Paredes's questions had clearly added to the uncertainty of his manner.
Katherine spoke softly:
"We are afraid."
The others came down. Robinson walked close to Silas Blackburn and for some time gazed at the gray face.
"Yes," he said. "You are Silas Blackburn. You came to my office in Smithtown the other day and asked for a detective, because you were afraid of something out here."
"There's no question," Graham cried. "Of course it is Mr. Blackburn, yet it couldn't be."
"What you all talking about? Why are the police in my house? Why do you act like fools and say I was dead?"
They gathered in a group at some distance from him. They unconsciously ignored this central figure, as if he were, in fact, a ghost. Bobby and Katherine told how they had found the old man, a black shadow against the wall of the wing. Paredes repeated the questions he had asked and their strange answers. Afterward Robinson turned to Silas Blackburn, who waited, trembling.
"Then you did go to the old room to sleep. You lay down on the bed, but you say you didn't stay. You must tell us why not, and how you got out, and where you've been during this prolonged sleep. I want everything that happened from the moment you entered the old bedroom until you wakened."
"That's simple," Silas Blackburn mouthed. "I went there along about ten o'clock, wasn't it, Katy?"
"Nearly half past," she said. "And you frightened me."