p
me. I've no reason to disbelieve him."

A little colour came into Katherine's face. She half stretched out her
hand as if in an appeal. But the colour faded and her hand dropped.

"We are wasting time," she said. "You had better go."

"I am sorry we disagree about Carlos," he commenced.

She turned deliberately away from him.

"You must hurry," she said. "Hurry!"

He saw her enter the corridor to join Graham. The obscurity of the narrow
place seemed to hold for him a new menace.

He walked downstairs slowly. While he telephoned, instructing a servant
to tell the doctor to be dressed and ready in twenty minutes, he saw
Paredes go to the closet and get his hat and coat.

"I shall keep you company," the Panamanian announced.

Bobby was glad enough to have him. He didn't want to be alone. He was
aware by this time that no amount of thought would persuade useful
memories to emerge from the black pit. They walked to the stable, half
gone to ruin like the rest of the estate. Bobby started Graham's car. The
servants' quarters, he saw, were dark. Then Jenkins and the two women
hadn't been aroused, were still ignorant of the new crime. As they drove
smoothly past the gloomy house they glimpsed through the court the dimly
lit windows of the old room that persistently guarded its grim secret.
Bobby pictured the living as well as the dead there, and his mind
revolted, and he shivered. He opened the throttle wider. The car sprang
forward. The divergent glare from the headlights forced back the
reluctant thicket. Paredes drawled unexpectedly:

"There is nothing as lonely anywhere in the world."

He stooped behind the windshield and lighted a cigarette.

"At least. Bobby," he said between puffs, "the Cedars has taken from you
the fear of Howells."

And after a time, staring at the glow of his cigarette, he went on
softly:

"Have you noticed anything significant about the discovery of each
mystery at the Cedars?"

"Many things," Bobby muttered.

"Think," Paredes urged him.

Bobby answered angrily:

"You've suggested that to me once to-day, Carlos. You mean that each time
I have been asleep or unconscious."

"I mean something quite different," Paredes said.

He hesitated. When he continued, his drawl was more pronounced.

"Then you haven't remarked that each time it has been Miss Katherine who
has made the discovery, who has aroused the rest of the house?"

The car swerved sharply. Bobby's first impulse had