diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10869-0.txt | 10542 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10869.txt | 10964 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10869.zip | bin | 0 -> 172338 bytes |
6 files changed, 21522 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10869-0.txt b/10869-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d00bd38 --- /dev/null +++ b/10869-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10542 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10869 *** + + THE ABANDONED ROOM + + A Mystery Story + + BY WADSWORTH CAMP + + Author of "The House of Fear," "War's Dark Frame," etc. + + 1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. KATHERINE HEARS THE SLY STEP OF DEATH AT THE CEDARS + + II. THE CASE AGAINST BOBBY + +III. HOWELLS DELIVERS HIMSELF TO THE ABANDONED ROOM + + IV. A STRANGE LIGHT APPEARS AT THE DESERTED HOUSE + + V. THE CRYING THROUGH THE WOODS + + VI. THE ONE WHO CREPT IN THE PRIVATE STAIRCASE + +VII. THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD + +VII. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GRAVE + + IX. BOBBY'S VIGIL IN THE ABANDONED ROOM + + X. THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS + + + + +THE ABANDONED ROOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +KATHERINE HEARS THE SLY STEP OF DEATH AT THE CEDARS + + +The night of his grandfather's mysterious death at the Cedars, Bobby +Blackburn was, at least until midnight, in New York. He was held there by +the unhealthy habits and companionships which recently had angered his +grandfather to the point of threatening a disciplinary change in his +will. As a consequence he drifted into that strange adventure which later +was to surround him with dark shadows and overwhelming doubts. + +Before following Bobby through his black experience, however, it is +better to know what happened at the Cedars where his cousin, Katherine +Perrine was, except for the servants, alone with old Silas Blackburn who +seemed apprehensive of some sly approach of disaster. + +At twenty Katherine was too young, too light-hearted for this care of her +uncle in which she had persisted as an antidote for Bobby's shortcomings. +She was never in harmony with the mouldy house or its surroundings, +bleak, deserted, unfriendly to content. + +Bobby and she had frequently urged the old man to give it up, to move, as +it were, into the light. He had always answered angrily that his +ancestors had lived there since before the Revolution, and that what had +been good enough for them was good enough for him. So that night +Katherine had to hear alone the sly stalking of death in the house. She +told it all to Bobby the next day--what happened, her emotions, the +impression made on her by the people who came when it was too late to +save Silas Blackburn. + +She said, then, that the old man had behaved oddly for several days, as +if he were afraid. That night he ate practically no dinner. He couldn't +keep still. He wandered from room to room, his tired eyes apparently +seeking. Several times she spoke to him. + +"What is the matter, Uncle? What worries you?" + +He grumbled unintelligibly or failed to answer at all. + +She went into the library and tried to read, but the late fall wind +swirled mournfully about the house and beat down the chimney, causing the +fire to cast disturbing shadows across the walls. Her loneliness, and her +nervousness, grew sharper. The restless, shuffling footsteps stimulated +her imagination. Perhaps a mental breakdown was responsible for this +alteration. She was tempted to ring for Jenkins, the butler, to share +her vigil; or for one of the two women servants, now far at the back of +the house. + +"And Bobby," she said to herself, "or somebody will have to come out here +to-morrow to help." + +But Silas Blackburn shuffled in just then, and she was a trifle ashamed +as she studied him standing with his back to the fire, glaring around the +room, fumbling with hands that shook in his pocket for his pipe and some +loose tobacco. It was unjust to be afraid of him. There was no question. +The man himself was afraid--terribly afraid. + +His fingers trembled so much that he had difficulty lighting his pipe. +His heavy brows, gray like his beard, contracted in a frown. His voice +quavered unexpectedly. He spoke of his grandson: + +"Bobby! Damned waster! God knows what he'll do next." + +"He's young, Uncle Silas, and too popular." + +He brushed aside her customary defence. As he continued speaking she +noticed that always his voice shook as his fingers shook, as his stooped +shoulders jerked spasmodically. + +"I ordered Mr. Robert here to-night. Not a word from him. I'd made up my +mind anyway. My lawyer's coming in the morning. My money goes to the +Bedford Foundation--all except a little annuity for you, Katy. It's hard +on you, but I've got no faith left in my flesh and blood." + +His voice choked with a sentiment a little repulsive in view of his +ruthless nature, his unbending egotism. + +"It's sad, Katy, to grow old with nobody caring for you except to covet +your money." + +She arose and went close to him. He drew back, startled. + +"You're not fair, Uncle." + +With an unexpected movement, nearly savage, he pushed her aside and +started for the door. + +"Uncle!" she cried. "Tell me! You must tell me! What makes you afraid?" + +He turned at the door. He didn't answer. She laughed feverishly. + +"It--it's not Bobby you're afraid of?" + +"You and Bobby," he grumbled, "are thicker than thieves." + +She shook her head. + +"Bobby and I," she said wistfully, "aren't very good friends, largely +because of this life he's leading." + +He went on out of the room, mumbling again incoherently. + +She resumed her vigil, unable to read because of her misgivings, staring +at the fire, starting at a harsher gust of wind or any unaccustomed +sound. And for a long time there beat against her brain the shuffling, +searching tread of her uncle. Its cessation about eleven o'clock +increased her uneasiness. He had been so afraid! Suppose already the +thing he had feared had overtaken him? She listened intently. Even then +she seemed to sense the soundless footsteps of disaster straying in the +decayed house, and searching, too. + +A morbid desire to satisfy herself that her uncle's silence meant +nothing evil drove her upstairs. She stood in the square main hall at the +head of the stairs, listening. Her uncle's bedroom door lay straight +ahead. To her right and left narrow corridors led to the wings. Her room +and Bobby's and a spare room were in the right-hand wing. The opposite +corridor was seldom used, for the left-hand wing was the oldest portion +of the house, and in the march of years too many legends had gathered +about it. The large bedroom was there with its private hall beyond, and a +narrow, enclosed staircase, descending to the library. Originally it had +been the custom for the head of the family to use that room. Its ancient +furniture still faded within stained walls. For many years no one had +slept in it, because it had sheltered too much suffering, because it had +witnessed the reluctant spiritual departure of too many Blackburns. + +Katherine shrank a little from the black entrance of the corridor, but +her anxiety centred on the door ahead. She was about to call when a +stirring beyond it momentarily reassured her. + +The door opened and her uncle stepped out. He wore an untidy +dressing-gown. His hair was disordered. His face appeared grayer and more +haggard than it had downstairs. A lighted candle shook in his right hand. + +"What are you doing up here, Katy?" he quavered. + +She broke down before the picture of his increased fear. He shuffled +closer. + +"What you crying for, Katy?" + +She controlled herself. She begged him for an answer to her doubts. + +"You make me afraid." + +He laughed scornfully. + +"You! What you got to be afraid of?" + +"I'm afraid because you are," she urged. "You've got to tell me. I'm all +alone. I can't stand it. What are you afraid of?" + +He didn't answer. He shuffled on toward the disused wing. Her hand +tightened on the banister. + +"Where are you going?" she whispered. + +He turned at the entrance to the corridor. + +"I am going to the old bedroom." + +"Why? Why?" she asked hysterically. "You can't sleep there. The bed isn't +even made." + +He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper: + +"Don't you mention I've gone there. If you want to know, I am afraid. I'm +afraid to sleep in my own room any longer." + +She nodded. + +"And you don't think they'd look for you there. What is it? Tell me what +it is. Why don't you send for some one--a man?" + +"Leave me alone," he mumbled. "Nothing for you to be worried