"You know the court seems full of unfriendly things--what the ignorant would call ghosts. I'm Spanish and I
know." After a moment he added: "The woods, too. I shouldn't care to wander through them too much after
dark."
Robinson stared, but Rawlins brushed the question aside.
"What hotel did you go to in Smithtown?"
"It's called the 'New.' Nothing could be farther from the fact."
"Shall I see if that's straight, sir?"
The district attorney agreed, and Rawlins left the room. Paredes laughed.
"How interesting! I'm under suspicion. It would be something, wouldn't it, to commit crimes with the devilish
ingenuity of these? No, no, Mr. District Attorney, look to the ghosts. They alone are sufficiently clever. But I
might say, since you take this attitude, that I don't care to answer any more questions until you discover
something that might give you the right to ask them."
He lay back on the divan, languidly lighting another cigarette. Graham beckoned Robinson. Bobby followed
them out, suspecting Graham's purpose, unwilling that action should be taken too hastily against the
Panamanian; for even now guilty knowledge seemed incompatible with Paredes's polished reserve. When he
joined the others, indeed, Graham with an aggressive air was demanding the district attorney's intentions.
"If he could elude you so easily last night, it's common sense to put him where you can find him in case of
need. He's given you excuse enough."
"The man's got me guessing," Robinson mused, "but there are other elements."
"What's happened since we left?" Graham asked quickly. "Have you got any trace of Howells's evidence?"
Robinson smiled enigmatically, but his failure was apparent.
"I'm like Howells," he said. "I'd risk nearly anything myself to learn how the room was entered, how the
crimes were committed, how those poor devils were made to alter their positions."
"So," Bobby said, "you had my rooms in New York searched. You had me followed to-day. It's ridiculous."
Robinson ignored him. He stepped to the front door, opened it, and looked around the court.
"What did the sphinx mean about ghosts in the court?"
They walked out, gazing helplessly at the trampled grass about the fountain, at the melancholy walls, at the
partly opened window of the room of mystery.
"He knows something," Robinson mused. "Maybe you're right, Mr. Graham, but I wonder if I oughtn't to go
farther and take you all."
Graham smiled uncomfortably, but Bobby knew why the official failed to follow that radical course. Like
Howells, he hesitated to remove from the Cedars the person most likely to solve its mystery. As long as a
chance remained that Howells had been right about Bobby he would give Silas Blackburn's grandson his head,
merely making sure, as he had done this morning, that there should be no escape. He glanced up.