Sax Rohmer

“ I speak of a still, moonlight night.”
“Possibly, then, it was the shadow of a tramp,” suggested Harley. “I gather that you refer to a house in the country?”
“It was not,” declared Colonel Menendez, emphatically; “it was not. I wish to God I could believe it had been. Then there was, a month ago, an attempt to enter my house.”
Paul Harley exhibited evidence of a quickening curiosity. He had perceived, as I had perceived, that the manner of the speaker differed from that of the ordinary victim of delusion, with whom he had become professionally familiar. ”

“ Harley glanced across in my direction and then at the card, with a wry expression.
“Colonel Juan Menendez,” he read aloud, “Cavendish Club,” and glanced reflectively at Innes. “Do we know the Colonel?”
“I think not,” answered Innes; “the name is unfamiliar to me.”
“I wonder,” murmured Harley. He glanced across at me. “It’s an awful nuisance, Knox, but just as I thought the decks were clear. Is it something really interesting, or does he want a woman watched? However, his name sounds piquant, so perhaps I had better see him. Ask him to come in, Miss Smith.” ”

“ His clean-cut features had that hint of underlying bronze which tells of years spent beneath a merciless sun, and the touch of gray at his temples only added to the eager, almost fierce vitality of the dark face. ”

“ Whilst there were filing cabinets and bookshelves laden with works of reference, many of them legal, a large and handsome Burmese cabinet struck an unexpected note.
On closer inspection, other splashes of significant colour must have been detected in the scheme, notably a very fine engraving of Edgar Allan Poe, from the daguerreotype of 1848; and upon the man himself lay the indelible mark of the tropics. ”

“ Harley, but they belong to things so mystic and far away from ordinary crime that I fear you will think me,” he shrugged his great shoulders, “a man haunted by strange superstitions. Do you say ‘haunted?’ Good. You understand. I should tell you, then, that although of pure Spanish blood, I was born in Cuba. The greater part of my life has been spent in the West Indies, where prior to ’98 I held an appointment under the Spanish Government. ”

“ It seems fantastic to suppose that they contain a clue.”
“I beg of you,” said Harley, “to keep nothing back, however remote it may appear to be. It is sometimes the seemingly remote things which prove upon investigation to be the most intimate.”
“Very well,” resumed Colonel Menendez, beginning to roll a second cigarette whilst continuing to smoke the first, “I know that you are right, of course, but it is nevertheless very difficult for me to explain. ”