“If it is Maria prowling around the Cedars,” Bobby said, “she’s amazingly slippery, and with Paredes gone what are you going to do with your physical fact?  And how does it explain the friendly influence that wiped out my footprints?  Is it a friendly or an evil influence that snatched away the evidence and that keeps it secreted?”

“We’ll see,” Graham said.  “I’m going after a flesh-and-blood criminal who isn’t you.  I’m going to try to find out what your grandfather was afraid of the night of his murder.”

After a time he glanced up.

“You’ve known Paredes for a long time, Bobby, but I don’t think you’ve ever told me how you met him.”

“A couple of years ago I should think,” Bobby answered.  “Somebody brought him to the club.  I’ve forgotten who.  Carlos was working for a big Panama importing firm.  He was trying to interest this chap in the New York end.  I saw him off and on after that and got to like him for his quiet manner and a queer, dry wit he had in those days.  Two or three months ago he—­he seemed to fit into my humour, and we became pretty chummy as you know.  Even after last night I hate to believe he’s my enemy.”

“He’s your enemy,” Graham answered, “and last night’s the weak joint in his armour.  I wonder if Robinson didn’t scare him away by threatening to question him.  Paredes isn’t connected with that company now, is he?  I gather he has no regular position.”

“No.  He’s picked up one or two temporary things with the fruit companies.  More than his running away, the thing that worries me about Carlos is his ridiculous suspicion of Katherine.”

He told Graham in detail of that conversation.  Graham frowned.  He opened the throttle wider.  Their anxiety increased to know what had happened at the Cedars since their departure.  The outposts of the forest imposed silence, closed eagerly about them, seemed to welcome them to its dead loneliness.  There was a man on guard at the gate.  They hurried past.  The house showed no sign of life, but when they entered the court Bobby saw Katherine at her window, doubtless attracted by the sounds of their arrival.  Her face brightened, but she raised her arms in a gesture suggestive of despair.

“Does she mean the evidence has been found?” Bobby asked.

Graham made no attempt to conceal his real interest, the impulse at the back of all his efforts in Bobby’s behalf.

“More likely Robinson has worried the life out of her since we’ve been gone.  I oughtn’t to have left her.  I set the trap myself.”

When they were in the house their halting curiosity was lost in a vast surprise.  The hall was empty but they heard voices in the library.  They hurried across the dining room, pausing in the doorway, staring with unbelieving eyes at the accustomed picture they had least expected to see.

Paredes lounged on the divan, smoking with easy indifference.  His clothing and his shoes were spotless.  He had shaved, and his beard had been freshly trimmed.  Rawlins and the district attorney stood in front of the fireplace, studying him with perplexed eyes.  The persistence of their regard even after Bobby’s entrance suggested to him that the evidence remained secreted, that the officers, under the circumstances, were scarcely interested in his return.  He was swept himself into an explosive amazement: