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.”