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Page 50
"No, no," he replied; "I have seen all the tower rooms. I can swear
that no one inhabits them. Besides, is it feasible?"
"Then whose were the footsteps that Miss Beverley heard?"
"Obviously those of the woman who, at this present moment, so far as I
know, is in the smoking-room with Colonel Menendez."
I sighed wearily.
"This is a strange business, Harley. I begin to think that the mystery
is darker than I ever supposed."
We fell silent again. The weird cry of a night hawk came from somewhere
in the valley, but otherwise everything within and without the great
house seemed strangely still. This stillness presently imposed its
influence upon me, for when I spoke again, I spoke in a low voice.
"Harley," I said, "my imagination is playing me tricks. I thought I
heard the fluttering of wings at that moment."
"Fortunately, my imagination remains under control," he replied,
grimly; "therefore I am in a position to inform you that you did hear
the fluttering of wings. An owl has just flown into one of the trees
immediately outside the window."
"Oh," said I, and uttered a sigh of relief.
"It is extremely fortunate that my imagination is so carefully
trained," continued Harley; "otherwise, when the woman whose shadow I
saw upon the blind to-night raised her arms in a peculiar fashion, I
could not well have failed to attach undue importance to the shape of
the shadow thus created."
"What was the shape of the shadow, then?"
"Remarkably like that of a bat."
He spoke the words quietly, but in that still darkness, with dawn yet a
long way off, they possessed the power which belongs to certain chords
in music, and to certain lines in poetry. I was chilled unaccountably,
and I peopled the empty corridors of Cray's Folly with I know not what
uncanny creatures; nightmare fancies conjured up from memories of
haunted manors.
Such was my mood, then, when suddenly Paul Harley stood up. My eyes
were growing more and more used to the darkness, and from something
strained in his attitude I detected the fact that he was listening
intently.
He placed his cigarette on the table beside the bed and quietly crossed
the room. I knew from his silent tread that he wore shoes with rubber
soles. Very quietly he turned the handle and opened the door.
"What is it, Harley?" I whispered.
Dimly I saw him raise his hand. Inch by inch he opened the door. My
nerves in a state of tension, I sat there watching him, when without a
sound he slipped out of the room and was gone. Thereupon I arose and
followed as far as the doorway.
Harley was standing immediately outside in the corridor. Seeing me, he
stepped back, and: "Don't move, Knox," he said, speaking very close to
my ear. "There is someone downstairs in the hall. Wait for me here."
With that he moved stealthily off, and I stood there, my heart beating
with unusual rapidity, listening--listening for a challenge, a cry, a
scuffle--I knew not what to expect.
Cavernous and dimly lighted, the corridor stretched away to my left. On
the right it branched sharply in the direction of the gallery
overlooking the hall.
The seconds passed, but no sound rewarded my alert listening--until,
very faintly, but echoing in a muffled, church-like fashion around that
peculiar building, came a slight, almost sibilant sound, which I took
to be the gentle closing of a distant door.
Whilst I was still wondering if I had really heard this sound or merely
imagined it:
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