Moore was gazing in front of him, and when he spoke again I was really at a loss to tell whether he was in earnest or not.
“There was one thing I have not told you of,” he said. “In one corner of the room there was a heavy, long black curtain—black,” he repeated impressively. “It cut off that corner of the room as it were. There may be a door behind it leading to a staircase; there may be—a skeleton for all I know, or—goodness knows what!”
“Rubbish!” I exclaimed this time. “You are drawing on your imagination just to keep up the farce! I don’t believe you even saw the curtain!” He faced round on me.
“Reggie!” he exclaimed, “I did see a curtain, word of honour.”
“Naturally,” I replied, “most windows have curtains. You know what I mean. I don’t believe you saw any unusual kind of curtain, or that it was black.”
“I swear to you it was black, and a very unusual kind of curtain.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me of it before?” I inquired. “It may have looked black because the room was dark.”
“I was thinking about it,” he answered.
“You weren’t,” I retorted. “You only remembered about it when I said you had made no discoveries. If you had thought it was really mysterious you would have mentioned it straight off. Now do let us drop the whole thing, I’m getting tired of it.”
In my heart I was disappointed. I had had in reality, in spite of my warnings to him, some hopes that Moore’s rashness would at least have led to something in the way of discovery. And by this time I had succeeded in making him angry.