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,” Paredes answered, “it had the power of attack; but that, as you’ll recall, is by no means unusual here.  That’s why I’ve come in rather against my will.  It seems strange, but I, too, have been struck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctor had better look at the result.”

With a motion of repugnance he moved his left hand from behind his back and stretched it to the light.  The coat below the elbow was torn.  The slender hand was crimson.  He tried to smile.

“Luckily it wasn’t at the back of my head.”

“Sit down,” Doctor Groom said, waving Robinson and Rawlins away.  “Let me see how badly he’s hurt.  There’ll be plenty of time for questions afterward.”

Paredes lay back in one of the chairs and extended his arm.  He kept his eyes closed while the doctor stooped, examining the wound.  All at once his nearly perpetual sleeplessness since coming to the Cedars had recorded itself in his face.  His nerves at last confessed their vulnerability as he fumbled for a cigarette with his good hand, as he placed it awkwardly between his lips.

“Would you mind giving me a light, Bobby?”

Bobby struck a match and held it to the cigarette.

“Thanks,” Paredes said.  “Are you nearly through, doctor?  I daresay it’s nothing.”

Doctor Groom glanced up.

“Nothing serious with a little luck.  It’s only torn through a muscle.  It might have pierced the large vein.”

His forehead beneath the shaggy black hair was deeply lined.  He turned to Robinson doubtfully.

“Maybe you’ll tell us,” Robinson said, “what made the wound.”

“No use shirking facts,” the doctor rumbled.  “Mr. Paredes has been wounded just as he said, by something sharp and slender.”

“You mean,” Robinson said, “by an instrument that could have caused death in the case of Howells and—­and—­”

“I won’t have you looking at me that way,” Silas Blackburn whined.

“Yes,” the doctor answered.  “Before we go any farther I want to bind this arm.  There must be an antiseptic in the house.  Where is Katherine?  See if you can find her, Bobby.”

As Bobby started to cross the dining room he heard the slight scraping of the door leading to the kitchen.  He knew there was someone in the room with him.  He touched a cold hand.