“The woman in black is very brave,” Paredes mused.  “We should have had a visit from her long before this.”

“Do you know who she is?” Robinson asked.  “And as Rawlins says, no tricks.  We haven’t let you go yet.”

“I thought,” Paredes mocked, “that you had identified the woman in black as Miss Katherine.  She hasn’t had anything to do with the mystery directly.  Neither has Bobby.  Neither have I.”

“Then what the devil have you been doing here?” Robinson snapped.

“Seeing your job through,” Paredes answered, “for Bobby’s sake.”

With a warm gratitude Bobby knew that Paredes had told the truth.  Then he had told it in the library yesterday when they had caught him prowling in the private staircase.  All along he had told it while they had tried to convict him of under-handed and unfriendly intentions.

“I saw,” Paredes was saying, “that Howells wouldn’t succeed, and it was obvious you and Rawlins would do worse, while Graham’s blundering from the start left no hope.  Somebody had to rescue Bobby.”

“Then why did you give us the impression,” Graham asked, “that you were not a friend?”

Paredes held up his hand.

“That’s going rather far, Mr. Graham.  Never once have I given such an impression.  I have time after time stated the fact that I was here in Bobby’s service.  That has been the trouble with all of you.  As most detectives do, you have denied facts, searching always for something more subtle.  You have asked for impossibilities while you blustered that they couldn’t exist.  Still every one is prone to do that when he fancies himself in the presence of the supernatural.  The facts of this case have been within your reach as well as mine.  The motive has been an easy one to understand.  Money!  And you have consistently turned your back.”

Robinson spread his hands.

“All right.  Prove that I’m a fool and I’ll acknowledge it.”

Doctor Groom interrupted sharply.

“What was that?”

They bent forward, listening.  Even with Paredes offering them a physical explanation they shrank from the keening that barely survived the heavy atmosphere of the old house.

“You see the woman in black isn’t Miss Perrine,” Paredes said.

He ran down the stairs.  They followed, responding to an excited sense of imminence.  Even in the private staircase the pounding that had followed the cry reached them with harsh reverberations.  Its echoes filled the house as they dashed across the library and the dining room.  In the hall they realized that it came from the front door.  It had attained a feverish, a desperate insistence.

Paredes walked to the fireplace.

“Open the door,” he directed Rawlins.

Rawlins stepped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it wide.

“The woman!” Katherine breathed.

A feminine figure, white with snow, stumbled in, as if she had stood braced against the door.  Rawlins caught her and held her upright.  The flakes whirled from the court in vicious pursuit.  Bobby slammed the door shut.