As he entered the court he noticed a discoloured glow diffusing itself through the curtains of the room of death.

He opened the front door.  Paredes and Graham alone sat by the fire.

“Then they’re not through yet,” Bobby said.

Graham arose.  He commenced to pace the length of the hall.

“They’ve had Katherine in that room.  One would think she’d been through enough.  Now they’ve sent for the servants.”

Paredes laughed lightly.

“After this,” he said, “I’m afraid, Bobby, you’ll need the powers of the police to keep servants in your house.”

Muttering, frightened voices came from the dining-room.  Jenkins entered, and, shaking his head, went up the stairs.  The two women who followed him, were in tears.  They paused, as if seeking an excuse to linger on the lower floor, to postpone as long as possible their entrance of the room of death.

Ella, a pretty girl, whose dark hair and eyes suggested a normal vivacity, spoke to Bobby.

“It’s outrageous, Mr. Robert.  He found out all we knew this morning.  What’s he after now?  You might think we’d murdered Mr. Blackburn.”

Jane was older.  An ugly scar crossed her cheek.  It was red and like an open wound as she demanded that Bobby put a stop to these inquisitions.

“I can do nothing,” he said.  “Go on up and answer or they can make trouble for you.”

Muttering again to each other, they followed Jenkins, and in the lower hall the three men waited.

Jenkins came down first.  His face was white.  It twitched.

“The body!” he mouthed.  “It’s moved!  I saw it before.”

He stretched out his hands to Bobby.

“That’s why they wanted us, to find out where we were this afternoon, and everything we’ve done, as if we might have gone there, and disturbed—­”

Angry voices in the upper hall interrupted him.  The two women ran down, as white as Jenkins.  At an impatient nod from Bobby the three servants went on to the kitchen.  Howells, the coroner, and Doctor Groom descended.

“What ails you, Doctor?” the coroner was squeaking.  “I agree it’s an unpleasant room.  Lots of old rooms are.  I follow you when you say no post-mortem contraction would have caused such an alteration in the position of the body.  There’s no question about the rest of it.  The man was clearly murdered with a sharp tool of some sort, and the murderer was in the room again this afternoon, and disturbed the corpse.  Howells says he knows who.  It’s up to him to find out how.  He says he has plenty of evidence and that the guilty person’s in this house, so I’m not fretting myself.  I’m cross with you, Howells, for breaking up my holiday.  One of my assistants would have done as well.”

Howells apparently paid no attention to the coroner.  His narrow eyes followed the doctor with a growing curiosity.  His level smile seemed to have drawn his lips into a line, inflexible, a little cruel.  The doctor grunted: