As he started forward Paredes grasped his arm.
"There are too many of us. We would make a noise. Suppose I creep up and investigate."
"There is one way in—at the back," Bobby told the doctor. "Let us go there. We'll have whoever's inside trapped. Meantime, Carlos, if he wishes, will steal up to the front; he'll find out where the light comes from. He'll look in if he can."
"That's the best plan," Paredes agreed.
But they had scarcely turned the corner of the house, beyond reach of the glow, when Paredes rejoined them. His feet were no longer careful in the underbrush. He came up running. For the first time in their acquaintance Bobby detected a lessening of the man's suave, unemotional habit.
"The light!" the Panamanian gasped. "It's gone! Before I could get close it faded out."
Bobby called to the doctor and ran toward the door at the rear. It was unhinged and half open as it had been when he had awakened to his painful and inexplicable predicament. He went through, fumbling in his pocket for matches. The damp chill of the hall nauseated him as it had done before, seemed to place about his throat an intangible band that made breathing difficult. Before he could get his match safe out the doctor had struck a wax vesta. Its strong flame played across the dingy, streaked walls.
"There's a flashlight, Carlos," Bobby said, "in the door flap of the automobile."
Paredes started across the yard with a haste, it seemed to Bobby, almost eager.
Striking matches as they went, the doctor and Bobby hurried to the front of the house. The rooms appeared undisturbed in their decay. The shutters were closed. The front door was barred. The broken walls from which the plaster hung in shreds leered at them.