gave it to me to mail just before he went up to the
old room."

"You mailed it?" Graham snapped.

Jenkins hesitated. When he answered his voice was self-accusing.

"I'm an old coward, Mr. Robert. The policeman told me the letter was very
important, and if anything happened to it I would get in trouble. He
couldn't afford to leave the house himself, he said. But, as I say, I'm a
coward, and I didn't want to walk through the woods to the box by the
gate. I figured it all out. It wouldn't be taken up until early in the
morning, and if I waited until daylight it would only be delayed one
collection. So I made up my mind I'd sleep on it, because I knew he had
it in for you, Mr. Robert. I supposed I'd mail it in the morning, but I
decided I'd think it over anyway and not harrow myself walking through
the woods."

"You've done a good job," Graham said excitedly. "Where is the
report now?"

"In my room. Shall I fetch it, sir?"

Graham nodded, and Jenkins shuffled up the stairs.

"What luck!" Graham said. "Howells must have telephoned his suspicions to
the district attorney. He must have mentioned the evidence, but what does
that amount to since it's disappeared along with the duplicate of the
report, if Howells made one?"

"I can fight with a clear conscience," Bobby cried. "I wasn't asleep
when Howells's body altered its position. Do you realize what that means
to me? For once I was wide awake when the old room was at its tricks."

"If Howells were alive," Graham answered shortly, "he would look on the
fact that you were awake and alone with the body as the worst possible
evidence against you."

Bobby's elation died.

"There is always something to tangle me in the eyes of the law with these
mysteries. But I know, and I'll fight. Can you find any trace of a
conspiracy against me in this last ghastly adventure?"

"It complicates everything," Graham admitted.

"It's beyond sounding," Bobby said, "for my grandfather's death last
night and the disturbance of his body this afternoon seemed calculated to
condemn me absolutely, yet Howells's murder and the movement of his body,
with the disappearance of the cast and the handkerchief, seem designed to
save me. Are there two influences at work in this house--one for me, one
against me?"

"Let's think of the human elements," Graham answered with a frown. "I
have no faith in Paredes. My man has failed to report on Maria. That's
queer. You fancy a woman in black slipping