hamed," he whispered once. "I've been a beast, leaving you
here alone these weeks. You don't understand quite, why that was." She
wouldn't let him go on. She shook her head. They remained silently by the
fire until Graham and Paredes joined them.

When dinner was announced the detective came from the library, and,
uninvited, sat at the table with them. His report evidently still
filled his mind, for he spoke only when it was unavoidable and then
in monosyllables. Paredes alone ate with a show of enjoyment, alone
attempted to talk. Eventually even he fell silent before the lack
of response.

Afterward he arranged a small card table by the fire in the hall. He
found cards, and, with a package of cigarettes and a box of matches
convenient to his hand, commenced to play solitaire. The detective, Bobby
gathered, had brought his report up to date, for he lounged near by,
watching the Panamanian's slender fingers as they handled the cards
deftly. Bobby, Graham, and Katherine were glad to withdraw beyond the
range of those narrow, searching eyes. They entered the library and
closed the door.

Graham, expectant of a report from his man in New York as to the
movements of Maria and the identity of the stranger, was restless.

"If we could only get one fact," he said, "one reasonable clue that
didn't involve Bobby! I've never felt so at sea. I wonder if, in spite of
Howells's evidence, we're not all a little afraid since this afternoon,
of something such as Katherine felt last night--something we can't
define. Howells alone is satisfied. We must believe in the hand of
another man. Doctor Groom talks about indefinable hands."

"Uncle Silas was so afraid last night!" Katherine whispered.

"That," Bobby cried, "is the fact we must have."

He paused.

"What's that?" he asked sharply.

They sat for some time, listening to the sound of wheels on the gravel,
to the banging of the front door, and, later, to the pacing of men in the
room of death overhead. They tried again to thread the mazes of this
problem whose only conceivable exit led to Bobby's guilt. The movements
upstairs persisted. At last they became measured and dragging, like the
footsteps of men who carried some heavy burden.

They looked at each other then. Katherine hid her eyes.

"It's like a tomb here," Bobby said.

He arranged kindling in the fireplace and touched a match to it. It
hadn't occurred to him to ring for Jenkins. None of them wished to be
disturb