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Graham, Paredes, and he knelt in the snow and helped the detective raise the heavy lid. They placed it at the side of the grave. They all forced themselves to glance downward. Katherine screamed. Silas Blackburn leaned on Bobby's arm, shaking with gross, impossible sobs. Paredes shrugged his shoulders. The light wavered in Robinson's hand. They continued to stare. There was nothing else to do.
"If it was a ghost," Paredes answered, "it had the power of attack; but that, as you'll recall, is by no means unusual here. That's why I've come in rather against my will. It seems strange, but I, too, have been struck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctor had better look at the result."
And each moment the physical surroundings of the pursuit increased Bobby's doubt of Paredes. No ordinary impulse would bring a man to such a place in this black hour before the dawn particularly Paredes, who spoke constantly of his superstitious nature, who advertised a thorough-paced fear of the Cedars.
Katherine, Graham, and the doctor, Bobby could see, had been made as uneasy as himself by the change in the Panamanian. The doctor cleared his throat. His voice broke the silence tentatively: "If this house makes you so unhappy, young man, why do you stay?" Paredes paused in his walk. His thin lips twitched. He indicated Bobby. "For the sake of my very good friend.
It was not until they were out of the house, however, leaving it silently by way of the back door, that he ventured to whisper: "General, there is a guard already stationed in front. President Paredes is making his last effort to stop his downfall, and he has heard that you are in the city. All your friends will be closely watched, to-day."
"Naturally," Paredes said, "and you must admit the game is as beautifully simple as the panel. The instrument of death wasn't inserted through the bedding as you thought inevitable, Doctor. Suppose you were lying in that bed, asleep, or half asleep, and you were aroused by such a sound as that in the wall behind you? What would you do? What would any man do first of all?" Robinson nodded.
The table had lifted slowly toward the Panamanian. It stood now on two legs. "What is it?" Katherine said. "It's moving. I can feel it move beneath my fingers." Her words recalled to Bobby unavoidably his experience in the old room. "Don't do that!" the doctor cried. Paredes smiled. "If," he answered, "the source of these crimes is, as you think, spiritual, why not ask the spirits for a solution?
The French consul, Felipe de Paredes, a Catalonian by birth, offered the hospitality of his house pending the arrival of the indispensable safe-conduct and escort from the Sultan. In the Legatio Babylonica, Peter Martyr describes, with lamentations, the squalor of the once splendid city of Alexandria, famous for its beautiful gardens, superb palaces, and rich libraries.
I think that Don Maria Paredes would make as good an emperor as Augustin de Yturbide, and he will wear the crown of Mexico somewhat longer. But I must look out for Santa Anna. If he were to return from Cuba too soon, there would be nothing left for me but to have him shot as soon as he came ashore. Or else he might have me shot not many days afterward.
"Paredes left the house to go to the stagnant lake where I fancied I saw a woman in black. Do you see? And he didn't hear the crying of a woman a little while ago, and when we told him he became restless. He wandered about the hall talking of ghosts." "A rendezvous!" Graham answered. "He may have been waiting for just that. The crying may have been a signal.
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