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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 IV - 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 rebuke.
    What Paul Harley's thoughts may have been I cannot say, but he
preserved an unbroken silence up to the very moment that we came to the
gate lodge.
    The gates were monstrosities of elaborate iron scrollwork,
craftsmanship clever enough in its way, but of an ornate kind more in
keeping with the orange trees of the South than with this wooded Surrey
countryside.
    A very surly-looking girl, quite obviously un-English (a daughter of
Pedro, the butler, I learned later), opened the gates, and we entered
upon a winding drive literally tunnelled through the trees. Of the
house we had never a glimpse until we were right under its walls, nor
should I have known that we were come to the main entrance if the car
had not stopped.
    "Looks like a monastery," muttered Harley.
    Indeed that part of the building—the north front—which was visible
from this point had a strangely monastic appearance, being built of
solid gray blocks and boasting only a few small, heavily barred
windows. The eccentricity of the Victorian gentleman who