voices of the three men in the lower hall weaved a
background for their whispers. The normal, familiar sound was like a
tonic. Bobby straightened. Katherine threw off the spell of his
announcement.

"But the evidence! You got--"

She stared at his empty hands. He fancied that he saw contempt in her
eyes.

"In spite of everything you must go back. You must get that."

"Even if I had the courage," he said wearily, "it would be no use, for
the evidence is gone."

"But I saw it. At least I saw his pocket--"

"It was there," he answered, "when my light went out. I did put my hand
in his pocket. In that second it had gone."

"There was no one there," she said, "no one but you, because I watched."

He leaned heavily against the wall.

"Good God, Katherine! It's too big. Whatever it is, we can't fight it."

She looked for some time down the corridor at the black entrance of the
sinister room. At last she turned and walked to the banister. She called:

"Hartley! Will you come up?"

Bobby wondered at the steadiness of her voice. The murmuring below
ceased. Graham ran up the stairs. Her summons had been warning enough.
Their attitudes, as Graham reached the upper hall, were eloquent of
Bobby's failure.

"You didn't get the cast and the handkerchief?" he said.

Bobby told briefly what had happened.

"What is one to do?" he ended. "Even the dead are against me."

"It's beyond belief," Graham said roughly.

He snatched up the candle and entered the corridor. Uncertainly Katherine
and Bobby followed him. He went straight to the bed and thrust the candle
beneath the canopy. The others could see from the door the change that
had taken place. The body of Howells was turned awkwardly on its side.
The coat pocket was, as Bobby had described it, flat and empty.

Katherine turned and went back to the hall. Graham's hand shook as
Bobby's had shaken.

"No tricks, Bobby?"

Bobby couldn't resent the suspicion which appeared to offer the only
explanation of what had happened. The candle flickered in the draft.

"Look out!" Bobby warned.

The misshapen shadows danced with a multiple vivacity across the walls.
Graham shaded the candle flame, and the shadows became like morbid
decorations, gargantuan and motionless.

"It's madness," Graham said. "There's no explanation of this that we can
understand."

Howells's straight smile mocked them. As if in answer to Graham a voice
sighed through the room. Its quality was one