"
"And you say they passed your door?"
"Yes. My rooms are almost directly overhead. And right at the end of
the corridor, that is on the southeast corner of the building, is
Colonel Menendez's bedroom, and facing it a sort of little smoke-room.
It was in this direction that the footsteps went."
"To Colonel Menendez's room?"
"Yes. They were light, furtive footsteps."
"This took place late at night?"
"Quite late, long after everyone had retired."
She paused, staring at me with a sort of embarrassment, and presently:
"Were the footsteps those of a man or a woman?" I asked.
"Of a woman. Someone, Mr. Knox," she bent forward, and that look of
fear began to creep into her eyes again, "with whose footsteps I was
quite unfamiliar."
"You mean a stranger to the house?"
"Yes. Oh, it was uncanny." She shuddered. "The first time I heard it I
had been lying awake listening. I was nervous. Madame de Staemer had
told me that morning that the Colonel had seen someone lurking about
the lawns on the previous night. Then, as I lay awake listening for the
slightest sound, I suddenly detected these footsteps; and they paused--
right outside my door.
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