about, +except Bobby." + +"Yes, there is," she cried. "Yes, there is." + +He paid no attention to her fright. He entered the corridor. She heard +him shuffling between its narrow walls. She saw his candle disappear in +its gloomy reaches. + +She ran to her own room and locked the door. She hurried to the window +and leaned out, her body shaking, her teeth chattering as if from a +sudden chill. The quiet, assured tread of disaster came nearer. + +The two wings, stretching at right angles from the main building, formed +a narrow court. Clouds harrying the moon failed quite to destroy its +power, so that she could see, across the court, the facade of the old +wing and the two windows of the large room through whose curtains a +spectral glow was diffused. She heard one of the windows opened with a +grating noise. The court was a sounding board. It carried to her even the +shuffling of the old man's feet as he must have approached the bed. The +glow of his candle vanished. She heard a rustling as if he had stretched +himself on the bed, a sound like a long-drawn sigh. + +She tried to tell herself there was no danger--that these peculiar +actions sprang from the old man's fancy--but the house, her surroundings, +her loneliness, contradicted her. To her over-acute senses the thought of +Blackburn in that room, so often consecrated to the formula of death, +suggested a special and unaccountable menace. Under such a strain the +supernatural assumed vague and singular shapes. + +She slept for only a little while. Then she lay awake, listening with a +growing expectancy for some message to slip across the court. The moon +had ceased struggling. The wind cried. The baying of a dog echoed +mournfully from a great distance. It was like a remote alarm bell which +vibrates too perfectly, whose resonance is too prolonged. + +She sat upright. She sprang from the bed and, her heart beating +insufferably, felt her way to the window. From the wing opposite the +message had come--a soft, shrouded sound, another long-drawn sigh. + +She tried to call across the court. At first no response came from her +tight throat. When it did at last, her voice was unfamiliar in her own +ears, the voice of one who has to know a thing but shrinks from asking. + +"Uncle!" + +The wind mocked her. + +"It is nothing," she told herself, "nothing." + +But her vigil had been too long, her loneliness too complete. Her earlier +impression of the presence of death in the decaying house tightened its +hold. She had to assure herself that Silas Blackburn slept untroubled. +The thing she had heard was peculiar, and he hadn't answered across the +court. The dark, empty corridors at first were an impassable barrier, but +while she put on her slippers and her dressing-gown she strengthened her +courage. There was a bell rope in the upper hall. She might get Jenkins. + +When she stood in the main hall she hesitated. It would probably be a +long time, provided he heard at all, before Jenkins could answer her. Her +candle outlined the entrance to the musty corridor. Just a few running +steps down there, a quick rap at the door, and, perhaps, in an instant +her uncle's voice, and the blessed power to return to her room and sleep! + +While her fear grew she called on her pride to let her accomplish that +brief, abhorrent journey. + +Then for the first time a different doubt came to her. As she waited +alone in this disturbing nocturnal intimacy of an old house, she shrank +from no thought of human intrusion, and she wondered if her uncle had +been afraid of that, too, of the sort of thing that might lurk in the +ancient wing with its recollections of birth and suffering and death. But +he had gone there as an escape. Surely he had been afraid of men. It +shamed her that, in spite of that, her fear defined itself ever more +clearly as something indefinable. With a passionate determination to +strangle such thoughts she held her breath. She tried to close her mind. +She entered the corridor. She ran its length. She knocked at the locked +door of the old bedroom. She shrank as the echoes rattled from the dingy +walls where her candle cast strange reflections. There was no other +answer. A sense of an intolerable companionship made her want to cry out +for brilliant light, for help. She screamed. + +"Uncle Silas! Uncle Silas!" + +Through the silence that crushed her voice she became aware finally of +the accomplishment of its mission by death in this house. And she fled +into the main hall. She jerked at the bell rope. The contact steadied +her, stimulated her to reason. One slender hope remained. The +oppressive bedroom might have driven Silas Blackburn through the +private hall and down the enclosed staircase. Perhaps he slept on the +lounge in the library. + +She stumbled down, hoping to meet Jenkins. She crossed the hall and the +dining room and entered the library. She bent over the lounge. It was +empty. Her candle was reflected in the face of the clock on the mantel. +Its hands pointed to half-past two. + +She pulled at the bell cord by the fireplace. Why didn't the butler come? +Alone she couldn't climb the enclosed staircase to try the other door. It +seemed impossible to her that she should wait another instant alone-- + +The butler, as old and as gray as Silas Blackburn, faltered in. He +started back when he saw her. + +"My God, Miss Katherine! What's the matter? You look like death." + +"There's death," she said. + +She indicated the door of the enclosed staircase. She led the way with +the candle. The panelled, narrow hall was empty. That door, too, was +locked and the key, she knew, must be on the inside. + +"Who--who is it?" Jenkins asked. "Who would be in that room? Has Mr. +Bobby come back?" + +She descended to the library before answering. She put the candle down +and spread her hands. + +"It's happened, Jenkins--whatever he feared." + +"Not Mr. Silas?" + +"We have to break in," she said with a shiver. "Get a hammer, a chisel, +whatever is necessary." + +"But if there's anything wrong," the butler objected, "if anybody's been +there, the other door must be open." + +She shook her head. Those two first of all faced that extraordinary +puzzle. How had the murderer entered and left the room with both doors +locked on the inside, with the windows too high for use? They went to the +upper story. She urged the butler into the sombre corridor. + +"We have to know," she whispered, "what's happened beyond those +locked doors." + +She still vibrated to the feeling of unconformable forces in the old +house. Jenkins, she saw, responded to the same superstitious misgivings. +He inserted the chisel with maladroit hands. He forced the lock back and +opened the door. Dust arose from the long-disused room, flecking the +yellow candle flame. They hesitated on the threshold. They forced +themselves to enter. Then they looked at each other and smiled with +relief, for Silas Blackburn, in his dressing-gown, lay on the bed, his +placid, unmarked face upturned, as if sleeping. + +"Why, miss," Jenkins gasped. "He's all right." + +Almost with confidence Katherine walked to the bed. + +"Uncle Silas--" she began, and touched his hand. + +She drew back until the wall supported her. Jenkins must have read +everything in her face, for he whimpered: + +"But he looks all right. He can't be--" + +"Cold--already! If I hadn't touched--" + +The horror of the thing descended upon her, stifling thought. +Automatically she left the room and told Jenkins what to do. After he had +telephoned police headquarters in the county seat and had summoned Doctor +Groom, a country physician, she sat without words, huddled over the +library fire. + +The detective, a competent man named Howells, and Doctor Groom arrived at +about the same time. The detective made Katherine accompany them upstairs +while he questioned her. In the absence of the coroner he wouldn't let +the doctor touch the body. + +"I must repair this lock," he said, "the first thing, so nothing can be +disturbed." + +Doctor Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent on entering the room. +For a long time he stared at the body in the candle light, making as much +of an examination as he could, evidently, without physical contact. + +"Why did he ever come here to sleep?" he asked in his rumbling bass +voice. "Nasty room! Unhealthy room! Ten to one you're a formality, +policeman. Coroner's a formality." + +He sneered a little. + +"I daresay he died what the hard-headed world will call a natural death. +Wonder what the coroner'll say." + +The detective didn't answer. He shot rapid, uneasy glances about the room +in which a single candle burned. After a time he said with an accent of +complete conviction: + +"That man was murdered." + +Perhaps the doctor's