"No mark at all. If Howells wasn't asleep, his murderer must have been invisible as well as noiseless."
Doctor Groom smiled. The coroner glared at him.
"I suggest, Mr. District Attorney," he squeaked, "that the ordinary layman wouldn't know that this type of
wound would cause immediate death."
"Nor would any man," the doctor answered angrily, "be able to make such a wound with his victim lying on
his back."
"On his back!" Robinson echoed. "But he isn't on his back."
The doctor told of the amazing alteration in the positions of both victims. Bobby regretted with all his heart
that he had made the attempt to get the evidence. Already complete frankness was impossible for him.
Already a feeling of guilt sprang from the necessity of withholding the first-hand testimony which he alone
could give.
"And a woman cried!" Robinson said, bewildered. "All this sounds like a ghost story."
"You've more sense than I thought," Doctor Groom said dryly. "I never could get Howells to see it that way."
"What are you driving at?" Robinson snapped.
"These crimes," the doctor answered, "have all the elements of a ghostly impulse."
Robinson's laugh was a little uncomfortable.
"The Cedars is a nice place for spooks, but it won't do. I'll be frank. Howells telephoned me. He had found
plenty of evidence of human interference. It's evident in both cases that the murderer came back and disturbed
the bodies for some special purpose. I don't know what it was the first time, but it's simple to understand the
last. The murderer came for evidence Howells had on his person."
Bobby couldn't meet the sharp, puffy eyes. He alone was capable of testifying that the evidence had been
removed as if to secrete it from his unlawful hand. Yet if he spoke he would prove the district attorney's point.
He would condemn himself.
"Curious," Graham said slowly, "that the murderer didn't take the evidence when he killed his man."
"I don't know about that," Robinson said, "but I know Howells had evidence on his person. You through,
Coroner? Then we'll have a look, although it's little use."
He walked to the bed and searched Howells's pockets.
"Just as I thought. Nothing. He told me he was preparing a report. If he didn't mail it, that was stolen with the
rest of the stuff. Rawlins's right. He waited too long to make his arrest."
Again Bobby wondered if the man would bring matters to a head now. He could appreciate, however, that
Robinson, with nothing to go on but Howells's telephoned suspicions, might spoil his chances of a solution by
acting too hastily. Rawlins strolled in.
"The two women were asleep," he said. "The old man knows nothing beyond the fact that he heard a woman
crying outside a little while ago."