“If it’s so far-fetched,” Graham asked quietly, “why do you revolt from the idea?”

Bobby turned on him.

“And why do you fill my mind with such thoughts?  If you think I’m guilty say so.  Go tell Robinson so.”

He glanced away while the angry colour left his face.  He was a little dazed by the realization that he had spoken to Graham as he might have done to an enemy, as he had spoken to Howells in the old bedroom.  He felt the touch of Graham’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’m only working in your service,” Graham said kindly.  “I’m sorry if I’ve troubled you by seeking physical facts in order to escape the ghosts.  For Groom has brought the ghosts back with him.  Don’t make any mistake about that.  You want the truth, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Bobby said, “even if it does for me.  But I want it quickly.  I can’t go on this way indefinitely.”

Yet that flash of temper had given him courage to face the ordeal.  A lingering resentment at Graham’s suggestion lessened the difficulty of his position.  Entering the court, he scarcely glanced at the black wagon.

There were more dark-clothed men in the hall.  Rawlins had returned.  From the rug in front of the fireplace he surveyed the group with a bland curiosity.  Robinson sat near by, glowering at Paredes.  The Panamanian had changed his clothing.  He, too, was sombrely dressed, and, instead of the vivid necktie he had worn from the courthouse, a jet-black scarf was perfectly arranged beneath his collar.  He lounged opposite the district attorney, his eyes studying the fire.  His fingers on the chair arm were restless.

Doctor Groom stood at the foot of the stairs, talking with the clergyman, a stout and unctuous figure.  Bobby noticed that the great stolid form of the doctor was ill at ease.  From his thickly bearded face his reddish eyes gleamed forth with a fresh instability.

The clergyman shook hands with Bobby.  “We need not delay.  Your cousin is upstairs.”  He included the company in his circling turn of the head.

“Any one who cares to go—­”

Bobby forced himself to walk up the staircase, facing the first phase of his ordeal.  He saw that the district attorney realized that, too, for he sprang from his chair, and, followed by Rawlins, started upward.  The entire company crowded the stairs.  At the top Bobby found Paredes at his side.

“Carlos!  Why do you come?”

“I would like to be of some comfort,” Paredes answered gravely.

His fingers on the banister made that restless, groping movement.

Graham summoned Katherine.  One of the black-clothed men opened the door of Silas Blackburn’s room.  He stepped aside, beckoning.  He had an air of a showman craving approbation for the surprise he has arranged.

Bobby went in with the others.  Automatically through the dim light he catalogued remembered objects, all intimate to his grandfather, each oddly entangled in his mind with his dislike of the old man.  The iron bed; the chest of drawers, scratched and with broken handles; the closed colonial desk; the miserly rag carpet—­all seemed mutely asking, as Bobby did, why their owner had deserted them the other night and delivered himself to the ghostly mystery of the old bedroom.