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Page 3
"Sit down, Knox," said Harley, and turned again to the visitor. "Please
proceed," he requested. "Mr. Knox has been with me in some of the most
delicate cases which I have ever handled, and you may rely upon his
discretion as you may rely upon mine." He pushed forward a box of
cigars. "Will you smoke?"
"Thanks, no," was the answer; "you see, I rarely smoke anything but my
cigarettes."
Colonel Menendez extracted a slip of rice paper from a little packet
which he carried, next, dipping two long, yellow fingers into his coat
pocket, he brought out a portion of tobacco, laid it in the paper, and
almost in the twinkling of an eye had made, rolled, and lighted a very
creditable cigarette. His dexterity was astonishing, and seeing my
surprise he raised his heavy eyebrows, and:
"Practice makes perfect, is it not said?" he remarked.
He shrugged his shoulders and dropped the extinguished match in an ash
tray, whilst I studied him with increasing interest. Some dread, real
or imaginary, was oppressing the man's mind, I mused. I felt my
presence to be unwelcome, but:
"Very well," he began, suddenly. "I expect, Mr. Harley, that you will
be disposed to regard what I have to tell you rather as a symptom of
what you call nerves than as evidence of any agency directed against
me."
Paul Harley stared curiously at the speaker. "Do I understand you to
suspect that someone is desirous of harming you?" he enquired.
Colonel Menendez slowly nodded his head.
"Such is my meaning," he replied.
"You refer to bodily harm?"
"But yes, emphatically."
"Hm," said Harley; and taking out a tin of tobacco from a cabinet
beside him he began in leisurely manner to load a briar. "No doubt you
have good reasons for this suspicion?"
"If I had not good reasons, Mr. Harley, nothing could have induced me
to trouble you. Yet, even now that I have compelled myself to come
here, I find it difficult, almost impossible, to explain those reasons
to you."
An expression of embarrassment appeared upon the brown face, and now
Colonel Menendez paused and was plainly at a loss for words with which
to continue.
Harley replaced the tin in the cupboard and struck a match. Lighting
his pipe he nodded good humouredly as if to say, "I quite understand."
As a matter of fact, he probably thought, as I did, that this was a
familiar case of a man of possibly blameless life who had become
subject to that delusion which leads people to believe themselves
threatened by mysterious and unnameable danger.
Our visitor inhaled deeply.
"You, of course, are waiting for the facts," he presently resumed,
speaking with a slowness which told of a mind labouring for the right
mode of expression. "These are so scanty, I fear, of so, shall I say,
phantom a kind, that even when they are in your possession you will
consider me to be merely the victim of a delusion. In the first place,
then, I have reason to believe that someone followed me from my home to
your office."
"Indeed," said Paul Harley, sympathetically, for this I perceived was
exactly what he had anticipated, and merely tended to confirm his
suspicion. "Some member of your household?"
"Certainly not."
"Did you actually see this follower?"
"My dear sir," cried Colonel Menendez, excitement emphasizing his
accent, "if I had seen him, so much would have been made clear, so
much! I have never seen him, but I have heard him and felt him--felt
his presence, I mean."
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