up at the window of the smoke-room to-day, and I remembered the shadow which you had seen upon the blind.”
“Yes?” he cried, eagerly; “and does your theory explain that, too?”
“It does, Harley.”
“Then I am all anxiety to hear it.”
“Very well, then, I will endeavour to be brief. Do you recollect Miss Beverley’s story of the unfamiliar footsteps which passed her door on several occasions?”
“Perfectly.”
“You recollect that you, yourself, heard someone crossing the hall, and that both of us heard a door close?”
“We did.”
“And finally you saw the shadow of a woman upon the blind of the Colonel’s private study. Very well. Excluding the preposterous theory of Inspector Aylesbury, there is no woman in Cray’s Folly whose footsteps could possibly have been heard in that corridor, and whose shadow could possibly have been seen upon the blind of Colonel Menendez’s room.”
“I agree,” said Harley, quietly. “I have definitely eliminated all the servants from the case. Therefore, proceed, Knox, I am all attention.”
“I will do so. There is a door on the south side of the house, close to the tower and opening into the rhododendron shrubbery. This was the door used by Colonel Menendez in his somnambulistic rambles, according to his own account. Now, assuming his statement to have been untrue in one particular, that is, assuming he was not walking in his sleep, but was fully awake—”
“Eh?” exclaimed Harley, his expression undergoing a subtle change. “Do you think his statement was untrue?”
“According to my theory, Harley, his statement was untrue, in this particular, at least. But to proceed: Might he not have employed this door to admit a nocturnal visitor?”
“It is feasible,” muttered Harley, watching me closely.
“For the Colonel to descend to this side door when the household was sleeping,” I continued, “and to admit a woman secretly to Cray’s Folly, would have been a simple matter. Indeed, on the occasions of these visits he might even have unbolted the door himself after Pedro had bolted it, in order to enable her to enter without his descending for the purpose of admitting her.”
“By heavens! Knox,” said Harley, “I believe you have it!”
His eyes were gleaming excitedly, and I proceeded:
“Hence the footsteps which passed Miss Beverley’s door, hence the shadow which you saw upon the blind; and the sounds which you detected in the hall were caused, of course, by this woman retiring. It was the door leading into the shrubbery which we heard being closed!”
“Continue,” said Harley; “although I can plainly see to what this is leading.”
“You can see, Harley?” I cried; “of course you can see! The enmity between Camber and Menendez is understandable at last.”
“You mean that Menendez was Mrs. Camber’s lover?”
“Don’t you agree with me?”
“It is feasible, Knox, dreadfully feasible. But go on.”
“My theory also explains Colin Camber’s lapse from sobriety. It is legitimate to suppose that his wife, who was a Cuban, had been intimate with Menendez before her meeting with Camber. Perhaps she had broken the tie at the time of her marriage, but this is mere supposition. Then, her old lover, his infatuation by no means abated, leases the property adjoining that of his successful rival.”
“Knox!” exclaimed Paul Harley, “this is brilliant. I am all impatience for the dénouement.”
“It is coming,” I said, triumphantly. “Relations are reëstablished, clandestinely. Colin Camber learns of these. A passionate quarrel ensues, resulting in a long drinking bout designed to drown his sorrows. His love for his wife is so great that he has forgiven her this infidelity. Accordingly, she has promised to see her lover no more. Hers was the figure which you saw outlined upon the blind on the night before the tragedy, Harley! The gestures, which you described as those of despair, furnish evidence to confirm my theory. It was a final meeting!”
“Hm,” muttered Harley. “It would be taking big chances, because we have to suppose, Knox, that these visits to Cray’s Folly were made whilst her husband was at work in the study. If he had suddenly decided to turn in, all would have been discovered.”
“True,” I agreed, “but is it impossible?”
“No, not a bit. Women are dreadful gamblers. But continue, Knox.”
“Very well. Colonel Menendez has refused to accept his dismissal, and Mrs. Camber had been compelled to promise, without necessarily intending to carry out the promise, that she would see him again on the following night. She failed to come; whereupon he, growing impatient, walked out into the grounds of Cray’s Folly to look for her. She may even have intended to come and have been intercepted by her husband. But in any event, the latter, seeing the man who had wronged him, standing out there in the moonlight, found temptation to be too strong. On the whole, I favour the idea that he had intercepted his wife, and snatching up a rifle, had actually gone out into the garden with the intention of shooting Menendez.”
