"What the devil was that? I don't really believe there could be a woman around here."
"A queer one!" the detective grunted.
The district attorney questioned Bobby and Graham.
"That's the voice you heard from the house?"
Graham nodded.
"Perhaps not so far away."
Doctor Groom, hitherto more captured than any of them by the imminence of a spiritual responsibility for the mystery of the Cedars, was the first now to reach for a rational explanation of this new phase.
"We mustn't let our fancies run away with us. The coroner's right for once. No excuse for a woman hiding in that thicket. A bird, maybe, or some animal—"
"Sounded more like a human being," Robinson objected.
The detective reasoned in a steady unmoved voice: "Only a mad woman would wander through the woods, crying like that without a special purpose. This man Paredes has left the house and come through here. I'd guess it was a signal."