Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/220

212 toward him a piece of newspaper upon which rested a dwindling mound of shag. “This is most disturbing, of course. But since I have not rendered myself amenable to the law, it leaves me moderately unmoved. Upon your second point, Mr. Harley, I shall beg you, to enlarge. You tell me that Don Juan Menendez is dead?”

He had begun to fill his corn-cob as he spoke the words, but from where I sat I could just see his face, so that although his voice was well controlled, the gleam in his eyes was unmistakable.

“He was shot through the head shortly after midnight.”

“What?”

Colin Camber dropped the corn-cob and stood up again, the light of a dawning comprehension in his eyes.

“Do you mean that he was murdered?”

“I do.”

“Good God,” whispered Camber, “at last I understand.”

“That is why we are here, Mr. Camber, and that is why the police will be here at any moment.”

Colin Camber stood erect, one hand resting upon the desk.

“So this was the meaning of the shot which we heard in the night,” he said, slowly.

Crossing the room, he closed and locked the study door, then, returning, he sat down once more, entirely master of himself. Frowning slightly he looked from Harley in my direction, and then back again at Harley.

“Gentlemen,” he resumed, “I appreciate the urgency of my danger. Preposterous though I know it to be, nevertheless it is perhaps no more than natural that suspicion should fall upon me.”