Standing in the doorway he bowed, and if his smile was Mephistophelean,
there was much about Colonel Juan Menendez which commanded respect.

"Mr. Harley," he began, and his high, thin voice afforded yet another
surprise, "I feel somewhat ill at ease to--how do you say it?--
appropriate your time, as I am by no means sure that what I have to say
justifies my doing so."

He spoke most fluent, indeed florid, English. But his sentences at
times were oddly constructed; yet, save for a faint accent, and his
frequent interpolation of such expressions as "how do you say?"--a sort
of nervous mannerism--one might have supposed him to be a Britisher who
had lived much abroad. I formed the opinion that he had read
extensively, and this, as I learned later, was indeed the case.

"Sit down, Colonel Menendez," said Harley with quiet geniality.
"Officially, my working day is ended, I admit, but if you have no
objection to the presence of my friend, Mr. Knox, I shall be most happy
to chat with you."

He smiled in a way all his own.

"If your business is of a painfully professional nature," he added, "I
must beg you to excuse me for fourteen days, as I am taking a badly
needed holiday with my friend."

"Ah, is it so?" replied the Colonel, placing his hat and cane upon the
table, and sitting down rather wearily in a big leathern armchair which
Harley had pushed forward. "If I intrude I am sorry, but indeed my