Groom's fear increased. His
reddish eyes grew always more alarmed. Silas Blackburn turned with a
quick, frightened gesture, facing the fire. Paredes drew a deep breath.

"Now you'll see," he said.

Doctor Groom shrank against the wall again. After a moment, with the
motions of one drawn by an outside will, he approached the figure at the
fireplace. Then Bobby saw, and he heard Katherine's choked scream. For
now that his grandfather's back was turned there was plainly visible on
the white of the collar, near the base of the brain, a scarlet stain. And
the hair above it was matted.

"That's what I meant," Paredes whispered.

Graham moved back.

"Good God!"

Robinson stared. The fear had found him, too.

Doctor Groom touched Blackburn's shoulder tentatively.

"What's the matter with the back of your neck?"

Blackburn drew fearfully away. He raised his hand and fumbled at the top
of his collar. He held his fingers to the firelight.

"Why," he said blankly, "I been bleeding back there."

To an extent the doctor controlled himself.

"Sit down here, Silas Blackburn," he said. "I want to get the lamplight
on your head."

"I ain't badly hurt?" Blackburn whined.

"I don't know," the doctor answered. "Heaven knows."

Blackburn sat down. The light shone full on the stained collar and the
dark patch of hair at the base of the brain. Doctor Groom examined the
wound minutely. He straightened. He spoke unsteadily:

"It is a healed wound. It was made by something sharp."

Robinson thrust his hands in his pockets.

"You're getting beyond my depths, Doctor. Bring him up to the old
bedroom. I want him to see that pillow."

But Blackburn cowered in his chair.

"I won't go to that room again. They don't want me there. I'll have work
started in the cemetery to-morrow."

"Mr. Blackburn," Robinson said, "the man we buried in the cemetery
to-day, the man these members of your family identify as yourself, died
of just such a wound as the doctor says has healed in your head."

Blackburn cowered farther in his chair.

"You're making fun of me," he whimpered. "You're trying to scare
an old man."

"No," Robinson said. "How was that wound made?"

The crouched figure wagged its head from side to side.

"I don't know. Nothing's touched me there. I remember I had a headache
when I woke up. Why doesn't Groom tell me why I slept so long?"

"I only know," Groom rumbled, "that the wound I examined upstairs must
have caused