Bobby agreed indifferently.  They walked slowly back to the house.  Graham made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead.

“What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?” he asked.  “He ignores what happened yesterday.  He settles himself in the Cedars again.”

“I don’t know what to think of it,” Bobby answered.  “This morning Carlos gave me the creeps.”

Graham glanced at him curiously.  He spoke with pronounced deliberation, startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that Paredes’s arrival had driven into his own mind.

“Gave me the creeps, too.  Makes me surer than ever that he has an abominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here.  He suggests resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old room.  You’ll confess, Bobby, he’s had a good deal of influence over you—­an influence for evil?”

“I’ve liked to go around with him, if that’s what you mean.”

“Isn’t he the cause of the last two or three months nonsense in New York?”

“I won’t blame Carlos for that,” Bobby muttered.

“He influenced you against your better judgment,” Graham persisted, “to refuse to leave with me the night of your grandfather’s death.”

“Maria did her share,” Bobby said.

He broke off, looking at Graham.

“What are you driving at?”

“I’ve been asking myself since he came back,” Graham answered, “if there’s any queer power behind his quiet manner.  Maybe he is psychic.  Maybe he can do things we don’t understand.  I’ve wondered if he had, without your knowing it, acquired sufficient influence to direct your body when your mind no longer controlled it.  It’s a nasty thought, but I’ve heard of such things.”

“You mean Carlos may have made me go to the hall last night, perhaps sent me to the old room those other times?”

Now that another had expressed the idea Bobby fought it with all his might.

“No.  I won’t believe it.  I’ve been weak, Hartley, but not that weak.  And I tell you I did feel Howells’s body move under my hand.”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Graham said gently.  “I must consider every possibility.  You were excited and imaginative when you went to the old room to take the evidence.  It was a shock to have your candle go out.  Your own hand, reaching out to Howells, might have moved spasmodically.  I mean, you may have been responsible for the thing without realizing it.”

“And the disappearance of the evidence?” Bobby defended himself.

“If it had been stolen earlier the coat pocket might have retained its bulging shape.  We know now that Paredes is capable of sneaking around the house.”

“No, no,” Bobby said hotly.  “You’re trying to take away my one hope.  But I was there, and you weren’t.  I know with my own senses what happened, and you don’t.  Paredes has no such influence over me.  I won’t think of it.”