“What, do you suspect eavesdroppers?” asked the Colonel, his manner becoming momentarily agitated.
He looked at Harley as though he suspected the latter of possessing private information.
“We should neglect no possible precaution,” answered my friend. “That agencies inimical to your safety are focussed upon the house your own statement amply demonstrates.”
Colonel Menendez seemed to be on the point of speaking again, but he checked himself and in silence led the way through the ornate library to a smaller room which opened out of it, and which was furnished as a study.
Here the motif was distinctly one of officialdom. Although the Southern element was not lacking, it was not so marked as in the library or in the hall. The place was appointed for utility rather than ornament. Everything was in perfect order. In the library, with the blinds drawn, one might have supposed oneself in Trinidad; in the study, under similar conditions, one might equally well have imagined Downing Street to lie outside the windows. Essentially, this was the workroom of a man of affairs.
Having settled ourselves comfortably, Paul Harley opened the conversation.
“In several particulars,” said he, “I find my information to be incomplete.”
He consulted the back of an envelope, upon which, I presumed during the afternoon, he had made a number of pencilled notes.
“For instance,” he continued, “your detection of someone watching the house, and subsequently of someone forcing an entrance, had no visible association with the presence of the bat wing attached to your front door?”
“No,” replied the Colonel, slowly, “these episodes took place a month ago.”
“Exactly a month ago?”
“They took place immediately before the last full moon.”
“Ah, before the full moon. And because you associate the activities of Voodoo with the full moon, you believe that the old menace has again become active?”
The Colonel nodded emphatically. He was busily engaged in rolling one of his eternal cigarettes.
“This belief of yours was recently confirmed by the discovery of the bat wing?”
“I no longer doubted,” said Colonel Menendez, shrugging his shoulders. “How could I?”
“Quite so,” murmured Harley, absently, and evidently pursuing some private train of thought. “And now, I take it that your suspicions, if expressed in words would amount to this: During your last visit to Cuba you (a) either killed some high priest of Voodoo, or (b) seriously injured him? Assuming the first theory to be the correct one, your death was determined upon by the sect over which he had formerly presided. Assuming the second to be accurate, however, it is presumably the man himself for whom we must look. Now, Colonel Menendez, kindly inform me if you recall the name of this man?”
“I recall it very well,” replied the Colonel. “His name was M’kombo, and he was a Benin negro.”
“Assuming that he is still alive, what, roughly, would his age be to-day?”
The Colonel seemed to meditate, pushing a box of long Martinique cigars across the table in my direction.
“He would be an old man,” he pronounced. “I, myself, am fifty-two, and I should say that M’kombo if alive to-day would be nearer to seventy than sixty.”
“Ah,” murmured Harley, “and did he speak English?”
“A few words, I believe.”
Paul Harley fixed his gaze upon the dark, aquiline face.
“In short,” he said, “do you really suspect that it was M’kombo whose shadow you saw upon the lawn, who a month ago made a midnight entrance into Cray’s Folly, and who recently pinned a bat wing to the door?”
Colonel Menendez seemed somewhat taken aback by this direct question. “I cannot believe it,” he confessed.
“Do you believe that this order or religion of Voodooism has any existence outside those places where African negroes or descendents of negroes are settled?”
“I should not have been prepared to believe it, Mr. Harley, prior to my experiences in Washington and elsewhere.”
“Then you do believe that there are representatives of this cult to be met with in Europe and America?”
“I should have been prepared to believe it possible in America, for in America there are many negroes, but in England—— ”
Again he shrugged his shoulders.
“I would remind you,” said Harley, quietly, “that there are also quite a number of negroes in England. If you seriously believe Voodoo to follow negro migration, I can see no objection to assuming it to be a universal cult.”
“Such an idea is incredible.”
“Yet by what other hypothesis,” asked Harley, “are we to cover the facts of your own case as stated by yourself? Now,” he consulted his pencilled notes, “there is another point. I gather that these African sorcerers rely largely upon what I may term intimidation. In other words, they claim the power of wishing an enemy to death.”
He raised his eyes and stared grimly at the Colonel.
“I should not like to suppose that a man of your courage and culture could subscribe to such a belief.”
“I do not, sir,” declared the Colonel, warmly. “No Obeah man could ever exercise his will upon me!”
“Yet, if I may say so,” murmured Harley, “your will to live seems to have become somewhat weakened.”
“What do you mean?”
Colonel Menendez stood up, his delicate nostrils dilated. He glared angrily at Harley.
“I mean that I perceive a certain resignation in your manner of which I do not approve.”
“You do not approve?” said Colonel Menendez, softly; and I thought as he stood looking down upon my friend that I had rarely seen a more formidable figure.
Paul Harley had roused him unaccountably, and knowing my friend for a master of tact I knew also that this had been deliberate, although I could not even dimly perceive his object.
“I occupy the position of a specialist,” Harley continued, “and you occupy that of my patient. Now, you cannot disguise from me that your mental opposition to this danger which threatens has become slackened. Allow me to remind you that the strongest defence is counter-attack. You are angry, Colonel Menendez, but I would rather see you angry than apathetic. To come to my last point. You spoke of a neighbour in terms which led me to suppose that you suspected him of some association with your enemies. May I ask for the name of this person?”
Colonel Menendez sat down again, puffing furiously at his cigarette, whilst beginning to roll another. He was much disturbed, was fighting to regain mastery of himself.
“I apologize from the bottom of my heart,” he said, “for a breach of good behaviour which really was unforgivable. I was angry when I should have been grateful. Much that you have said is true. Because it is true, I despise myself.”
He flashed a glance at Paul Harley.
“Awake,” he continued, “I care for no man breathing, black or white; but asleep”— he shrugged his shoulders. “It is in sleep that these dealers in unclean things obtain their advantage.”
“You excite my curiosity,” declared Harley.
“Listen,” Colonel Menendez bent forward, resting his elbows upon his knees. Between the yellow fingers of his left hand he held the newly completed cigarette whilst he continued to puff vigorously at the old one. “You recollect my speaking of the death of a certain native girl?”
Paul Harley nodded.
“The real cause of her death was never known, but I obtained evidence to show that on the night after the wing of a bat had been attached to her hut, she wandered out in her sleep and visited the Black Belt. Can you doubt that someone was calling her?”
“Calling her?”