“You ought to congratulate yourself that you still keep it,” the doctor grumbled.

Bobby took the pan and the bottles from Katherine and rang for Jenkins.  It was clear that Robinson had hoped the girl would go out with them herself and so give Paredes an opportunity to speak.  This new development made him wonder about Graham’s theories as to Paredes.  If it was Maria who had struck the man there had either been a quarrel among thieves or else no criminal connection had ever existed between the two.  Paredes, however, aping the gestures of an invalid, was less to Bobby’s taste than his satanic appearance when he had come from the private staircase.

Rawlins still held the cloak.  After Jenkins had removed the doctor’s paraphernalia, everyone seemed to wait.  It was Silas Blackburn who finally released the strain.

“Katy, where you been with that cloak?  What’s he doing with it?”

Without answering she took the cloak from Rawlins, and gave the detective and the district attorney the opportunity they craved.  She walked up the stairs, turning at the landing.  Her farewell seemed pointed at the Panamanian who looked languidly up at her.

“If I’m wanted I shall be in my room.”

“Who would want you, Katherine?” Graham blurted out.  But it was clear he had caught the coincidence, too, and the trouble he had confessed a little earlier was radically increased.

“That remains to be seen,” Robinson sneered as soon as she had gone.  “Now, Mr. Paredes.”

“I’ve really told you everything,” he said.  “I walked toward the graveyard.  At a point very close to it I felt the presence of this creature in black.  I spoke.  I took my courage in my hands.  I reached out.  I touched nothing.”  He raised his injured hand.  “I got this for my pains.”

“What made you go to the graveyard?” Robinson asked suspiciously.

There was no mockery in the Panamanian’s answer.

“I have told you the court for me has always been full of ghosts.”  He pointed to Silas Blackburn.  “It frightened me that this man should come back through the court from his grave with all the evidence pointing to an astral magic.  I wanted to retrace his journey.  I thought at the grave, if I were alone, something might expose itself that had naturally remained hidden in the presence of so many materialistic human beings.”

A smile spread over Rawlins’s cold, unimaginative features.

“That sounds well, Mr. Paredes, and there is a lot about this case that looks like ghosts, but leave us a few flesh-and-blood clues.  This woman in black is one of them, although she’s been slippery as an eel.  It looks to me as if you went to the grave to meet her alone exactly as you went to the deserted house to talk quietly with her night before last.  Maybe she mistook you for one of us snooping in the dark, and let you have it.”

“If that is so,” Paredes said easily, “the nature of my wound would suggest that she is guilty of the crimes in the old room.  Why not go out and arrest her then?  She might explain everything except the return to life of Mr. Blackburn.  I’m afraid that’s rather beyond you in any case.  But at least find her.”