moment, you'll remember, was coloured by the fanciful ideas such a drug
would induce."

"So, Bobby," Paredes said, "although you were asleep when the body moved
and when Howells was murdered, you can be sure you weren't anywhere near
the old room."

"But I walked in my sleep last night," Bobby reminded him.

The doctor slapped his knee.

"I understand. It was only when we thought that was your habit that it
frightened us. It's plain. This sleep-walking had been suggested to you
and you had brooded upon the suggestion until you were bound to respond.
Graham's presence in your room, watching for just that reaction, was a
perpetual, an unescapable stimulation. It would have been a miracle in
itself if your brain had failed to carry it out."

Bobby made a swift gesture of distaste.

"If you hadn't come, Carlos, where would I have been?"

"Why did you come?" Graham asked.

"Bobby was my friend," the Panamanian answered. "He had been very good to
me. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria had
drugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an element
of trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understanding
between her and old Blackburn--perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby away
from the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburn
murdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion on
Bobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me of
his innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for I
had dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get out
here by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was the
key, and I began to speculate about her.

"She had told me something of her history. You might have had as much
from her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was a
child, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother and
an American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been in
Panama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possible
understanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documents
about Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papers
existed, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searched
there a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to get
upstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowing
something, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I fo