“Don’t tell me that you have not known of it! The whole town has been talking about it.”
“Rumors, only rumors,” protested Raoul. “I would like to hear the real facts.”
“This gentleman, General Herran, with whom Mr. Meudon was traveling, can tell you the facts, such as they are. But I can’t see why you should need them.”
Raoul turned to Leighton’s companion, who had been trying to follow what the two men were saying. As they talked in English, a language of which he knew scarcely a word, he could make very little of it. Asked, in Spanish, to give the details of his ride with David, he made an excellent story of it, relating something of the discussion that had absorbed them while on the road together, the friendly feeling that had grown up between them, its touch of conviviality, and their abrupt separation in the midst of their encounter with the regiment of volunteers.
Raoul listened intently to Herran’s narrative, his glance roving restlessly from the narrator to his companion and back again, as if to compare the effect on both of what was said.
“It’s a strange tale, Senor,” he commented when Herran had come to the end. “These things with a touch of mystery in them are always fascinating—until you stumble on the clew. Then it’s very simple. I suppose you have no theory to explain our friend’s disappearance?”
“None, Senor.”
“You have just told me, Mr. Leighton,” he went on, addressing the latter, “that you are here to add to your knowledge of psychology.”
“I did.”
“Well, what do you make of it? Here’s what you are looking for—a neat psychological problem right to your hand.”