“Neither do I,” agreed my friend; “but it is distinctly possible that such an obsession exists, and that someone is deliberately playing upon it for his own ends.”
“You mean that someone who knows of these episodes in the earlier life of Menendez is employing them now for a secret purpose of his own?”
“Exactly.”
“It renders the case none the less interesting.”
“I quite agree, Knox. With you, I believe, that even if the Colonel is not quite sane, at the same time his fears are by no means imaginary.”
He gingerly took up the bat wing from the arm of his chair where he had placed it after a detailed examination.
“It seems to be pretty certain,” he said, “that this thing is the wing of a Desmodus or Vampire Bat. Now, according to our authority”—he touched a work which lay open on the other arm of his chair—“these are natives of tropical America, therefore the presence of a living vampire bat in Surrey is not to be anticipated. I am personally satisfied, however, that this unpleasant fragment has been preserved in some way.”
“You mean that it is part of a specimen from someone’s collection?”
“Quite possibly. But even a collection of such bats would be quite a novelty. I don’t know that I can recollect one outside the Museums. To follow this bat wing business further: there was one very curious point in the Colonel’s narrative. You recollect his reference to a native girl who had betrayed certain information to the manager of the estate?”
I nodded rapidly.