g time Graham descended the private staircase, carrying a
lighted candle. He beckoned and they followed him back through the
private hall into the wide and mournful bedroom. It encouraged Bobby to
see the district attorney and the detective hurry across it. After all,
they were really without confidence of solving its ghostly riddle. What
they were about to do, he argued, was a last chance. They would find
nothing. They would acknowledge themselves beaten.

When they entered the farther wing he noticed that Katherine's door
stood wide.

"You see," he said.

"When I called her," Graham explained, "she thought something had
happened to her grandfather. She ran out."

"And forgot all about the door," Robinson grinned. "That's lucky.
Now, Rawlins."

Bobby couldn't bring himself to cross the threshold, but from the
corridor he could see the interior of the room and all that went on there
during the next few moments. A candle burned on the bureau, exposing the
feminine neatness and delicacy of the furnishings. The presence of the
three men was a desecration; what they were about to do, an unforgivable
act of vandalism.

Rawlins went to a work table while Robinson rummaged in the closet.
Graham, meantime, bent against the footboard of the bed, watching with
anxious eyes. Bobby's anger was increased by this picture. He resisted an
impulse to run to the stairs and call Katherine up. That would simply
increase Robinson's suspicions. There was nothing she could do, nothing
he could do.

Rawlins had clearly been unsuccessful at the work table. He glided to the
bureau. One after the other he opened the drawers, fumbling within,
lifting the contents out, replacing them with a rough haste while Bobby's
futile rage increased.

Suddenly he saw Graham's attitude alter. Rawlins's back stiffened. He
pulled the bottom drawer altogether from the bureau and thrust it to one
side. He gazed in the opening.

"Come here, Mr. Robinson," he said softly.

Robinson left the closet and stooped beside the detective. He exclaimed.
Graham went closer looking over their backs.

"You'd better see, Bobby," he said without turning.

"Yes," Robinson said. "Let me show you how wrong you were, Mr. Blackburn.
Let me ask if you knew you were wrong."

Bobby entered with a quicker pulse. He, too, stooped and looked in the
opening. Abruptly everything altered for him. He wondered that his
physical surroundings should remain the same, that the eager