Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/19

 “What!”

“You can obtain the evidence of all my household that someone had actually entered,” declared Colonel Menendez, eagerly. “Of this, at least, I can give you the certain facts. Whoever it was had obtained access through a kitchen window, had forced two locks, and was coming stealthily along the hallway when the sound of his footsteps attracted my attention.”

“What did you do?”

“I came out on to the landing and looked down the stairs. But even the slight sound which I made had been sufficient to alarm the midnight visitor, for I had never a glimpse of him. Only, as he went swiftly back in the direction from which he had come, the moonlight shining in through a window in the hall cast his shadow on the carpet.”

“Strange,” murmured Harley. “Very strange, indeed. The shadow told you nothing?”

“Nothing at all.”

Colonel Menendez hesitated momentarily, and glanced swiftly across at Harley.

“It was just a vague—do you say blur?—and then it was gone. But”

“Yes,” said Harley. “But?”

“Ah,” Colonel Menendez blew a cloud of smoke into the air, “I come now to the matter which I find so hard to explain.”

He inhaled again deeply and was silent for a while.

“Nothing was stolen?” asked Harley.

“Nothing whatever.”

“And no clue was left behind?”

“No clue except the filed fastening of a window and two open doors which had been locked as usual when the household retired.”