For instance, I wanted to see if all
lights were out at the Guest House."
"And were they?" I asked, eagerly.
"They were. Secondly," he continued, "I wanted to convince myself that
there were no nocturnal prowlers from within or without."
"What do you mean by within or without?"
"Listen, Knox." He bent toward me in the dark, grasping my shoulder
firmly. "One window in Cray's Folly was lighted up."
"At what hour?"
"The light is there yet."
That he was about to make some strange revelation I divined. I detected
the fact, too, that he believed this revelation would be unpleasant to
me; and in this I found an explanation of his earlier behaviour. He had
seemed distraught and ill at ease when he had joined Madame de Staemer,
Miss Beverley, and myself in the drawing room. I could only suppose
that this and the abrupt parting with me outside my door had been due
to his holding a theory which he had proposed to put to the test before
confiding it to me. I remember that I spoke very slowly as I asked him
the question:
"Whose is the lighted window, Harley?"
"Has Colonel Menendez taken you into a little snuggery or smoke-room
which faces his bedroom in the southeast corner of the house?"
"No, but Miss Beverley has mentioned the room.
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