“I see,” murmured Harley in a low voice. “This hypothesis, Knox, does not embrace the Bat Wing episodes.”
“If Menendez has lied upon one point,” I returned, “it is permissible to suppose that his entire story was merely a tissue of falsehood.”
“I see. But why did he bring me to Cray’s Folly?”
“Don’t you understand, Harley?” I cried, excitedly. “He really feared for his life, since he knew that Camber had discovered the intrigue.”
Paul Harley heaved a long sigh.
“I must congratulate you, Knox,” he said, gravely, “upon a really splendid contribution to my case. In several particulars I find myself nearer to the truth. But the definite establishment or shattering of your theory rests upon one thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked. “You are surely not thinking of the bat wing nailed upon the door?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I am thinking of the seventh yew tree from the northeast corner of the Tudor garden.”
CHAPTER XXIX. A LEE-ENFIELD RIFLE
What reply I should have offered to this astonishing remark I cannot say, but at that moment the library door burst open unceremoniously, and outlined against the warmly illuminated hall, where sunlight poured down through the dome, I beheld the figure of Inspector Aylesbury.
“Ah!” he cried, loudly, “so you have come back, Mr. Harley? I thought you had thrown up the case.”
“Did you?” said Harley, smilingly. “No, I am still persevering in my ineffectual way.”
“Oh, I see. And have you quite convinced yourself that Colin Camber is innocent?”
“In one or two particulars my evidence remains incomplete.”
“Oh, in one or two particulars, eh? But generally speaking you don’t doubt his innocence?”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment.”
Harley’s words surprised me. I recognized, of course, that he might merely be bluffing the Inspector, but it was totally alien to his character to score a rhetorical success at the expense of what he knew to be the truth; and so sure was I of the accuracy of my deductions that I no longer doubted Colin Camber to be the guilty man.
“At any rate,” continued the Inspector, “he is in detention, and likely to remain there. If you are going to defend him at the Assizes, I don’t envy you your job, Mr. Harley.”
He was blatantly triumphant, so that the fact was evident enough that he had obtained some further piece of evidence which he regarded as conclusive.
“I have detained the man Ah Tsong as well,” he went on. “He was an accomplice of your innocent friend, Mr. Harley.”
“Was he really?” murmured Harley.
“Finally,” continued the Inspector, “I have only to satisfy myself regarding the person who lured Colonel Menendez out into the grounds last night, to have my case complete.”
I turned aside, unable to trust myself, but Harley remarked quite coolly:
“Your industry is admirable, Inspector Aylesbury, but I seem to perceive that you have made a very important discovery of some kind.”
“Ah, you have got wind of it, have you?”
“I have no information on the point,” replied Harley, “but your manner urges me to suggest that perhaps success has crowned your efforts?”
“It has,” replied the Inspector. “I am a man that doesn’t do things by halves. I didn’t content myself with just staring out of the window of that little hut in the grounds of the Guest House, like you did, Mr. Harley, and saying ‘twice one are two’—I looked at every book on the shelves, and at every page of those books.”
“You must have materially added to your information?”
“Ah, very likely, but my enquiries didn’t stop there. I had the floor up.”
“The floor of the hut?”
“The floor of the hut, sir. The planks were quite loose. I had satisfied myself that it was a likely hiding place.”
“What did you find there, a dead rat?”
Inspector Aylesbury turned, and:
“Sergeant Butler,” he called.
The sergeant came forward from the hall, carrying a cricket bag. This Inspector Aylesbury took from him, placing it upon the floor of the library at his feet.
“New, sir,” said he, “I borrowed this bag in which to bring the evidence away—the hanging evidence which I discovered beneath the floor of the hut.”
I had turned again, when the man had referred to his discovery; and now, glancing at Harley, I saw that his face had grown suddenly very stern.
“Show me your evidence, Inspector?” he asked, shortly.
“There can be no objection,” returned the Inspector.
Opening the bag, he took out a rifle!
Paul Harley’s hands were thrust in his coat pockets, By the movement of the cloth I could see that he had clenched his fists. Here was confirmation of my theory!
“A Service rifle,” said the Inspector, triumphantly, holding up the weapon. “A Lee-Enfield charger-loader. It contains four cartridges, three undischarged, and one discharged. He had not even troubled to eject it.”
