Bat Wing | Page 6

not a British species?"
"But emphatically not a British species," replied the Spaniard. "Yet even so the matter would be strange."
"I am all anxiety to learn the remainder of your story, Colonel Menendez."
"Good. Your interest comforts me very greatly, Mr. Harley. But when first I came, you led me to suppose that you were departing from London?"
"Such, at the time, was my intention, sir." Paul Harley smiled slightly. "Accompanied by my friend, Mr. Knox, I had proposed to indulge in a fortnight's fishing upon the Norfolk Broads."
"Fishing?"
"Yes."
"A peaceful occupation, Mr. Harley, and a great rest-cure for one who like yourself moves much amid the fiercer passions of life. You were about to make holiday?"
Paul Harley nodded.
"It is cruel of me to intrude upon such plans," continued Colonel Menendez, dexterously rolling his cigarette around between his fingers. "Yet because of my urgent need I dare to do so. Would yourself and your friend honour me with your company at Cray's Folly for a few days? I can promise you good entertainment, although I regret that there is no fishing; but It may chance that there will be other and more exciting sport."
Harley glanced at me significantly.
"Do I understand you to mean, Colonel Menendez," he asked, "that you have reason to believe that this conspiracy directed against you is about to come to a head?"
Colonel Menendez nodded, at the same time bringing his hand down sharply upon the table.
"Mr. Harley," he replied, his high, thin voice sunken almost to a whisper, "Wednesday night is the night of the full moon." "The full moon?"
"It is at the full moon that the danger comes."
Paul Harley stood up, and watched by the Spanish colonel paced slowly across the office. At the outer door he paused and turned.
"Colonel Menendez," he said, "that you would willingly waste the time of a busy man I do not for a moment believe, therefore I shall ask you as briefly as possible to state your case in detail. When I have heard it, if it appears to me that any good purpose can be served by my friend and myself coming to Cray's Folly I feel sure that he will be happy to accept your proffered hospitality."
"If I am likely to be of the slightest use I shall be delighted," said I, which indeed was perfectly true.
Whilst I had willingly agreed to accompany Harley to Norfolk I had none of his passion for the piscatorial art, and the promise of novel excitement held out by Colonel Menendez appealed to me more keenly than the lazy days upon the roads which Harley loved.
"Gentlemen"--the Colonel bowed profoundly--"I am honoured and delighted. When you shall have heard my story I know what your decision will be."
He resumed his seat, and began, it seemed almost automatically, to roll a fresh cigarette.
"I am all attention," declared Harley, and his glance strayed again in a wondering fashion to the bat wing lying on his table.
"I will speak briefly," resumed our visitor, "and any details which may seem to you to be important can be discussed later when you are my guests. You must know then that I first became acquainted with the significance belonging to the term 'Bat Wing' and to the object itself some twenty years ago."
"But surely," interrupted Harley, incredulously, "you are not going to tell me that the menace of which you complain is of twenty years' standing?"
"At your express request, Mr. Harley," returned the Colonel a trifle brusquely, "I am dealing with possibilities which are remote, because in your own words it is sometimes the remote which proves to be the intimate. It was then rather more than twenty years ago, at a time when great political changes were taking place in the West Indies, that my business interests, which are mainly concerned with sugar, carried me to one of the smaller islands which had formerly been under--my jurisdiction, do you say? Here I had a house and estate, and here in the past I had experienced much trouble with the natives.
"I do not disguise from you that I was unpopular, and on my return I met with unmistakable signs of hostility. My native workmen were insubordinate. In fact, it was the reports from my overseers which had led me to visit the island. I made a tour of the place, believing it to be necessary to my interests that I should get once more in touch with negro feeling, since I had returned to my home in Cuba after the upheavals in '98. Very well.
"The manager of my estate, a capable man, was of opinion that there existed a secret organization amongst the native labourers operating-- you understand?--against my interests. He produced certain evidences of this. They were not convincing; and all my enquiries and examinations of certain inhabitants led to no