r said, "his own apparent murder which made his guilt
seem impossible. And I'm not sure you're right now, for there is no other
Blackburn he could have murdered, and Blackburns look alike. You wouldn't
mistake another man for one of them."

"This house," Paredes smiled, "has all along been full of the presence of
the other Blackburn. There has been evidence enough for you all to have
known he was here."

He stretched himself in an easy chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew
the smoke toward the ceiling.

"I shall tell you the simple facts, if only to save my skin from this
blood-thirsty district attorney."

"Rub it in," Robinson grinned. "I'll take my medicine."

They gathered closer about the Panamanian. Jenkins sidled to the back of
his chair.

"I don't see how you found it out," he muttered.

"I had only one advantage over you or the police, Graham," Paredes began,
"and you were in a position to overcome that. Maria did telephone me the
afternoon of that ghastly dinner. She asked me to get hold of Bobby. She
was plainly anxious to keep him in New York that night, and, to be frank,
I was glad enough to help her when you turned up, trying to impress us
with your puritan watchfulness. Even you guessed that she had drugged
Bobby. I suspected it when I saw him go to pieces in the cafe. He gave me
the slip, as I told you, in the coat room when I was trying to get him
home, so I went back and asked Maria what her idea was. She laughed in my
face, denying everything. I, too, suspected the stranger, but I've
convinced myself that he simply happened along by chance.

"Now here's the first significant point: Maria by drugging Bobby defeated
her own purpose. He had been drinking more than the Band of Hope would
approve of, and on top of that he got an overdose of a powerful drug. The
doctor can tell you better than I of the likely effect of such a
combination."

"What I told you in the court, Bobby," the doctor answered, "much the
same symptoms as genuine aphasia. Your brain was unquestionably dulled by
an overdose on top of all that alcohol, while your mechanical reflexes
were stimulated. Automatically you followed your ruling impulse.
Automatically at the last minute you revolted from exposing yourself in
such a condition to your cousin and your grandfather. Your lucid period
in the woods just before you reached the deserted house and went to sleep
showed that your exercise was overcoming the effect of the drug. That