be disposed to regard what I have to tell you rather as a symptom of
what you call nerves than as evidence of any agency directed against
me."

Paul Harley stared curiously at the speaker. "Do I understand you to
suspect that someone is desirous of harming you?" he enquired.

Colonel Menendez slowly nodded his head.

"Such is my meaning," he replied.

"You refer to bodily harm?"

"But yes, emphatically."

"Hm," said Harley; and taking out a tin of tobacco from a cabinet
beside him he began in leisurely manner to load a briar. "No doubt you
have good reasons for this suspicion?"

"If I had not good reasons, Mr. Harley, nothing could have induced me
to trouble you. Yet, even now that I have compelled myself to come
here, I find it difficult, almost impossible, to explain those reasons
to you."

An expression of embarrassment appeared upon the brown face, and now
Colonel Menendez paused and was plainly at a loss for words with which
to continue.

Harley replaced the tin in the cupboard and struck a match. Lighting
his pipe he nodded good humouredly as if to say, "I quite understand."