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Page 35
"You excite my curiosity," declared Harley.
"Listen," Colonel Menendez bent forward, resting his elbows upon his
knees. Between the yellow fingers of his left hand he held the newly
completed cigarette whilst he continued to puff vigorously at the old
one. "You recollect my speaking of the death of a certain native girl?"
Paul Harley nodded.
"The real cause of her death was never known, but I obtained evidence
to show that on the night after the wing of a bat had been attached to
her hut, she wandered out in her sleep and visited the Black Belt. Can
you doubt that someone was calling her?"
"Calling her?"
"Mr. Harley, she was obeying the call of M'kombo!"
"The _call_ of M'kombo? You refer to some kind of hypnotic
suggestions?"
"I illustrate," replied the Colonel, "to help to make clear something
which I have to tell you. On the night when last the moon was full--on
the night after someone had entered the house--I had retired early to
bed. Suddenly I awoke, feeling very cold. I awoke, I say, and where do
you suppose I found myself?"
"I am all anxiety to hear."
"On the point of entering the Tudor garden--you call it Tudor garden?--
which is visible from the window of your room!"
"Most extraordinary," murmured Harley; "and you were in your night
attire?"
"I was."
"And what had awakened you?"
"An accident. I believe a lucky accident. I had cut my bare foot upon
the gravel and the pain awakened me."
"You had no recollection of any dream which had prompted you to go down
into the garden?"
"None whatever."
"Does your room face in that direction?"
"It does not. It faces the lake on the south of the house. I had
descended to a side door, unbarred it, and walked entirely around the
east wing before I awakened."
"Your room faces the lake," murmured Harley.
"Yes."
Their glances met, and in Paul Harley's expression there seemed to be a
challenge.
"You have not yet told me," said he, "the name of your neighbour."
Colonel Menendez lighted his new cigarette.
"Mr. Harley," he confessed, "I regret that I ever referred to this
suspicion of mine. Indeed it is hardly a suspicion, it is what I may
call a desperate doubt. Do you say that, a desperate doubt?"
"I think I follow you," said Harley.
"The fact is this, I only know of one person within ten miles of Cray's
Folly who has ever visited Cuba."
"Ah."
"I have no other scrap of evidence to associate him I with my shadowy
enemy. This being so, you will pardon me if I ask you to forget that I
ever referred to his existence."
He spoke the words with a sort of lofty finality, and accompanied them
with a gesture of the hands which really left Harley no alternative but
to drop the subject.
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