Page:Bat Wing 1921.djvu/37

Rh but”—he kissed his fingers—“a genius. She has with her, as companion, a very charming English girl, Miss Val Beverley, the orphaned daughter of a distinguished surgeon of Edinburg. Miss Beverley was with my cousin in the hospital which she established in France during the war. If you will honour me with your presence at Cray’s Folly to-morrow, gentlemen, you will not lack congenial company, I can assure you.”

He raised his heavy eyebrows, looking interrogatively from Harley to myself.

“For my own part,” said my friend, slowly, “I shall be delighted. What do you say, Knox?”

“I also.”

“But,” continued Harley, “your presence here today, Colonel Menendez, suggests to my mind that England has not proved so safe a haven as you had anticipated?”

Colonel Menendez crossed the room and stood once more before the Burmese cabinet, one hand resting upon his hip; a massive yet graceful figure.

“Mr. Harley,” he replied, “four days ago my butler, who is a Spaniard, brought me” He pointed to the bat wing lying upon the blotting pad. “He had found it pinned to an oaken panel of the main entrance door.”

“Was it prior to this discovery, or after it,” asked Harley, “that you detected the presence of someone lurking in the neighbourhood of the house?”

“Before it.”

“And the burglarious entrance?”

“That took place rather less than a month ago. On the eve of the full moon.”

Paul Harley stood up and relighted his pipe.

“There are quite a number of other details, Colonel,”