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