“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.”
“In what way?” asked Harley, leaning back in his chair and studying the fierce face.
“On several occasions on turning out the light in my bedroom and looking across the lawn from my window I have observed the shadow of someone—how do you say?—lurking in the garden.”
“The shadow?”
“Precisely. The person himself was concealed beneath a tree. When he moved his shadow was visible on the ground.”
“You were not deceived by a waving branch?”