significant words, added to her earlier dread of the +abnormal, made Katherine read in the detective's manner an apprehension +of conditions unfamiliar to the brutal routine of his profession. Her +glances were restless, too. She had a feeling that from the shadowed +corners of the faded, musty room invisible faces mocked the man's +stubbornness. + +All this she recited to Bobby when, under extraordinary circumstances +neither of them could have foreseen, he arrived at the Cedars many +hours later. + +Of the earlier portion of the night of his grandfather's death Bobby +retained a minute recollection. The remainder was like a dim, appalling +nightmare whose impulse remains hidden. + +When he went to his apartment to dress for dinner he found the letter of +which Silas Blackburn had spoken to Katherine. It mentioned the change in +the will as an approaching fact nothing could alter. Bobby fancied that +the old man merely craved the satisfaction of terrorizing him, of +casting him out with all the ugly words at his command. Still a good deal +more than a million isn't to be relinquished lightly as long as a chance +remains. Bobby had an engagement for dinner. He would think the situation +over until after dinner, then he might go. + +It was, perhaps, unfortunate that at his club he met friends who drew him +in a corner and offered him too many cocktails. As he drank his anger +grew, and it wasn't all against his grandfather. He asked himself why +during the last few months he had avoided the Cedars, why he had drifted +into too vivid a life in New York. It increased his anger that he +hesitated to give himself a frank answer. But always at such moments it +was Katherine rather than his grandfather who entered his mind. He had +cared too much for her, and lately, beyond question, the bond of their +affection had weakened. + +He raised his glass and drank. He set the glass down quickly as if he +would have liked to hide it. A big man, clear-eyed and handsome, walked +into the room and came straight to the little group in the corner. Bobby +tried to carry it off. + +"'Lo, Hartley, old preacher. You fellows all know Hartley Graham? Sit +down. We're going to have a little cocktail." + +Graham looked at the glasses, shaking his head. + +"If you've time, Bobby, I'd like a word with you." + +"No preaching," Bobby bargained. "It isn't Sunday." + +Graham laughed pleasantly. + +"It's about money. That talks any day." + +Bobby edged a way out and followed Graham to an unoccupied room. There +the big man turned on him. + +"See here, Bobby! When are you going out to the Cedars?" + +Bobby flushed. + +"You're a dear friend, Hartley, and I've always loved you, but I'm in no +mood for preaching tonight. Besides, I've got my own life to lead"--he +glanced away--"my own reasons for leading it." + +"I'm not going to preach," Graham answered seriously, "although it's +obvious you're raising the devil with your life. I wanted to tell you +that I've had a note from Katherine to-day. She says your grandfather's +threats are taking too much form; that the new will's bound to come +unless you do something. She cares too much for you, Bobby, to see you +throw everything away. She's asked me to persuade you to go out." + +"Why didn't she write to me?" + +"Have you been very friendly with Katherine lately? And that's not +fair. You're both without parents. You owe Katherine something on +that account." + +Bobby didn't answer, because it was clear that while Katherine's +affection for him had weakened, her friendship for Graham had grown too +fast. Looking at the other he didn't wonder. + +"There's another thing," Graham was saying. "The gloomy old Cedars has +got on Katherine's nerves, and she says there's been a change in the old +man the last few days--wanders around as if he were afraid of something." + +Bobby laughed outright. + +"Him afraid of something! It's always been his system to make everybody +and everything afraid of him. But you're right about Katherine. We have +always depended on each other. I think I'll go out after dinner." + +"Then come have a bite with me," Graham urged. "I'll see you off +afterward. If you catch the eight-thirty you ought to be out there before +half-past ten." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"An engagement for dinner, Hartley. I'm expecting Carlos Paredes to pick +me up here any minute." + +Graham's disapproval was belligerent. + +"Why, in the name of heaven, Bobby, do you run around with that damned +Panamanian? Steer him off to-night. I've argued with you before. It's +unpleasant, I know, but the man carries every mark of crookedness." + +"Easy with my friends, Hartley! You don't understand Carlos. He's good +fun when you know him--awfully good fun." + +"So," Graham said, "is this sort of thing. Too many cocktails, too much +wine. Paredes has the same pleasant, dangerous quality." + +A club servant entered. + +"In the reception room, Mr. Blackburn." + +Bobby took the card, tore it into little bits, and dropped them one by +one into the waste-paper basket. + +"Tell him I'll be right out." He turned to Graham. + +"Sorry you don't like my playmates. I'll probably run out after dinner +and let the old man terrorize me as a cure for his own fear. Pleasant +prospect! So long." + +Graham caught at his arm. + +"I'm sorry. Can't we forget to-night that we disagree about Paredes? Let +me dine with you." + +Bobby's laugh was uncomfortable. + +"Come on, if you wish, and be my guardian angel. God knows I need one." + +He walked across the hall and into the reception room. The light was not +brilliant there. One or two men sat reading newspapers about a +green-shaded lamp on the centre table, but Bobby didn't see Paredes at +first. Then from the obscurity of a corner a form, tall and graceful, +emerged with a slow monotony of movement suggestive of stealth. The man's +dark, sombre eyes revealed nothing. His jet-black hair, parted in the +middle, and his carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard gave him an air of +distinction, an air, at the same time, a trifle too reserved. For a +moment, as the green light stained his face unhealthily, Bobby could +understand Graham's aversion. He brushed the idea aside. + +"Glad you've come, Carlos." + +The smile of greeting vanished abruptly from Paredes's face. He looked +with steady eyes beyond Bobby's shoulder. Bobby turned. Graham stood on +the threshold, his face a little too frank. But the two men shook hands. + +"I'd an idea until I saw Bobby," Graham said, "that you'd gone back +to Panama." + +Paredes yawned. + +"Each year I spend more time in New York. Business suggests it. Pleasure +demands it." + +His voice was deep and pleasant, but Bobby had often remarked that it, +like Paredes's eyes, was too reserved. It seemed never to call on its +obvious powers of expression. Its accent was noticeable only in a +pleasant, polished sense. + +"Hartley," Bobby explained, "is dining with us." + +Paredes let no disapproval slip, but Graham hastened to explain. + +"Bobby and I have an engagement immediately after dinner." + +"An engagement after dinner! I didn't understand--" + +"Let's think of dinner first," Bobby said. "We can talk about engagements +afterward. Perhaps you'll have a cocktail here while we decide where +we're going." + +"The aperitif I should like very much," Paredes said. "About dinner there +is nothing to decide. I have arranged everything. There's a table waiting +in the Fountain Room at the C---- and there I have planned a little +surprise for you." + +He wouldn't explain further. While they drank their cocktails Bobby +watched Graham's disapproval grow. The man glanced continually at his +watch. In the restaurant, when Paredes left them to produce, as he called +it, his surprise, Graham appraised with a frown the voluble people who +moved intricately through the hall. + +"I'm afraid Paredes has planned a thorough evening," he said, "for which +he'll want you to pay. Don't be angry, Bobby. The situation is serious +enough to excuse facts. You must go to the Cedars to-night. Do you +understand? You must go, in spite of Paredes, in spite of everything." + +"Peace until train time," Bobby demanded. + +He caught his breath. + +"There they are. Carlos _has_ kept his word. See her, Hartley. She's +glorious." + +A young woman accompanied the Panamanian as he came back through the +hall. She appeared more foreign than her guide--the Spanish of Spain +rather than of South America. Her clothing was as unusual and striking as +her beauty, yet one felt there was more than either to attract all the +glances in this room, to set people whispering as she passed. Clearly she +knew her notoriety was no little thing. Pride filled her eyes. + +Paredes had first introduced her to Bobby a month or more ago. He had +seen her a number of times since in her dressing-room at the theatre +where she was featured, or at crowded luncheons in her apartment. At such +moments she had managed to be exceptionally nice to him. Bobby, however, +had answered merely to the glamour of her fame, to the magnetic response +her beauty always brought in places like this. + +"Paredes," Graham muttered, "will have a powerful ally. You won't fail +me, Bobby? You will go?" + +Bobby scarcely heard. He hurried forward and welcomed the woman. She +tapped his arm with her fan. + +"Leetle Bobby!" she lisped. "I haven't seen very much of you lately. So +when Carlos proposed--you see I don't dance until late. Who is that +behind you? Mr. Graham, is it not? He would, maybe, not remember me. I +danced at a dinner where you were one night, at Mr. Ward's. Even lawyers, +I find, take enjoyment in my dancing." + +"I remember," Graham said. "It is very pleasant we are to dine together." +He continued tactlessly: "But, as I've explained to Mr. Paredes, we must +hurry. Bobby and I have an early engagement." + +Her head went up. + +"An early engagement! I do not often dine in public." + +"An unavoidable thing," Graham explained. "Bobby will tell you." + +Bobby nodded. + +"It's a nuisance, particularly when you're so condescending, Maria." + +She shrugged her shoulders. With Bobby she entered the dining-room at the +heels of Paredes and Graham. + +Paredes had foreseen everything. There were flowers on the table. The +dinner had been ordered. Immediately the waiter brought cocktails. Graham +glanced at Bobby warningly. He wouldn't, as an example Bobby appreciated, +touch his own. Maria held hers up to the light. + +"Pretty yellow things! I never drink them." + +She smiled dreamily at Bobby. + +"But see! I shall place this to my lips in order that you may make +pretty speeches, and maybe tell me it is the most divine aperitif you +have ever drunk." + +She passed the glass to him, and Bobby, avoiding Graham's eyes, wondering +why she was so gracious, emptied it. And afterward frequently she +reminded him of his wine by going through the same elaborate formula. +Probably because of that, as much as anything else, constraint grasped +the little company tighter. Graham couldn't hide his anxiety. Paredes +mocked it with sneering phrases which he turned most carefully. Before +the meal was half finished Graham glanced at his watch. + +"We've just time for the eight-thirty," he whispered to Bobby, "if we +pick up a taxi." + +Maria had heard. She pouted. + +"There is no engagement," she lisped, "as sacred as a dinner, no +entanglement except marriage that cannot be easily broken. Perhaps I have +displeased you, Mr. Graham. Perhaps you fancy I excite unpleasant +comment. It is unjust. I assure you my reputation is above reproach"--her +dark eyes twinkled--"certainly in New York." + +"It isn't that," Graham answered. "We must go. It's not to be evaded." + +She turned tempestuously. + +"Am I to be humiliated so? Carlos! Why did you bring me? Is all the world +to see my companions leave in the midst of a dinner as if I were +plague-touched? Is Bobby not capable of choosing his own company?" + +"You are thoroughly justified, Maria," Paredes said in his expressionless +tones. "Bobby, however, has said very little about this engagement. I did +not know, Mr. Graham, that you were the arbiter of Bobby's actions. In a +way I must resent your implication that he is no longer capable of caring +for himself." + +Graham accepted the challenge. He leaned across the table, speaking +directly to Bobby, ignoring the others: + +"You've not forgotten what I told you. Will you come while there's time? +You must see. I can't remain here any longer." + +Bobby, hating warfare in his present mood, sought to temporize: + +"It's all right, Hartley. Don't worry. I'll catch a later train." + +Maria relaxed. + +"Ah! Bobby still chooses for himself." + +"I'll have enough rumpus," Bobby muttered, "when I get to the Cedars. +Don't grudge me a little peace here." + +Graham arose. His voice was discouraged. + +"I'm sorry. I'll hope, Bobby." + +Without a word to the others he walked out of the room. + +So far, when Bobby tried afterward to recall the details of the evening, +everything was perfectly distinct in his memory. The remainder of the +meal, made uncomfortable by Maria's sullenness and Paredes's sneers, his +attempt to recapture the earlier gayety of the evening by continuing to +drink the wine, his determination to go later to the Cedars in spite of +Graham's doubt--of all these things no particular lacked. He remembered +paying the check, as he usually did when he dined with Paredes. He +recalled studying the time-table and finding that he had just missed +another train. + +Maria's spirits rose then. He was persuaded to accompany her and Paredes +to the music hall. In her dressing-room, while she was on the stage, he +played with the boxes of make-up, splashing the mirror with various +colours while Paredes sat silently watching. + +The alteration, he was sure, came a little later in the cafe at a table +close to the dancing floor. Maria had insisted that Paredes and he should +wait there while she changed. + +"But," he had protested, "I have missed too many trains." + +She had demanded his time-table, scanning the columns of close figures. + +"There is one," she had said, "at twelve-fifteen--time for a little +something in the cafe, and who knows? If you are agreeable I might +forgive everything and dance with you once, Bobby, on the public floor." + +So he sat for some time, expectant, with Paredes, watching the boisterous +dancers, listening to the violent music, sipping absent-mindedly at his +glass. He wondered why Paredes had grown so quiet. + +"I mustn't miss that twelve-fifteen," he said, "You know, Carlos, you +weren't quite fair to Hartley. He's a splendid fellow. Roomed with me at +college, played on same team, and all that. Only wanted me to do the +right thing. Must say it was the right thing. I won't miss that +twelve-fifteen." + +"Graham," Paredes sneered, "is a wonderful type--Apollo in the flesh and +Billy Sunday in the conscience." + +Then, as Bobby started to protest, Maria entered, more dazzling than at +dinner; and the dancers swayed less boisterously, the chatter at the +tables subsided, the orchestra seemed to hesitate as a sort of obeisance. + +A man Bobby had never seen before followed her to the table. His +middle-aged figure was loudly clothed. His face was coarse and clean +shaven. He acknowledged the introductions sullenly. + +"I've only a minute," Bobby said to Maria. + +He continued, however, to raise his glass indifferently to his lips. All +at once his glass shook. Maria's dark and sparkling face became blurred. +He could no longer define the features of the stranger. He had never +before experienced anything of the kind. He tried to account for it, but +his mind became confused. + +"Maria!" he burst out. "Why are you looking at me like that?" + +Her contralto laugh rippled. + +"Bobby looks so funny! Carlos! Leetle Bobby looks so queer! What is the +matter with him?" + +Bobby's anger was lost in the increased confusion of his senses, but +through that mental turmoil tore the thought of Graham and his intention +of going to the Cedars. With shaking fingers he dragged out his watch. He +couldn't read the dial. He braced his hands against the table, thrust +back his chair, and arose. The room tumbled about him. Before his eyes +the dancers made long nebulous bands of colour in which nothing had form +or coherence. Instinctively he felt he hadn't dined recklessly enough to +account for these amazing symptoms. He was suddenly afraid. + +"Carlos!" he whispered. + +He heard Maria's voice dimly: + +"Take him home." + +A hand touched his arm. With a supreme effort of will he walked from the +room, guided by the hand on his arm. And always his brain recorded fewer +and fewer impressions for his memory to struggle with later. + +At the cloak room some one helped him put on his coat. He was walking +down steps. He was in some kind of a conveyance. He didn't know what it +was. An automobile, a carriage, a train? He didn't know. He only +understood that it went swiftly, swaying from side to side through a +sable pit. Whenever his mind moved at all it came back to that sensation +of a black pit in which he remained suspended, swinging from side to +side, trying to struggle up against impossible odds. Once or twice words +flashed like fire through the pit: "Tyrant!