ng the judge could hold me only as a material witness. He fixed a
pretty stiff bail, but the local lawyer was there with a bondsman, and I
came back. My clothes are here. You don't mind, Bobby?"

That moment in the hall when Graham had awakened him urged Bobby to reply
with a genuine warmth:

"I don't mind. I'm glad you're out of it. I'm sorry you went as you did.
I was tired, at my wits' end. Your presence in the private staircase was
the last straw. You will forgive us, Carlos?"

Paredes smiled. He put down his coffee cup and lighted a cigarette. He
smoked with a vast contentment.

"That's better. Nothing to forgive, Bobby. Let us call it a
misunderstanding."

Graham moved closer.

"Perhaps you'll tell us now what you were doing in the private
staircase."

Paredes blew a wreath of smoke. His eyes still smiled, but his voice
was harder:

"Bygones are bygones. Isn't that so, Bobby?"

"Since you wish it," Bobby said.

But more important than the knowledge Graham desired, loomed the old
question. What was the man's game? What held him here?

Robinson entered. The flesh around his eyes was puffier than it had been
yesterday. Worry had increased the incongruous discontent of his round
face. Clearly he had slept little.

"I saw you arrive," he said. "Rawlins warned me. But I must say I didn't
think you'd use your freedom to come to us."

Paredes laughed.

"Since the law won't hold me at your convenience in Smithtown I keep
myself at your service here--if Bobby permits it. Could you ask more?"

Bobby shrank from the man with whom he had idled away so much time and
money. That fleeting, satanic impression of yesterday came back, sharper,
more alarming. Paredes's clear challenge to the district attorney was the
measure of his strength. His mind was subtler than theirs. His reserve
and easy daring mastered them all; and always, as now, he laughed at the
futility of their efforts to sound his purposes, to limit his freedom of
action. Bobby didn't care to meet the uncommunicative eyes whose depths
he had never been able to explore. Was there a special power there that
could control the destinies of other people, that might make men walk
unconsciously to accomplish the ends of an unscrupulous brain?

The district attorney appeared as much at sea as the others.

"Thanks," he said dryly to Paredes.

And glancing at Bobby, he asked with a hollow scorn:

"You've no objection to the gentleman visiting you for the