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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?"
Menendez's expedition of 1565 followed the earlier Spanish expeditions by Ponce de Leon, Narvaez and De Soto. It sailed from Cadiz and comprized eleven ships. Twenty-three other vessels followed, the entire company numbering 2,646 persons. The aim of Menendez was to begin a permanent settlement in Florida.
It was uncanny, unnerving; and whereas at first the atmosphere of Colonel Menendez's home had seemed to be laden with prosperous security, now that sense of ease and restfulness was gone and gone for ever. "Harley," I said, speaking almost at random, "this promises to be the strangest case you have ever handled." "Promises?" Paul Harley laughed shortly. "It is the strangest case, Knox.
"I might be enabled to come to one," replied Harley, "if you would answer a very simple question." "What is this question?" "It is this Have you any idea who nailed the bat's wing to your door?" Colonel Menendez's eyes opened very widely, and his face became more aquiline than ever. "You have heard my story, Mr. Harley," he replied, softly. "If I know the explanation, why do I come to you?"
He reseated himself, whilst Harley regarded him silently, then: "'The evil that men do lives after them," he murmured. He rested his chin upon his hand. "A bat wing," he continued, musingly, "a bat wing was nailed to Menendez's door." He stared across at Harley. "Am I to believe, sir, that this was the clue which led you to the Guest House?" Paul Harley nodded. "It was." "I understand.
The expedition was to be at Menendez's own cost; he was to take out five hundred colonists, and in return to be made Governor of Florida for life and to enjoy certain rights for free trade with the West Indies and with the mother country.... The military genius of Menendez rose to the new demands made upon it.
I expressed my concern, and: "I was unaware that Colonel Menendez's health was impaired," I said. "Ah," Madame shrugged characteristically. "Juan has travelled too much of the road of life on top speed, Mr. Knox." She snapped her white fingers and grimaced significantly. "Excitement is bad for him." She wheeled her chair up beside Val Beverley, and taking the girl's hand patted it affectionately.
"It is another of those mysteries which seem to be part of Colonel Menendez's normal existence." "And is this dislike mutual?" "That I cannot say, since I have never met Mr. Camber." "And Madame de Staemer, does she share it?" "Fully, I think. But don't ask me what it means, because I don't know." She dismissed the subject with a light gesture and poured me out a second cup of coffee.
Quite at random I turned to the left and followed the road, so that presently I found myself in a very small village, the principal building of which was a very small inn called the "Lavender Arms." Colonel Menendez's curacao, combined with the heat of the day, had made me thirsty; for which reason I stepped into the bar-parlour determined to sample the local ale.
Fisher is a short, stout old lady, a native of Kent, I believe, whose outline in no way corresponds to that which I saw upon the blind. Therefore, unless the door which communicates with the servants' quarters was unlocked again to-night to what are we reduced in seeking to explain the presence of a woman in Colonel Menendez's room?
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