--Fool to go." + +From a long immersion deeper in the pit he struggled frantically. He must +get out. Somehow he must find wings. He realized that his eyes were +closed. He tried to open them and failed. So the pit persisted and he +surrendered himself, as one accepts death, to its hateful blackness. + +Abruptly he experienced a momentary release. There was no more swaying, +no more movement of any kind. He heard a strange, melancholy voice, +whispering without words, always whispering with a futile perseverance as +if it wished him to understand something it could not express. + +"What is it trying to tell me?" he asked himself. + +Then he understood. It was the voice of the wind, and it tried to tell +him to open his eyes, and he found that he could. But in spite of his +desire they closed again almost immediately. Yet, from that swift +glimpse, a picture outlined itself later in his memory. + +In the midst of wild, rolling clouds, the moon was a drowning face. +Stunted trees bent before the wind like puny men who strained impotently +to advance. Over there was one more like a real man--a figure, Bobby +thought, with a black thing over its face--a mask. + +"This is the forest near the Cedars," Bobby said to himself. "I've come +to face the old devil after all." + +He heard his own voice, harsh, remote, unnatural, speaking to the dim +figure with a black mask that waited half hidden by the straining trees. + +"Why am I here in the woods near the Cedars?" + +And he thought the thing answered: + +"Because you hate your grandfather." + +Bobby laughed, thinking he understood. The figure in the black mask +that accompanied him was his conscience. He could understand why it +went masked. + +The wind resumed its whispering. The figures, straining like puny men, +fought harder. The drowning face disappeared, wet and helpless. Bobby +felt himself sinking back, back into the sable pit. + +"I don't want to go," he moaned. + +A long time afterward he heard a whisper again, and he wondered if it was +the wind or his conscience. He laughed through the blackness because the +words seemed so absurd. + +"Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It is +the only safe way." + +He laughed again, thinking: + +"What a careful conscience!" + +He retained only one more impression. He was dully aware that some time +had passed. He shivered. He thought the wind had grown angry with him, +for it no longer whispered. It shrieked, and he could make nothing of its +wrath. He struggled frantically to emerge from the pit. The quality of +the blackness deepened. His fright grew. He felt himself slipping, slowly +at first then faster, faster down into impossible depths, and there was +nothing at all he could do to save himself. + + * * * * * + +"Go away! For God's sake, go away!" + +Bobby thought he was speaking to the sombre figure in the mask. His voice +aroused him to one more effort at escape, but he felt that there was no +use. He was too deep. + +Something hurt his eyes. He opened them and for a time was blinded by a +narrow shaft, of sunlight resting on his face. With an effort he moved +his head to one side and closed his eyes again, at first merely thankful +that he had escaped from the black hell, trying to control his +sensations of physical evil. Subtle curiosity forced its way into his +sick brain and stung him wide awake. This time his eyes remained open, +staring about him, dilating with a wilder fright than he had experienced +in the dark mazes of his nightmare adventure. + +He had never seen this place before. He lay on the floor of an empty +room. The shaft of sunlight that had aroused him entered through a crack +in one of the tightly drawn blinds. There were dust and grime on the +wails, and cobwebs clustered in the corners. + +In the silent, deserted room the beating of his heart became audible. He +struggled to a sitting posture. He gasped for breath. He knew it was very +cold in here, but perspiration moistened his face. He could recall no +such suffering as this since, when a boy, he had slipped from the crisis +of a destructive fever. + +Had he been drugged? But he had been with friends. There was no motive. + +What house was this? Was it, like this room, empty and deserted? How had +he come here? For the first time he went through that dreadful process of +trying to draw from the black pit useful memories. + +He started, recalling the strange voice and its warning, for his shoes +lay near by as though he might have dropped them carelessly when he had +entered the room and stretched himself on the floor. Damp earth adhered +to the soles. The leather above was scratched. + +"Then," he thought, "that much is right. I was in the woods. What was I +doing there? That dim figure! My imagination." + +He suffered the agony of a man who realizes that he has wandered +unawares in strange places, and retains no recollection of his actions, +of his intentions. He went back to that last unclouded moment in the +cafe with Maria, Paredes, and the stranger. Where had he gone after he +had left them? He had looked at his watch. He had told himself he must +catch the twelve-fifteen train. He must have gone from the restaurant, +proceeding automatically, and caught the train. That would account for +the sensation of motion in a swift vehicle, and perhaps there had been a +taxicab to the station. Doubtless in the woods near the Cedars he had +decided it was too late to go in, or that it was wiser not to. He had +answered to the necessity of sleeping somewhere. But why had he come +here? Where, indeed, was he? + +At least he could answer that. He drew on his shoes--a pair of patent +leather pumps. He fumbled for his handkerchief, thinking he would brush +the earth from them. He searched each of his pockets. His handkerchief +was gone. No matter. He got to his feet, lurching for a moment dizzily. +He glanced with distaste at his rumpled evening clothing. To hide it as +far as possible he buttoned his overcoat collar about his neck. On +tip-toe he approached the door, and, with the emotions of a thief, +opened it quietly. He sighed. The rest of the house was as empty as this +room. The hall was thick with dust. The rear door by which he must have +entered stood half open. The lock was broken and rusty. + +He commenced to understand. There was a deserted farmhouse less than two +miles from the Cedars. Since he had always known about it, it wasn't +unusual he should have taken shelter there after deciding not to go in to +his grandfather. + +He stepped through the doorway to the unkempt yard about whose tumbled +fences the woods advanced thickly. He recognized the place. For some time +he stood ashamed, yet fair enough to seek the cause of his experience in +some mental unhealth deeper than any reaction from last night's folly. + +He glanced at his watch. It was after two o'clock. The mournful +neighbourhood, the growing chill in the air, the sullen sky, urged him +away. He walked down the road. Of course he couldn't go to the Cedars in +this condition. He would return to his apartment in New York where he +could bathe, change his clothes, recover from this feeling of physical +ill, and remember, perhaps, something more. + +It wasn't far to the little village on the railroad, and at this hour +there were plenty of trains. He hoped no one he knew would see him at the +station. He smiled wearily. What difference did that make? He might as +well face old Blackburn, himself, as he was. By this time the thing was +done. The new will had been made. He was penniless and an outcast. But +his furtive manner clung. He didn't want Katherine to see him like this. + +From the entrance of the village it was only a few steps to the +station. Several carriages stood at the platform, testimony that a +train was nearly due. He prayed that it would be for New York. He +didn't want to wait around. He didn't want to risk Katherine's driving +in on some errand. + +His mind, intent only on escaping prying eyes, was drawn by a man who +stepped from behind a carriage and started across the roadway in his +direction, staring at him incredulously. His quick apprehension vanished. +He couldn't recall that surprised face. There was no harm being seen, +miserable as he was, dressed as he was, by this stranger. He looked at +him closer. The man was plainly clothed. He had small, sharp eyes. His +hairless face was intricately wrinkled. His lips were thin, making a +straight line. + +To avoid him Bobby stepped aside, thinking he must be going past, but the +stranger stopped and placed a firm hand on Bobby's shoulder. He spoke in +a quick, authoritative voice: + +"Certainly you are Mr. Robert Blackburn?" + +For Bobby, in his nervous, bewildered condition, there was an ominous +note in this surprise, this assurance, this peremptory greeting. + +"What's amazing about that?" he jerked out. + +The stranger's lips parted in a straight smile. + +"Amazing! That's the word I was thinking of. Hoped you might