y help!"

Again Paredes shrugged his shoulders.

"Handcuffs?" he asked Rawlins.

Rawlins ran his hands deftly over the Panamanian's clothing.

"No armed neutrality for me," he grinned. "All right. We'll forget the
bracelets since you haven't a gun."

Puffing at his cigarette, Paredes got his coat and hat and followed the
detective from the house.

Robinson and Graham climbed the private staircase to commence another
systematic search of the hall, to discover, if they could, the motive for
Paredes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily this
opportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what had
happened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of her
despairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her door
and stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been an
expression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face of
Robinson's harsh determination.

"He questioned me for an hour," she said, "principally about the heel
mark in the court. They cling to that, because I don't think they've
found anything new at the lake."

"You don't know anything about it, do you, Katherine? You weren't there?
You didn't do that for me?"

"I wasn't there, Bobby. I honestly don't know any more about it
than you do."

"Carlos was in the court," he mused. "Did you know they'd taken him? We
found him creeping down the private stairway."

There was a hard quality about her gratitude.

"I am glad, Bobby. The man makes me shudder, and all morning they
seemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged every
room--even mine."

She laughed feverishly.

"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed--" She broke off. She picked
at her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyes
and continued: "They seemed almost as doubtful of me as of you."

He recalled Paredes's suspicion of the girl.

"It's nonsense, Katherine. And I'm to blame for that, too."

She put her finger to her lips. Her smile was wistful.

"Hush! You mustn't blame yourself. You mustn't think of that."

Again her solicitude, their isolation in a darkened place, tempted him,
aroused impulses nearly irresistible. Her slender figure, the pretty
face, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swept
him to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the face
of Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn't
fight that tru