High Priest of Voodoo, who figured in the Colonel’s narrative, was characteristic in the case of the native woman, since her symptoms at least simulated those which would result from the visits of a Vampire Bat, although of course they may have been due to a slow poison. But you will not have failed to note that the several attacks upon the Colonel personally were made with more ordinary weapons. On two occasions at least a rifle was employed.”
“Yes,” I replied, slowly. “You are wondering why the lingering sickness did not visit him?”
“I am, Knox. I can only suppose that he proved to be immune. You recall his statement that he made an almost miraculous recovery from the fever which attacked him after his visit to the Black Belt? This would seem to point to the fact that he possesses that rare type of constitution which almost defies organisms deadly to ordinary men.”
“I see. Hence the dagger and the rifle?”
“So it would appear.”
“But, Harley,” I cried, “what appalling crime can the man have committed to call down upon his head a vengeance which has survived for so many years?”
Paul Harley shrugged his shoulders in a whimsical imitation of the Spaniard.
“I doubt if the feud dates any earlier,” he replied, “than the time of Menendez’s last return to Cuba. On that occasion he evidently killed the High Priest of Voodoo.”
I uttered an exclamation of scorn.
“My dear Harley,” I said, “the whole thing is too utterly fantastic. I begin to believe again that we are dealing with a madman.”
Harley glanced down at the wing of the bat.
“We shall see,” he murmured. “Even if the only result of our visit is to make the acquaintance of the Colonel’s household our time will not have been wasted.”
“No,” said I, “that is true enough. I am looking forward to meeting Madame de Stamer— ”
“The Colonel’s invalid cousin,” added Harley, tonelessly.
“And her companion, Miss Beverley.”
“Quite so. Nor must we forget the Spanish butler, and the Colonel himself, whose acquaintance I am extremely anxious to renew.”
“The whole thing is wildly bizarre, Harley.”
“My dear Knox,” he replied, stretching himself luxuriously in the long lounge chair, “the most commonplace life hovers on the edge of the bizarre. But those of us who overstep the border become preposterous in the eyes of those who have never done so. This is not because the unusual is necessarily the untrue, but because writers of fiction have claimed the unusual as their particular province, and in doing so have divorced it from fact in the public eye. Thus I, myself, am a myth, and so are you, Knox!”
He raised his hand and pointed to the doorway communicating with the office.
“We owe our mythological existence to that American genius whose portrait hangs beside the Burmese cabinet and who indiscreetly created the character of C. Auguste Dupin. The doings of this amateur investigator were chronicled by an admirer, you may remember, since when no private detective has been allowed to exist outside the pages of fiction. My most trivial habits confirm my unreality.
“For instance, I have a friend who is good enough sometimes to record my movements. So had Dupin. I smoke a pipe. So did Dupin. I investigate crime, and I am sometimes successful. Here I differ from Dupin. Dupin was always successful. But my argument is this— you complain that the life of Colonel Don Juan Sarmiento Menendez, on his own showing, has been at least as romantic as his name. It would not be accounted romantic by the adventurous, Knox; it is only romantic to the prosaic mind. In the same way his name is only unusual to our English ears. In Spain it would pass unnoticed.”
“I see your point,” I said, grudgingly; “but think of I Voodoo in the Surrey Hills.”
“I am thinking of it, Knox, and it affords me much delight to think of it. You have placed your finger I upon the very point I was endeavouring to make. Voodoo in the Surrey Hills! Quite so. Voodoo in some island of the Caribbean Seas, yes, but Voodoo in the Surrey Hills, no. Yet, my dear fellow, there is a regular steamer service between South America and England. Or one may embark at Liverpool and disembark in the Spanish Main. Why, then, may not one embark in the West Indies and disembark at Liverpool? This granted, you will also grant that from Liverpool to Surrey is a feasible journey. Why, then, should you exclaim, ‘but Voodoo in the Surrey Hills!’ You would be surprised to meet an Esquimaux in the Strand, but there is no reason why an Esquimaux should not visit the Strand. In short, the most annoying thing about fact is its resemblance to fiction. I am looking forward to the day, Knox, when I can retire from my present fictitious profession and become a recognized member of the community; such as a press agent, a theatrical manager, or some other dealer in Fact!”
He burst out laughing, and reaching over to a side-table refilled my glass and his own.
“There lies the wing of a Vampire Bat,” he said, pointing, “in Chancery Lane. It is impossible. Yet,” he raised his glass, “‘Pussyfoot’ Johnson has visited Scotland, the home of Whisky!”
We were silent for a while, whilst I considered his remarks.
“The conclusion to which I have come,” declared Harley, “is that nothing is so strange as the commonplace. A rod and line, a boat, a luncheon hamper, a jar of good ale, and the peculiar peace of a Norfolk river— these joys I willingly curtail in favour of the unknown things which await us at Cray’s Folly. Remember, Knox,” he stared at me queerly, “Wednesday is the night of the full moon.”
Chapter 4 CRAY’S FOLLY
Paul Harley lay back upon the cushions and glanced at me with a quizzical smile. The big, up-to-date car which Colonel Menendez had placed at our disposal was surmounting a steep Surrey lane as though no gradient had existed.
“Some engine!” he said, approvingly.
I nodded in agreement, but felt disinclined for conversation, being absorbed in watching the characteristically English scenery. This, indeed, was very beautiful. The lane along which we were speeding was narrow, winding, and over-arched by trees. Here and there sunlight penetrated to spread a golden carpet before us, but for the most part the way lay in cool and grateful shadow.
On one side a wooded slope hemmed us in blackly, on the other lay dell after dell down into the cradle of the valley. It was a poetic corner of England, and I thought it almost unbelievable that London was only some twenty miles behind. A fit place this for elves and fairies to survive, a spot in which the presence of a modern automobile seemed a desecration. Higher we mounted and higher, the engine running strongly and smoothly; then, presently, we were out upon a narrow open road with the crescent of the hills sweeping away on the right and dense woods dipping valleyward to the left and behind us.
The chauffeur turned, and, meeting my glance:
“Cray’s Folly, sir,” he said.
He jerked his hand in the direction of a square, gray-stone tower somewhat resembling a campanile, which uprose from a distant clump of woods cresting a greater eminence.
“Ah,” murmured Harley, “the famous tower.”
Following the departure of the Colonel on the previous evening, he had looked up Cray’s Folly and had found it to be one of a series of houses erected by the eccentric and wealthy man whose name it bore. He had had a mania for building houses with towers, in which his rival— and contemporary— had been William Beckford, the author of “Vathek,” a work which for some obscure reason has survived as well as two of the three towers erected by its writer.
I became conscious of a keen sense of anticipation. In this, I think, the figure of Miss Val Beverley played a leading part. There was something pathetic in the presence of this lonely English girl in so singular a household; for if the menage at Cray’s Folly should prove half so strange as Colonel Menendez had led us to believe, then truly we were about to find ourselves amid unusual people.
Presently the road inclined southward somewhat and we entered the fringe of the trees. I noticed one or two very ancient cottages, but no trace of the modern builder. This was a fragment of real Old England, and I was not sorry when presently we lost sight of the square tower; for amidst such scenery it was an anomaly and a