The Inspector dropped the weapon into the bag with a dramatic movement.
“Fancy theories about bat wings and Voodoos,” he said, scornfully, “may satisfy you, Mr. Harley, but I think this rifle will prove more satisfactory to the Coroner.”
He picked up the bag and walked out of the library.
Harley stood posed in a curiously rigid way, looking after him. Even when the door had closed he did not change his position at once. Then, turning slowly, he walked to an armchair and sat down.
“Harley,” I said, hesitatingly, “has this discovery surprised you?”
“Surprised me?” he returned in a low voice. “It has appalled me.”
“Then, although you seemed to regard my theory as sound,” I continued rather resentfully, “all the time you continued to believe Colin Camber to be innocent?”
“I believe so still.”
“What?”
“I thought we had determined, Knox,” he said, wearily, “that a man of Camber’s genius, having decided upon murder, must have arranged for an unassailable alibi. Very well. Are we now to leap to the other end of the scale, and to credit him with such utter stupidity as to place hanging evidence where it could not fail to be discovered by the most idiotic policeman? Preserve your balance, Knox. Theories are wild horses. They run away with us. I know that of old, for which very reason I always avoid speculation until I have a solid foundation of fact upon which to erect it.”
“But, my dear fellow,” I cried, “was Camber to foresee that the floor of the hut would be taken up?”
Harley sighed, and leaned back in his chair.
“Do you recollect your first meeting with this man, Knox?”
“Perfectly.”
“What occurred?”
“He was slightly drunk.”
“Yes, but what was the nature of his conversation?”
“He suggested that I had recognized his resemblance to Edgar Allan Poe.”
“Quite. What had led him to make this suggestion?”
“The manner in which I had looked at him, I suppose.”
“Exactly. Although not quite sober, from a mere glance he was able to detect what you were thinking. Do you wish me to believe, Knox, that this same man had not foreseen what the police would think when Colonel Menendez was found shot within a hundred yards of the garden of the Guest House?”
I was somewhat taken aback, for Harley’s argument was strictly logical, and:
“It is certainly very puzzling,” I admitted.
“Puzzling!” he exclaimed; “it is maddening. This case is like a Syrian village-mound. Stratum lies under stratum, and in each we meet with evidence of more refined activity than in the last. It seems we have yet to go deeper.”
He took out his pipe and began to fill it.
“Tell me about the interview with Madame de Stämer,” he directed.
I took a seat facing him, and he did not once interrupt me throughout my account of Inspector Aylesbury’s examination of Madame.
“Good,” he commented, when I had told how the Inspector was dismissed. “But at least, Knox, he has a working theory, to which he sticks like an express to the main line, whereas I find myself constantly called upon to readjust my perspective. Directly I can enjoy freedom of movement, however, I shall know whether my hypothesis is a house of cards or a serviceable structure.”
“Your hypothesis?” I said. “Then you really have a theory which is entirely different from mine?”
“Not entirely different, Knox, merely not so comprehensive. I have contented myself thus far with a negative theory, if I may so express it.”
“Negative theory?”
“Exactly. We are dealing, my dear fellow, with a case of bewildering intricacies. For the moment I have focussed upon one feature only.”
“What is that?”
“Upon proving that Colin Camber did not do the murder.”
“Did not do it?”
“Precisely, Knox. Respecting the person or persons who did do it, I had preserved a moderately open mind, up to the moment that Inspector Aylesbury entered the library with the Lee-Enfield.”
“And then?” I said, eagerly.
“Then,” he replied, “I began to think hard. However, since I practise what I preach, or endeavour to do so, I must not permit myself to speculate upon this aspect of the matter until I have tested my theory of Camber’s innocence.”
“In other words,” I said, bitterly, “although you encouraged me to unfold my ideas regarding Mrs. Camber, you were merely laughing at me all the time!”
“My dear Knox!” exclaimed Harley, jumping up impulsively, “please don’t be unjust. Is it like me? On the contrary, Knox”—he looked me squarely in the eyes—“you have given me a platform on which already I have begun to erect one corner of a theory of the crime. Without new facts I can go no further. But this much at least you have done.”
“Thanks, Harley,” I murmured, and indeed I was gratified; “but where do your other corners rest?”
“They rest,” he said, slowly, “they rest, respectively, upon a bat wing, a yew tree, and a Lee-Enfield charger-loader.”