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Page 66
I sighed with relief, for Harley at these times imposed a severe strain
even upon my easy-going disposition.
"Let us go down to the billiard room," he continued. "I will play you a
hundred up. I have arrived at a point where my ideas persistently work
in circles. The best cure is golf; failing golf, billiards."
The billiard room was immediately beneath us, adjoining the last
apartment in the east wing, and there we made our way. Harley played
keenly, deliberately, concentrating upon the game. I was less
successful, for I found myself alternately glancing toward the door and
the open window, in the hope that Val Beverley would join us. I was
disappointed, however. We saw no more of the ladies until tea-time, and
if a spirit of constraint had prevailed throughout luncheon, a
veritable demon of unrest presided upon the terrace during tea.
Madame de St�mer made apologies on behalf of the Colonel. He was
prolonging his siesta, but he hoped to join us at dinner.
"Is the Colonel's heart affected?" Harley asked.
Madame de St�mer shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, blankly.
"It is mysterious, the state of his health," she replied. "An old
trouble, which began years and years ago in Cuba."
Harley nodded sympathetically, but I could see that he was not
satisfied. Yet, although he might doubt her explanation, he had noted,
and so had I, that Madame de St�mer's concern was very real. Her
slender hands were strangely unsteady; indeed her condition bordered on
one of distraction.
Harley concealed his thoughts, whatever they may have been, beneath
that mask of reserve which I knew so well, whilst I endeavoured in vain
to draw Val Beverley into conversation with me.
I gathered that Madame de St�mer had been to visit the invalid, and
that she was all anxiety to return was a fact she was wholly unable to
conceal. There was a tired look in her still eyes, as though she had
undertaken a task beyond her powers to perform, and, so unnatural a
quartette were we, that when presently she withdrew I was glad,
although she took Val Beverley with her.
Paul Harley resumed his seat, staring at me with unseeing eyes. A sound
reached us through the drawing room which told us that Madame de
St�mer's chair was being taken upstairs, a task always performed when
Madame desired to visit the upper floors by Manoel and Pedro's
daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame's maid. These sounds died away, and
I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still,
and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky
above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering
loftily overhead.
Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.
"Ah," he murmured, "a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests.
Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox."
CHAPTER XVI
RED EVE
Over the remainder of that afternoon I will pass in silence. Indeed,
looking backward now, I cannot recollect that it afforded one incident
worthy of record. But because great things overshadow small, so it may
be that whereas my recollections of quite trivial episodes are sharp
enough up to a point, my memories from this point onward to the
horrible and tragic happening which I have set myself to relate are
hazy and indistinct. I was troubled by the continued absence of Val
Beverley. I thought that she was avoiding me by design, and in Harley's
gloomy reticence I could find no shadow of comfort.
We wandered aimlessly about the grounds, Harley staring up in a vague
fashion at the windows of Cray's Folly; and presently, when I stopped
to inspect a very perfect rose bush, he left me without a word, and I
found myself alone.
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