come in +from New York. Seemed you were here all the time. That's a good one on +me--a very good one." + +The beating of Bobby's heart was more pronounced than it had been in the +deserted house. He asked himself why he should shrink from this stranger +who had an air of threatening him. The answer lay in that black pit of +last night and this morning. Unquestionably he had been indiscreet. The +man would tell him how. + +"You mean," he asked with dry lips, "that you've been looking for me? Who +are you? Please take your hand off." + +The stranger's grasp tightened. + +"Not so fast, Mr. Robert Blackburn. I daresay you haven't just now come +from the Cedars?" + +"No, no. I'm on my way to New York. There's a train soon, I think." + +His voice trailed away. The stranger's straight smile widened. He +commenced to laugh harshly and uncouthly. + +"Sure there's a train, but you don't want to take it. And why haven't +you been at the Cedars? Grandpa's death grieved you too much to go near +his body?" + +Bobby drew back. The shock robbed him for a moment of the power to +reason. + +"Dead! The old man! How--" + +The stranger's smile faded. + +"Here it is nearly three o'clock in the afternoon, and you're all +dressed up for last night. That's lucky." + +Bobby couldn't meet the narrow eyes. + +"Who are you?" + +The stranger with his free hand threw back his coat lapel. + +"My name's Howells. I'm a county detective. I'm on the case, because your +grandfather died very strangely. He was murdered, very cleverly murdered. +Queerest case I've ever handled. What do you think?" + +In his own ears Bobby's voice sounded as remote and unreal as it had +through the blackness last night. + +"Why do you talk to me like this?" + +"Because I tell you I'm on the case, and I want you to turn about and go +straight to the Cedars." + +"This is--absurd. You mean you suspect--You're placing me under arrest?" + +The detective's straight smile returned. + +"How we jump at conclusions! I'm simply telling you not to bother me +with questions. I'm telling you to go straight to the Cedars where +you'll stay. Understand? You'll stay there until you're wanted--Until +you're wanted." + +The merciless repetition settled it for Bobby. He knew it would be +dangerous to talk or argue. Moreover, he craved an opportunity to +think, to probe farther into the black pit. He turned and walked away. +When he reached the last houses he glanced back. The detective +remained in the middle of the road, staring after him with that +straight and satisfied smile. + +Bobby walked on, his shaking hands tightly clenched, muttering to +himself: + +"I've got to remember. Good God! I've got to remember. It's the only way +I can ever know he's not right, that I'm not a murderer." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CASE AGAINST BOBBY + + +Bobby hurried down the road in the direction of the Cedars. Always he +tried desperately to recall what had occurred during those black hours +last night and this morning before he had awakened in the empty house +near his grandfather's home. All that remained were his sensation of +travel in a swift vehicle, his impression of standing in the forest near +the Cedars, his glimpse of the masked figure which he had called his +conscience, the echo in his brain of a dream-like voice saying: "Take off +your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It's the only +safe way." + +These facts, then, alone were clear to him: He had wandered, unconscious, +in the neighbourhood. His grandfather had been strangely murdered. The +detective who had met him in the village practically accused him of the +murder. And he couldn't remember. + +He turned back to his last clear recollections. When he had experienced +his first symptoms of slipping consciousness he had been in the cafe in +New York with Carlos Paredes, Maria, the dancer, and a strange man whom +Maria had brought to the table. Through them he might, to an extent, +trace his movements, unless they had put him in a cab, thinking he would +catch the train, of which he had talked, for the Cedars. + +Already the forest crowded the narrow, curving road. The Blackburn place +was in the midst of an arid thicket of stunted pines, oaks, and cedars. +Old Blackburn had never done anything to improve the estate or its +surroundings. Steadily during his lifetime it had grown more gloomy, less +habitable. + +With the silent forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no +longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot might +have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. +He saw no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly +it was the detective, Howells, who followed him, hoping, perhaps, that he +would make some mad effort at escape. + +"That," he muttered, "is probably the reason he didn't arrest me at +the station." + +Bobby, however, had no thought of escape. He was impatient to reach the +Cedars where he might learn all that Howells hadn't told him about his +grandfather's death. + +A high wooden fence straggled through the forest. The driveway swung from +the road through a broad gateway. The gate stood open. Bobby remembered +that it had been old Blackburn's habit to keep it closed. He entered and +hurried among the trees to the edge of the lawn in the centre of which +the house stood. + +Feeling as guilty as the detective thought him, he paused there and +examined the house for some sign of life. At first it seemed as dead as +the forest stripped by autumn--almost as gloomy and arid as the +wilderness which straggled close about it. He had no eye for the symmetry +of its wings which formed the court in the centre of which an abandoned +fountain stood. He studied the windows, picturing Katherine alone, +surrounded by the complications of this unexpected tragedy. + +His feeling of an inimical watchfulness persisted. A clicking sound swung +him back to the house. The front door had been opened, and in the black +frame of the doorway, as he looked, Katherine and Graham appeared, and he +knew the resolution of his last doubt was at hand. + +Katherine had thrown a cloak over her graceful figure. Her sunny hair +strayed in the wind, but her face, while it had lost nothing of its +beauty, projected even at this distance a sense of weariness, of anxiety, +of utter fear. + +Bobby was grateful for Graham's presence. It was like the man to assume +his responsibilities, to sacrifice himself in his service. He +straightened. He must meet these two. Through his own wretched appearance +and position he must develop for Katherine more clearly than ever +Graham's superiority. He stepped out, calling softly: + +"Katherine!" + +She started. She turned in his direction and came swiftly toward him. She +spread her hands. + +"Bobby! Bobby! Where have you been?" + +There were tears in her eyes. They were like tears that have been +too long coming. He took her hands. Her fingers were cold. They +twitched in his. + +"Look at me, Katherine," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry." + +Graham came up. He spoke with apparent difficulty. + +"You've not been home. Then what happened last night? Quick! Tell us what +you did--everything." + +"I've seen the detective," he answered. "He's told you, too? Be careful. +I think he's back there, watching and listening." + +Katherine freed her hands. The tears had dried. She shook a little. + +"Then you were at the station," she said. "You must have come from New +York, but I tried so hard to get you there. For hours I telephoned and +telegraphed. Then I got Hartley. Come away from the trees so we can talk +without--without being overheard." + +As they moved to the centre of the open space Graham indicated Bobby's +evening clothes. + +"Why are you dressed like that, Bobby? You _did_ come from town? You +can tell us everything you did last night after I left you, and early +this morning?" + +Bobby shook his head. His answer was reluctant. + +"I didn't come from New York just now. I was evidently here last night, +and I can't remember, Hartley. I remember scarcely anything." + +Graham's face whitened. + +"Tell us," he begged. + +"You've got to remember!" Katherine cried. + +Bobby as minutely as he could recited the few impressions that remained +from last night. + +When he had finished Graham thought for some time. + +"Paredes and the dancer," he said at last, "practically forced me away +from you last night. It's obvious, Bobby, you must have been drugged." