Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/211

Rh manner which betokened a rapidly working brain, “this is the path which the Colonel must have followed last night. Yonder is the door by which, according to his own account, he came out on a previous occasion, walking in his sleep. Do you remember?”

“I remember,” I replied.

“Well, Pedro found it unlocked this morning. You see it faces practically due south, and the Colonel’s bedroom is immediately above us where we stand.” He stared at me queerly. “I must have passed this door last night only a few moments before the Colonel came out, for I was just crossing the courtyard and could see you at my window at the moment when you saw poor Menendez enter the Tudor garden. He must have actually been walking around the east wing at the same time that I was walking around the west. Now, I am going to show you something, Knox, something which I have just discovered.”

From his waistcoat pocket he took out a half-smoked cigarette. I stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“Of course,” he continued, “the weather has been bone dry for more than a week now, and it may have lain there for a long time, but to me, Knox, to me it looks suspiciously fresh.”

“What is the point?” I asked, perplexedly.

“The point is that it is a hand-made cigarette, one of the Colonel’s. Don’t you recognize it?”

“Good heavens!” I said; “yes, of course it is.”

He returned it to his pocket without another word.

“It may mean nothing,” he murmured, “or it may mean everything. And now, Knox, we are going to escape.”

“To escape?” I cried.

“Precisely. We are going to anticipate the probable