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Page 48
"My original object," he replied, "was to endeavour to learn if any one
were really watching the place. For instance, I wanted to see if all
lights were out at the Guest House."
"And were they?" I asked, eagerly.
"They were. Secondly," he continued, "I wanted to convince myself that
there were no nocturnal prowlers from within or without."
"What do you mean by within or without?"
"Listen, Knox." He bent toward me in the dark, grasping my shoulder
firmly. "One window in Cray's Folly was lighted up."
"At what hour?"
"The light is there yet."
That he was about to make some strange revelation I divined. I detected
the fact, too, that he believed this revelation would be unpleasant to
me; and in this I found an explanation of his earlier behaviour. He had
seemed distraught and ill at ease when he had joined Madame de St�mer,
Miss Beverley, and myself in the drawing room. I could only suppose
that this and the abrupt parting with me outside my door had been due
to his holding a theory which he had proposed to put to the test before
confiding it to me. I remember that I spoke very slowly as I asked him
the question:
"Whose is the lighted window, Harley?"
"Has Colonel Menendez taken you into a little snuggery or smoke-room
which faces his bedroom in the southeast corner of the house?"
"No, but Miss Beverley has mentioned the room."
"Ah. Well, there is a light in that room, Knox."
"Possibly the Colonel has not retired?"
"According to Madame de St�mer he went to bed several hours ago, you
may remember."
"True," I murmured, fumbling for the significance of his words.
"The next point is this," he resumed. "You saw Madame retire to her own
room, which, as you know, is on the ground floor, and I have satisfied
myself that the door communicating with the servants' wing is locked."
"I see. But to what is all this leading, Harley?"
"To a very curious fact, and the fact is this: The Colonel is not
alone."
I sat bolt upright.
"What?" I cried.
"Not so loud," warned Harley.
"But, Harley--"
"My dear fellow, we must face facts. I repeat, the Colonel is not
alone."
"Why do you say so?"
"Twice I have seen a shadow on the blind of the smoke-room."
"His own shadow, probably."
Again Paul Harley's cigarette glowed in the darkness.
"I am prepared to swear," he replied, "that it was the shadow of a
woman."
"Harley----"
"Don't get excited, Knox. I am dealing with the strangest case of my
career, and I am jumping to no conclusions. But just let us look at the
circumstances judicially. The whole of the domestic staff we may
dismiss, with the one exception of Mrs. Fisher, who, so far as I can
make out, occupies the position of a sort of working housekeeper, and
whose rooms are in the corner of the west wing immediately facing the
kitchen garden. Possibly you have not met Mrs. Fisher, Knox, but I have
made it my business to interview the whole of the staff and I may say
that Mrs. Fisher is a short, stout old lady, a native of Kent, I
believe, whose outline in no way corresponds to that which I saw upon
the blind. Therefore, unless the door which communicates with the
servants' quarters was unlocked again to-night--to what are we reduced
in seeking to explain the presence of a woman in Colonel Menendez's
room? Madame de St�mer, unassisted, could not possibly have mounted the
stairs."
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