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Page 67
Later, as I sauntered toward the Tudor garden, where I had hoped to
encounter Miss Beverley, I heard the clicking of billiard balls; and
there was Harley at the table, practising fancy shots.
He glanced up at me as I paused by the open window, stopped to relight
his pipe, and then bent over the table again.
"Leave me alone, Knox," he muttered; "I am not fit for human society."
Understanding his moods as well as I did, I merely laughed and
withdrew.
I strolled around into the library and inspected scores of books
without forming any definite impression of the contents of any of them.
Manoel came in whilst I was there and I was strongly tempted to send a
message to Miss Beverley, but common sense overcame the inclination.
When at last my watch told me that the hour for dressing was arrived, I
heaved a sigh of relief. I cannot say that I was bored, my ill-temper
sprang from a deeper source than this. The mysterious disappearance of
the inmates of Cray's Folly, and a sort of brooding stillness which lay
over the great house, had utterly oppressed me.
As I passed along the terrace I paused to admire the spectacle afforded
by the setting sun. The horizon was on fire from north to south and the
countryside was stained with that mystic radiance which is sometimes
called the Blood of Apollo. Turning, I saw the disk of the moon coldly
rising in the heavens. I thought of the silent birds and the hovering
hawk, and I began my preparations for dinner mechanically, dressing as
an automaton might dress.
Paul Harley's personality was never more marked than in his evil moods.
His power to fascinate was only equalled by his power to repel. Thus,
although there was a light in his room and I could hear Lim moving
about, I did not join him when I had finished dressing, but lighting a
cigarette walked downstairs.
The beauty of the night called to me, although as I stepped out upon
the terrace I realized with a sort of shock that the gathering dusk
held a menace, so that I found myself questioning the shadows and
doubting the rustle of every leaf. Something invisible, intangible yet
potent, brooded over Cray's Folly. I began to think more kindly of the
disappearance of Val Beverley during the afternoon. Doubtless she, too,
had been touched by this spirit of unrest and in solitude had sought to
dispel it.
So thinking. I walked on in the direction of the Tudor garden. The
place was bathed in a sort of purple half-light, lending it a fairy air
of unreality, as though banished sun and rising moon yet disputed for
mastery over earth. This idea set me thinking of Colin Camber, of
Osiris, whom he had described as a black god, and of Isis, whose silver
disk now held undisputed sovereignty of the evening sky.
Resentment of the treatment which I had received at the Guest House
still burned hotly within me, but the mystery of it all had taken the
keen edge off my wrath, and I think a sort of melancholy was the
keynote of my reflections as, descending the steps to the sunken
garden, I saw Val Beverley, in a delicate blue gown, coming toward me.
She was the spirit of my dreams, and the embodiment of my mood. When
she lowered her eyes at my approach, I knew by virtue of a sort of
inspiration that she had been avoiding me.
"Miss Beverley," I said, "I have been looking for you all the
afternoon."
"Have you? I have been in my room writing letters."
I paced slowly along beside her.
"I wish you would be very frank with me," I said.
She glanced up swiftly, and as swiftly lowered her lashes again.
"Do you think I am not frank?"
"I do think so. I understand why."
"Do you really understand?"
"I think I do. Your woman's intuition has told you that there is
something wrong."
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