ce rose, shrill and angry:

"What's the matter with you all? Why do you talk of ghosts and my being
dead? Haven't I a right to come in my own house? You all act as if you
were afraid of me."

Paredes's questions had clearly added to the uncertainty of his manner.
Katherine spoke softly:

"We are afraid."

The others came down. Robinson walked close to Silas Blackburn and for
some time gazed at the gray face.

"Yes," he said. "You are Silas Blackburn. You came to my office in
Smithtown the other day and asked for a detective, because you were
afraid of something out here."

"There's no question," Graham cried. "Of course it is Mr. Blackburn, yet
it couldn't be."

"What you all talking about? Why are the police in my house? Why do you
act like fools and say I was dead?"

They gathered in a group at some distance from him. They unconsciously
ignored this central figure, as if he were, in fact, a ghost. Bobby and
Katherine told how they had found the old man, a black shadow against the
wall of the wing. Paredes repeated the questions he had asked and their
strange answers. Afterward Robinson turned to Silas Blackburn, who
waited, trembling.

"Then you did go to the old room to sleep. You lay down on the bed, but
you say you didn't stay. You must tell us why not, and how you got out,
and where you've been during this prolonged sleep. I want everything that
happened from the moment you entered the old bedroom until you wakened."

"That's simple," Silas Blackburn mouthed. "I went there along about ten
o'clock, wasn't it, Katy?"

"Nearly half past," she said. "And you frightened me."

"He must tell us why he went, why he was afraid to sleep in his own
room," Graham began.

Robinson held up his hand.

"One question at a time, Mr. Graham. The important thing now is to learn
what happened in the room. You're not forgetting Howells, are you?"

Silas Blackburn glanced at the floor. He moved his feet restlessly. He
fumbled in his pocket for some loose tobacco. With shaking fingers he
refilled his pipe.

"Except for Bobby and Katherine," he quavered, "you don't know what that
room means to Blackburns; and they only know by hearsay, because I've
seen it was kept closed. Don't see how I'm going to tell you--"

"You needn't hesitate," Robinson encouraged him. "We've all experienced
something of the peculiarities of the Cedars. Your return alone's enough
to keep us from laughter."

"All right," the old man stumbled