ld find him if it
chose, but his throat was tight and it permitted no response.

His glance hadn't wavered from the wall above the stained pillow. There
was movement there. Then he saw. A hand protruded from the blackness of
the panelling where they had sounded and measured without success. In the
ashen, unnatural light from the snow the long fingers of the hand were
like the feelers of a gigantic reptile. They wavered feebly, and he
became convinced that the hand was immaterial, that it was unattached to
any body. If that was so it couldn't be the hand of Katherine. At least
he had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had been wrong about her. That
sense of victory stripped him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tight
band about his throat. He called. He could prove the immaterial nature of
the repulsive hand wavering from the wall.

Crying out, he sprang to his feet. He flung himself across the bed. With
both of his own hands he grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers which
wavered above the stained pillow, and once more his throat tightened. He
couldn't cry out again.

CHAPTER X

THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS

Straightway Bobby repented the alarm he had, perhaps too impulsively,
given. For the hand protruding from the wall was, indeed, flesh and
blood, and with the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine,
conquering his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him. He remembered
the evidence found in Katherine's room, and her refusal to answer
questions. Could Paredes and the officers have been right? Was it
conceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp?

The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins burst through. Graham
ran after him. From the private stairway arose the sound of the district
attorney's hurrying footsteps.

"What is it? What have you got?" Rawlins shouted.

Graham cried out:

"You're all right, Bobby?"

The candle which the detective carried gleamed on the slender fingers,
showing Bobby that they had been inserted through an opening in the
wall. He couldn't understand, for time after time each one of the
panels had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could see dimly the
dark clothing of the person who, with a stealth in itself suggestive of
abnormal crime, had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried up he
wondered if it wouldn't be the better course to free his prisoner, to
cry out, urging an escape.

Already it was too late. The detective and Graham had see