"He's your enemy," Graham answered, "and last night's the weak joint in his armour. I wonder if Robinson didn't scare him away by threatening to question him. Paredes isn't connected with that company now, is he? I gather he has no regular position." "No. He's picked up one or two temporary things with the fruit companies. More than his running away, the thing that worries me about Carlos is his ridiculous suspicion of Katherine." He told Graham in detail of that conversation. Graham frowned. He opened the throttle wider. Their anxiety increased to know what had happened at the Cedars since their departure. The outposts of the forest imposed silence, closed eagerly about them, seemed to welcome them to its dead loneliness. There was a man on guard at the gate. They hurried past. The house showed no sign of life, but when they entered the court Bobby saw Katherine at her window, doubtless attracted by the sounds of their arrival. Her face brightened, but she raised her arms in a gesture suggestive of despair. "Does she mean the evidence has been found?" Bobby asked. Graham made no attempt to conceal his real interest, the impulse at the back of all his efforts in Bobby's behalf. "More likely Robinson has worried the life out of her since we've been gone. I oughtn't to have left her. I set the trap myself." When they were in the house their halting curiosity was lost in a vast surprise. The hall was empty but they heard voices in the library. They hurried across the dining room, pausing in the doorway, staring with unbelieving eyes at the accustomed picture they had least expected to see. Paredes lounged on the divan, smoking with easy indifference. His clothing and his shoes were spotless. He had shaved, and his beard had been freshly trimmed. Rawlins and the district attorney stood in front of the fireplace, studying him with perplexed eyes. The persistence of their regard even after Bobby's entrance suggested to him that the evidence remained secreted, that the officers, under the circumstances, were scarcely interested in his return. He was swept himself into an explosive amazement: "Carlos! What the deuce are you doing here?" The Panamanian expelled a cloud of smoke. He smiled. "Resting after a fatiguing walk." In his unexpected presence Bobby fancied a demolition of the hope Graham and he had brought back from the city. He couldn't imagine guilt lurking behind that serene manner. "Where did you come from? What were you up to last night?" There was no accounting for Paredes's daring, he told himself, no accounting for his easy gesture now as he drew again at his cigarette and tossed it in the fireplace. "These gentlemen," he said, "have been asking just that question. I'm honoured. I had no idea my movements were of such interest. I've told them that I took a stroll. The night was over. There was no point in going to bed, and all day I had been without exercise."