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"I thought of that right away, but it won't do. If I had been drugged I +wouldn't have moved around, and I did come out somehow, I managed to +get to the empty house to sleep. It's more as if my mind had simply +closed, as if it had gone on working its own ends without my knowing +anything about it. And that's dreadful, because the detective has +practically accused me of murdering my grandfather. How was it done? +You see I know nothing. Tell me how--how he was killed. I can't believe +I--I'm such a beast. Tell me. If I was in the house, some detail might +start my memory." + +So Katherine told her story while Bobby listened, shrinking from some +disclosure that would convict him. As she went on, however, his sense of +bewilderment increased, and when she had finished he burst out: + +"But where is the proof of murder? Where is there even a suggestion? You +say the doors were locked and he doesn't show a mark." + +"That's what we can't understand," Graham said. "There's no evidence we +know anything about that your grandfather's heart didn't simply give out, +but the detective is absolutely certain, and--there's no use mincing +matters, Bobby--he believes he has the proof to convict you. He won't +tell me what. He simply smiles and refuses to talk." + +"The motive?" Bobby asked. + +Graham looked at him curiously. Katherine turned away. + +"Of course," Bobby cried with a sharpened discomfort. "I'd forgotten. The +money--the new will he had planned to make. The money's mine now, but if +he had lived until this morning it never would have been. I see." + +"It is a powerful motive," Graham said, "for any one who doesn't +know you." + +"But," Bobby answered, "Howells has got to prove first that my +grandfather was murdered. The autopsy?" + +"Coroner's out of the county," Graham replied, "and Howells won't have an +assistant. Dr. Groom's waiting in the house. We're expecting the coroner +almost any time." + +Bobby spoke rapidly. + +"If he calls it murder, Hartley, there's one thing we've got to find out: +what my grandfather was afraid of. Tell me again, Katherine, everything +he said about me. I can't believe he could have been afraid of me." + +"He called you," Katherine answered, "a waster. He said: 'God knows what +he'll do next.' He said he'd ordered you out last night and he hadn't +had a word from you, but that he'd made up his mind anyway. He was going +to have his lawyer this morning and change his will, leaving all his +money to the Bedford Foundation, except a little annuity for me. He grew +sentimental and said he had no faith left in his flesh and blood, and +that it was sad to grow old with nobody caring for him except to covet +his money. I asked him if he were afraid of you, and all he answered +was: 'You and Bobby are thicker than thieves.' Oh, yes. When I saw him +for the last time in the hall he said there was nothing for me to worry +about except you. That's all. I remember perfectly. He said nothing more +about you." + +"I wonder," Bobby muttered, "if a jury wouldn't think it enough." + +Katherine shook her head. + +"There seemed so much more than that behind his fear," she said. "As I've +told you, he gave me a feeling of superstition. I never once was afraid +of a murderer--of a man in the house. I was afraid of something queer and +active, but not human." + +Bobby straightened. + +"Would you," he asked, "call a man going about in an aphasia quite +human? Somnambulists do unaccountable things--such as overcoming locked +doors--" + +"Don't, Bobby! Don't!" Katherine cried. + +"Sh--h! Quiet!" Graham warned. + +A foot scraped on gravel. + +"Maybe the detective," Bobby suggested. + +He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of the +detective emerge from the forest. Instead with a dawning amazement he +watched Carlos Paredes stroll into view. The Panamanian was calm and +immaculate. His Van Dyke beard was neatly trimmed and combed. As he +advanced he puffed in leisurely fashion at a cigarette. + +Graham flushed. + +"After last night he has the nerve--" + +"Be decent to him," Bobby urged. "He might help me--might clear up +last night." + +"I wonder," Graham mused, "to what extent he could clear it up if +he wished." + +Paredes threw his cigarette away as he came closer. Solemnly he shook +hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy. Even then +Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion. +The man turned to Graham. + +"Our little difference of last evening," he said suavely, "will, I hope, +evaporate in this atmosphere of unexpected sorrow. If I was in the wrong +I deeply regret it. My one wish now is to join you in being of use to +Bobby and Miss Katherine in their bereavement. I saw the account in a +paper at luncheon. I came as quickly as possible." + +Graham answered this smooth effrontery with a blunt question. + +"Do you know that Bobby is in very real trouble, that he may be +implicated in Mr. Blackburn's death?" + +Paredes flung up his hands, but Bobby, looking for emotion in the sallow +face then, found none. Paredes's features, it occurred to him, were +exactly like a mask. + +Bobby checked himself. In his unhealthy way Paredes had been a good +friend. The man's voice flowed smoothly, demanding particulars. + +"But this," he said, when they had told him what they could, "changes the +situation. I must stay here. I must watch that detective and learn what +he has up his sleeve." + +Graham turned away. + +"I've tried. Maybe you'll succeed better than I." + +"Then you'll excuse me," Paredes said quickly. "I should like your +permission to telephone to my hotel in New York for some clothing. I want +to see this through." + +The three looked at each other. Katherine and Graham seemed about to +speak. Bobby wouldn't let them. + +"Carlos," he said, "you might help me. I'm almost afraid to ask. What +happened in the cafe last night? The last thing I remember distinctly is +sitting there with you and Maria and a stranger she had introduced. I +didn't get his name. What did I do? Did any one leave the place with me?" + +Paredes smiled a little, shaking his head. + +"You behaved as if Mr. Graham's earlier fears had been accomplished. You +insisted you were going to catch your train. I didn't think it wise, so I +went to the cloak room with you, intending to see you home. Somehow, just +the same you gave me the slip." + +"You oughtn't to have let him get away," Graham said. + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"You weren't there. You don't know how sly Bobby was." + +"I suppose it's useless to ask," Graham said. "You saw nothing put in +his wine?" + +Paredes laughed. + +"Is it likely? Certainly not. I should have mentioned it. I should have +stopped such a thing. What do you think I am, Mr. Graham?" + +"Sorry," Graham said. "You must understand we can't let any lead slip. +This stranger Maria brought up?" + +"I didn't catch his name," Paredes answered. + +"I'd never seen him before. I gathered he was a friend of +hers--connected with the profession. Now I shall telephone with your +permission, Miss Katherine; and don't you worry, Bobby. I will see you +through; but we can't do much until the coroner comes, until the +detective can be made to talk." + +Katherine hesitated for a moment, then she surrendered. + +"Please go with him, Hartley, and--and make him as comfortable as you can +in this unhappy house." + +Katherine detained Bobby with a nod. He saw the others go. He shrank, in +his mental and physical discomfort, from this isolation with her. As soon +as the door was closed she touched his hand. She burst out passionately: + +"I don't believe it, Bobby. I'll never believe it no matter what +happens." + +"It's sweet of you, Katherine," he said huskily. "That helps when you +don't know what to believe yourself." + +"Don't talk that way. Such a crime would never have entered your head +under any conditions. Only, Bobby, it ought never to have happened. You +ought never to have been in this position. Why have you been friendly +with people like--like that Spaniard? What can he want, forcing himself +here? At any rate, you'll never lead that sort of life again?" + +Her fingers sought his. He clasped them firmly. + +"If I get past this," he said, "I'll always look you straight in the +eye, Katherine. It was mad--silly. You don't quite understand--" + +He broke off, glancing at the door through which Graham had disappeared. + +"Then remember," she said softly, "I don't believe it." + +She released his hand, sighing. + +"That's all I can say, all I can do now. You're ill, Bobby. Go in. Rest +for awhile. When you've had sleep you may remember something." + +He shook his head. He walked slowly with her to the house. + +As he climbed the stairs he heard Paredes telephoning. He couldn't +understand the man's insistence on remaining where clearly he was +an intruder. + +He entered his bedroom which he had occupied only once or twice during +the last few months. The place seemed unfamiliar. As he bathed and +dressed