Bat-Wing by Sax Rohmer Read Free Book Online Page B

rhododendrons. Finding
no path through this shrubbery, I retraced my steps, presently entering
the Tudor garden; and there strolling toward me, a book in her hand,
was Miss Beverley.
    "Holloa, Mr. Knox," she called; "I thought you had gone up the tower?"
    "No," I replied, laughing, "I lack the energy."
    "Do you?" she said, softly, "then sit down and talk to me."
    She dropped down upon a grassy bank, looking up at me invitingly, and I
accepted the invitation without demur.
    "I love this old garden," she declared, "although of course it is
really no older than the rest of the place. I always think there should
be peacocks, though."
    "Yes," I agreed, "peacocks would be appropriate."
    "And little pages dressed in yellow velvet."
    She met my glance soberly for a moment and then burst into a peal of
merry laughter.
    "Do you know, Miss Beverley," I said, watching her, "I find it hard to
place you in the household of the Colonel."
    "Yes?" she said simply; "you must."
    "Oh, then you realize that you are—"
    "Out of place here?"
    "Quite."
    "Of course I am."
    She smiled, shook her head, and changed the subject.
    "I am so glad Mr. Paul Harley has come down," she confessed.
    "You know my friend by name, then?"
    "Yes," she replied, "someone I met in Nice spoke of him, and I know he
is very clever."
    "In Nice? Did you live in Nice before you came here?"
    Val Beverley nodded slowly, and her glance grew oddly retrospective.
    "I lived for over a year with Madame de Stämer in a little villa on the
Promenade des Anglaise," she replied. "That was after Madame was
injured."
    "She sustained her injuries during the war, I understand?"
    "Yes. Poor Madame. The hospital of which she was in charge was bombed
and the shock left her as you see her. I was there, too, but I luckily
escaped without injury."
    "What, you were there?"
    "Yes. That was where I first met Madame de Stämer. She used to be very
wealthy, you see, and she established this hospital in France at her
own expense, and I was one of her assistants for a time. She lost both
her husband and her fortune in the war, and as if that were not bad
enough, lost the use of her limbs, too."
    "Poor woman," I said. "I had no idea her life had been so tragic. She
has wonderful courage."
    "Courage!" exclaimed the girl, "if you knew all that I know about her."
    Her face grew sweetly animated as she bent toward me excitedly and
confidentially.
    "Really, she is simply wonderful. I learned to respect her in those
days as I have never respected any other woman in the world; and when,
after all her splendid work, she, so vital and active, was stricken
down like that, I felt that I simply could not leave her, especially as
she asked me to stay."
    "So you went with her to Nice?"
    "Yes. Then the Colonel took this house, and we came here, but—"
    She hesitated, and glanced at me curiously.
    "Perhaps you are not quite happy?"
    "No," she said, "I am not. You see it was different in France. I knew
so many people. But here at Cray's Folly it is so lonely, and Madame
is—"
    Again she hesitated.
    "Yes?"
    "Well," she laughed in an embarrassed fashion, "I am afraid of her at
times."
    "In what way?"
    "Oh, in a silly, womanish sort of way. Of course she is a wonderful
manager; she rules the house with a rod of iron. But really I haven't
anything to do here, and I feel frightfully out of place sometimes.
Then the Colonel—Oh, but what am I talking about?"
    "Won't you tell me what it is that the Colonel fears?"
    "You know that he fears something, then?"
    "Of course. That is why Paul Harley is here."
    A change came over the girl's face; a look almost of dread.
    "I wish I knew what it all meant."
    "You are aware, then, that there is something wrong?"
    "Naturally I am. Sometimes I have been so frightened that I have made
up my mind to leave the very next day."
    "You mean that you have been frightened at night?" I asked with
curiosity.
    "Dreadfully frightened."
    "Won't you tell me in what way?"
    She looked up at me swiftly,