have you two been doing up there?" Bobby asked Graham.

"Rawlins is hard-headed," Graham answered in a low, worried tone.

He wouldn't meet Bobby's eyes. He seemed to seek an escape.

"Where's Katherine?" he asked.

"Doctor Groom says she went to the back part of the house. Why won't you
tell me what you were doing?"

"Only keeping Rawlins from trying to make more mischief," Graham
answered.

He wouldn't explain.

"Aren't there enough riddles in this house?" Doctor Groom asked with
frank disapproval.

Rawlins and Robinson joined them, sparing Graham a further defence. The
district attorney had an air of fresh resolution. He was about to speak
when the front door opened quietly, framing the blackness of the court.
They started forward, seeing no one.

Silas Blackburn made a slow, shrinking movement, crying out:

"They've opened the door! Don't let them in. Don't let them come near
me again."

Although they knew Paredes had been in the court the spell of the Cedars
was so heavy upon them that for a moment they didn't know what to expect.
They hesitated with a little of the abnormal apprehension Silas Blackburn
exposed. Then Rawlins sprang forward, and Bobby called:

"Carlos!"

Paredes stepped from one side. He lingered against the black
background of the doorway. It was plain enough something was wrong
with him. In the first place, although he had opened the door, he had
been unwilling to enter.

"Shut the door," Silas Blackburn moaned.

Paredes, with a quick gesture of surrender, stepped in and obeyed. His
face was white. He had lost his immaculate appearance. His clothing
showed stains of snow and mould. He held his left hand behind his back.

"What's the matter with you?" Robinson demanded.

The Panamanian's laugh lacked its usual indifference.

"When I said the Cedars was full of ghosts I should have heeded my own
warning. I might better have stayed comfortably locked up in Smithtown."

Silas Blackburn spoke in a hoarse whisper:

"What did you see out there? Are they coming?"

"I saw very little," Paredes answered. "It was too dark."

"You saw something," Doctor Groom rumbled.

Paredes nodded. He looked at the floor.

"A--a woman in black."

"By the lake!" Bobby cried.

"Not as far as the lake. It was near the empty grave."

Silas Blackburn commenced to shake again. The doctor's little eyes
were wider.

"It was a woman--a flesh-and-blood woman?" Robinson asked.

"If it was a ghost