He waited, trembling. The flame continued to flicker, but the hand holding the candlestick failed to move, and
Bobby knew that the eyes didn't waver, either. He forced his glance from the searching flame. He managed to
lower and steady his voice.
"You can't. That's the trouble. He wasn't murdered. The coroner will tell you so. Anybody who looks at him
will tell you so. Since you haven't the nerve to arrest me. I'm going. I'm glad to have had this out with you.
Understand. I'm my own master. I do what I please. I go where I please."
At last the candle moved to one side. The detective straightened and walked to Bobby. The multitude of small
lines in his face twitched. His voice was too cold for the fury of his words.
"That's just what I want you to do, damn you--anything you please. I'm accusing nobody, but I'm getting
somebody. I've got somebody right now for this old man's murder. My man's going to writhe and burn in the
chair, confession or no confession. Now get out of this room since you're so anxious, and don't come near it
again."
Bobby went. At the end of the corridor he heard the closing of the door, the scraping of the key. He was afraid
the detective might follow him to his room to heckle him further. To avoid that he hurried to the lower floor.
He wanted to be alone. He must have time to accustom himself to this degrading fate which loomed in the
too-close future. Unless they could demolish the detective's theory he, Bobby Blackburn, would go to the
death house.
A fire blazed in the big hall fireplace. Paredes stood with his back to it, smoking and warming his hands. A
man sat in the shadow of a deep leather chair, his rough, unpolished boots stretched toward the flaming logs.
As he came down the stairs Bobby heard the heavy, rumbling voice of the man in the chair:
"Certainly it's a queer case, but not the way Howells means. I daresay the old fool died what the world will
call a natural death. If you smoke so much you will, too, before long."
Bobby tried to slip past, but Paredes saw him.
"Feeling better, Bobby?"
The boots were drawn in. From the depths of the chair arose a figure nearly gigantic in the firelight. The man's
face, at first glance, appeared to be covered with hair. Black and curling, it straggled over his forehead. It
circled his mouth, and fell in an unkempt beard down his waistcoat. The huge man must have been as old as
Silas Blackburn, but he showed no touch of gray. His only concession to age was the sunken and bloodshot
appearance of his eyes.
Bobby and Katherine had always been afraid of this great, grim country practitioner who had attended their
childish illnesses. That sense of an overpowering and incomprehensible personality had lingered. Even
through his graver fear Bobby felt a sharp discomfort as he surrendered his hand to the other's absorbing
grasp.
"I'm afraid you came too late this time, Doctor Groom."
The doctor looked him up and down.
"Not for you, I guess," he grumbled. "Don't you know you're sick, boy?"
Bobby shook his head