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Page 115
"No; they were not admitted."
"Good, good," he muttered.
"I had expected you long before this, Harley."
"Naturally," he said, with a sort of irritation. "I have been all the
way to Whitehall and back."
"To Whitehall! What, you have been to London?"
"I had half anticipated it, Knox. The Chief Constable, although quite a
decent fellow, is a stickler for routine. On the strength of those
facts which I thought fit to place before him he could see no reason
for superseding Aylesbury. Accordingly, without further waste of time,
I headed straight for Whitehall. You may remember a somewhat elaborate
report which I completed upon the eve of our departure from Chancery
Lane?"
I nodded.
"A very thankless job for the Home Office, Knox. But I received my
reward to-day. Inspector Wessex has been placed in charge of the case
and I hope he will be down here within the hour. Pending his arrival I
am tied hand and foot."
We had walked into the library, and, stopping, suddenly, Harley stared
me very hard in the face.
"You are bottling something up, Knox," he declared. "Out with it. Has
Aylesbury distinguished himself again?"
"No," I replied; "on the contrary. He interviewed Madame de St�mer, and
came out with a flea in his ear."
"Good," said Harley, smiling. "A clever woman, and a woman of spirit,
Knox."
"You are right," I replied, "and you are also right in supposing that I
have a communication to make to you."
"Ah, I thought so. What is it?"
"It is a theory, Harley, which appears to me to cover the facts of the
case."
"Indeed?" said he, continuing to stare at me. "And what inspired it?"
"I was staring up at the window of the smoke-room to-day, and I
remembered the shadow which you had seen upon the blind."
"Yes?" he cried, eagerly; "and does your theory explain that, too?"
"It does, Harley."
"Then I am all anxiety to hear it."
"Very well, then, I will endeavour to be brief. Do you recollect Miss
Beverley's story of the unfamiliar footsteps which passed her door on
several occasions?"
"Perfectly."
"You recollect that you, yourself, heard someone crossing the hall, and
that both of us heard a door close?"
"We did."
"And finally you saw the shadow of a woman upon the blind of the
Colonel's private study. Very well. Excluding the preposterous theory
of Inspector Aylesbury, there is no woman in Cray's Folly whose
footsteps could possibly have been heard in that corridor, and whose
shadow could possibly have been seen upon the blind of Colonel
Menendez's room."
"I agree," said Harley, quietly. "I have definitely eliminated all the
servants from the case. Therefore, proceed, Knox, I am all attention."
"I will do so. There is a door on the south side of the house, close to
the tower and opening into the rhododendron shrubbery. This was the
door used by Colonel Menendez in his somnambulistic rambles, according
to his own account. Now, assuming his statement to have been untrue in
one particular, that is, assuming he was not walking in his sleep, but
was fully awake--"
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