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. "I'm very tired. That's all. I'm on my way to the library to try to rest." He freed his hand. The big man nodded approvingly. "I'll send you a dose," he promised, "and don't you worry about your grandfather's having been murdered by any man. I've seen the body. Stuff and nonsense! Detective's an ass. Waiting for coroner, although I know he's one, too." "I pray," Bobby answered listlessly, "that you're right." "If there's any little thing I can do," Paredes offered formally. "No, no. Thanks," Bobby answered. He went on to the library. He glanced with an unpleasant shrinking from the door of the enclosed staircase leading to the private hall just outside the room in which his grandfather lay dead. There was no fire here, but he wrapped himself in a rug and lay on the broad, high-backed lounge which was drawn close to the fireplace, facing it. His complete weariness conquered his premonitions, his feeling of helplessness. The entrance of Jenkins barely aroused him. "Where are you, Mr. Robert?" "Here," Bobby answered sleepily. The butler walked to the lounge and looked over the back. "To be sure, sir. I didn't see you here." He held out a glass. "Doctor Groom said you were to drink this. It would make you sleep, sir." Bobby closed his eyes again. "Put it on the table where I can reach it when I want it." "Yes, sir. Mr. Robert! The policeman? Did he say anything, if I might make so bold as to ask?"