“If he calls it murder, Hartley, there’s one thing we’ve got to find out:  what my grandfather was afraid of.  Tell me again, Katherine, everything he said about me.  I can’t believe he could have been afraid of me.”

“He called you,” Katherine answered, “a waster.  He said:  ’God knows what he’ll do next.’  He said he’d ordered you out last night and he hadn’t had a word from you, but that he’d made up his mind anyway.  He was going to have his lawyer this morning and change his will, leaving all his money to the Bedford Foundation, except a little annuity for me.  He grew sentimental and said he had no faith left in his flesh and blood, and that it was sad to grow old with nobody caring for him except to covet his money.  I asked him if he were afraid of you, and all he answered was:  ‘You and Bobby are thicker than thieves.’  Oh, yes.  When I saw him for the last time in the hall he said there was nothing for me to worry about except you.  That’s all.  I remember perfectly.  He said nothing more about you.”

“I wonder,” Bobby muttered, “if a jury wouldn’t think it enough.”

Katherine shook her head.

“There seemed so much more than that behind his fear,” she said.  “As I’ve told you, he gave me a feeling of superstition.  I never once was afraid of a murderer—­of a man in the house.  I was afraid of something queer and active, but not human.”

Bobby straightened.

“Would you,” he asked, “call a man going about in an asphasia quite human?  Somnambulists do unaccountable things—­such as overcoming locked doors—­”

“Don’t, Bobby!  Don’t!” Katherine cried.

“Sh—­h!  Quiet!” Graham warned.

A foot scraped on gravel.

“Maybe the detective,” Bobby suggested.

He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of the detective emerge from the forest.  Instead with a dawning amazement he watched Carlos Paredes stroll into view.  The Panamanian was calm and immaculate.  His Van Dyke beard was neatly trimmed and combed.  As he advanced he puffed in leisurely fashion at a cigarette.

Graham flushed.

“After last night he has the nerve—­”

“Be decent to him,” Bobby urged.  “He might help me—­might clear up last night.”

“I wonder,” Graham mused, “to what extent he could clear it up if he wished.”

Paredes threw his cigarette away as he came closer.  Solemnly he shook hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy.  Even then Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion.  The man turned to Graham.

“Our little difference of last evening,” he said suavely, “will, I hope, evaporate in this atmosphere of unexpected sorrow.  If I was in the wrong I deeply regret it.  My one wish now is to join you in being of use to Bobby and Miss Katherine in their bereavement.  I saw the account in a paper at luncheon.  I came as quickly as possible.”