ned helplessly. Paredes sprang to his feet.

"You're taking too much for granted, Graham. There was a murder.
Blackburn was killed. We've as many witnesses to that fact as we have
that he's come back. This man who talks with us, accusing Bobby, may not
stay. Have you thought of that? I have noticed something that makes me
think it possible. I have been afraid to speak of it. But it makes me
hesitate to say that this man is alive, as we understand life. We have to
learn the nature of the forces we are dealing with, exactly how dangerous
they are."

They started at a sharp rap on the front door.

"Now who?" the old man whined. "I wish you wouldn't look at me so. It
makes me feel queer. You're all crazy."

"It's probably Doctor Groom," Bobby said, and stepped to the door,
opening it.

It was Groom. The huge man walked in, struggling out of his coat. At
first the others screened Silas Blackburn from him, but he
acknowledged their strained attitudes, the excitement that still
animated Paredes's face.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Found something, Mr. District
Attorney?"

Robinson moved to one side, jerking his thumb at Silas Blackburn. The
coat and hat slipped from Doctor Groom's hand. His mouth opened. His
great body crept slowly back until the shoulders rested against the wall.
He placed the palms of his hands against the wall as if to push it away
in order to assure further retreat. Always the little, infused eyes
remained fixed on the man who had been his friend. Such terror was
chiefly arresting because of the great figure conquered by it.

Blackburn thrust his pipe in his mouth. He laughed shakily.

"That fellow Groom will have a stroke."

The Doctor's greeting had the difficult quality of a masculine sob.

"Silas Blackburn!"

"Who do you think?" the other whined. "You going to try to frighten me
out of my skin, too? These people are trying to say I've been lying dead
in the old room. Hoped you'd have enough sense to set them right and tell
me what it's all about."

The doctor straightened.

"You did lie dead in the old room."

His harsh, amazed tones held an unqualified conviction.

"I saw you there. I helped the coroner make the examination. You had been
dead for many hours. And I saw you bolted in your coffin. I saw you
buried in the graveyard you'd let go to pieces."

The others had, as far as possible, recovered from the first shock, had
done their best to fathom the mystery, but