Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/18

 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?”

“Certainly not. I speak of a still, moonlight night.”

“Possibly, then, it was the shadow of a tramp,” suggested Harley. “I gather that you refer to a house in the country?”

“It was not,” declared Colonel Menendez, emphatically; “it was not. I wish to God I could believe it had been. Then there was, a month ago, an attempt to enter my house.”

Paul Harley exhibited evidence of a quickening curiosity. He had perceived, as I had perceived, that the manner of the speaker differed from that of the ordinary victim of delusion, with whom he had become professionally familiar.

“You had actual evidence of this?” he suggested.

“It was due to insomnia, sleeplessness, brought about, yes, I will admit it, by apprehension, that I heard the footsteps of this intruder.”

“But you did not see him?”

“Only his shadow.”