“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 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.