his sense of strangeness grew, and he understood why. The last +time he had been here he had stood in no personal danger. There had been +no black parenthesis in his life during the stretch of which he might +have committed an unspeakable crime. For he couldn't believe as firmly as +Katherine did. Since he couldn't remember, he might have done anything. + +"Come!" he called in response to a stealthy rapping at the door. + +Stealth, it occurred to him, had, since last night, become a stern +condition of his life. + +Graham entered and noiselessly closed the door. + +"I had a chance to slip in," he explained. "Paredes is wandering about +the place. I'd give a lot to know what he's after at the Cedars. +Katherine is in her room, trying to rest after last night, I fancy." + +"And," Bobby asked, "the detective--Howells?" + +"If he's back from the station," Graham answered, "he's keeping low. I +wonder if it was he or Paredes who followed you through the woods?" + +"Why should Carlos have followed me?" Bobby asked. "I've been thinking it +over, Hartley. It isn't a bad scheme having him here, since you think he +hasn't told all he knows." + +"I don't say that," Graham answered. "I don't know what to think about +Paredes. I've come to talk about just that. I'm a lawyer, and I've had +some criminal practice. Since this detective will be satisfied with you +for a victim, I'm going to take your case, if you'll have me. I'll be +your detective as well as your lawyer." + +Bobby was a good deal touched. + +"That's kind of you--more than I deserve, for I have resented you +at times." + +Graham, it was clear, didn't guess he referred to his friendship for +Katherine, for he answered quickly: + +"I must have seemed a nuisance, but I was only trying to get you back on +the straight path where you've always belonged. I can't believe you did +this thing, even unconsciously, until I'm shown proof without a single +flaw. Until the autopsy the only thing we have to work on is that party +last night. I've telephoned to New York and put a trustworthy man on the +heels of Maria and the stranger. Meantime I think I'd better watch +developments here." + +"Please," Bobby agreed. "Stay with me, Hartley, until this man takes some +definite action." + +He picked at the fringe of the window curtain. "If the autopsy shows that +my grandfather was murdered," he said, "either I killed him, or else some +one has deliberately tried to throw suspicion on me, for with only a +motive to go on this detective wouldn't be so sure. Why in the name of +heaven should any one kill the old man, place all this money in my hands, +and at the same time send me to the electric chair? Don't you see how +absurd it is that Carlos, Maria, or any one else should have had a hand +in it? There was nothing for them to gain from his death. I've thought +and thought in such circles until I am almost convinced of the logic of +my guilt." + +He drew the curtain farther back and gazed across the court at the room +where his grandfather lay dead. One of the two windows of the room was a +little raised, but the blinds were closely drawn. + +"I did hate him," he mused. "There's that. Ever since I can remember he +did things to make me despise him. Have--have you seen him?" + +Graham nodded. + +"Howells took me in. He looked perfectly normal--not a mark." + +"I don't want to see him," Bobby said. + +He drew back from the window, pointing. The detective, Howells, had +strolled into the court. His hands hung at his sides. They didn't swing +as he walked. His lips were stretched in that thin, straight smile. He +paused by the fountain, glancing for a moment anxiously downward. Then he +came on and entered the house. + +"He'll be restless," Graham said, "until the coroner comes, and proves or +disproves his theory of murder. If he questions you, you'd better say +nothing for the present. From his point of view what you remember of last +night would be only damaging." + +"I want him to leave me alone," Bobby said. "If he doesn't arrest me I +won't have him bullying me." + +Jenkins knocked and entered. The old butler was as white-faced as Bobby, +more tremulous. + +"The policeman, sir! He's asking for you." + +"Tell him I don't wish to see him." + +The detective, himself, stepped from the obscurity of the hall, smiling +his queer smile. + +"Ah! You are here, Mr. Blackburn! I'd like a word with you." + +He turned to Graham and Jenkins. + +"Alone, if you please." + +Bobby mutely agreed, and Graham and the butler went out. The +detective closed the door and leaned against it, studying Bobby with +his narrow eyes. + +"I don't suppose," he began, "that there's any use asking you about your +movements last night?" + +"None," Bobby answered jerkily, "unless you arrest me and take me before +those who ask questions with authority." + +The detective's smile widened. + +"No matter. I didn't come to argue with you about that. I was curious to +know if you'd tried to see your grandfather's body." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"I took it for granted the room was locked." + +"Yes," the detective answered, "but some people, it seems, have skilful +ways of overcoming locks." + +He moved to one side, placing his hand on the door knob. + +"I've come to open doors for you, to give you the opportunity an +affectionate grandson must crave." + +Bobby hesitated, fighting back his feeling of repulsion, his first +instinct to refuse. The detective might take it as an evidence against +him. On the other hand, if he went, the man would unquestionably try to +tear from a meeting between the living and the dead some valuable +confirmation of his theory. + +"Well?" the detective said. "What's the matter? Thought the least I could +do was to give you a chance. Wouldn't do it for everybody. Then everybody +hasn't your affectionate nature." + +Bobby advanced. + +"For God's sake, stop mocking me. I'll go, since you wish." + +The detective opened the door and stood aside to let Bobby pass. + +"Daresay you know the room--the way to it?" + +Bobby didn't answer. He went along the corridor and into the main hall +where Katherine had met Silas Blackburn last night. He fought back his +aversion and entered the corridor of the old wing. He heard the detective +behind him. He was aware of the man's narrow eyes watching him with a +malicious assurance. + +Bobby, with a feeling of discomfort, sprung in part from the gloomy +passageway, paused before the door his grandfather had had the +unaccountable whim of entering last night. The detective took a key from +his pocket and inserted it in the lock. + +"Had some trouble repairing the lock this morning," he said. "That +fellow, Jenkins, entered with a heavy hand--a good deal heavier than +whoever was here before him." + +He opened the door. + +"Queerest case I've ever seen," he mumbled. "Step in, Mr. Blackburn." + +Because of the drawn blinds the room was nearly as dark as the corridor. +Bobby entered slowly, his nerves taut. Against the farther wall the bed +was like an enormous shadow, without form. + +"Stay where you are," the detective warned, "until I give you more light. +You know, I wouldn't want you to touch anything, because the room is +exactly as it was when he was murdered!" + +Bobby experienced a swift impulse to strangle the brutal word in the +detective's throat. But he stood still while the man went to the +bureau, struck a match, and applied it to a candle. The wick burned +reluctantly. It flickered in the wind that slipped past the curtain of +the open window. + +"Come here," the detective commanded roughly. + +Bobby dragged himself forward until he stood at the foot of the +four-poster bed. The detective lifted the candle and held it beneath +the canopy. + +"You look all you want now, Mr. Robert Blackburn," he said grimly. + +Bobby conquered the desire to close his eyes, to refuse to obey. He +stared at his grandfather, and a feeling of wonder grew upon him. For +Silas Blackburn rested peacefully in the great bed. His eyes were closed. +The thick gray brows were no longer gathered in the frown too familiar to +Bobby. The face with its gray beard retained no fear, no record of a +great shock. + +Bobby glanced at the detective who bent over the bed watching him out of +his narrow eyes. + +"Why," he asked simply, "do you say he was murdered?" + +"He was murdered," the detective answered. "Murdered in cold blood, and, +look you here, young fellow, I know who did it. I'm going to strap that +man in the electric chair. He's got just one chance--if he talks out, if +he makes a clean breast of it." + +Across the body he bent closer. He held the candle so that its light +searched Bobby's face instead of the dead man's, and the uncertain flame +was like an ambush for his eyes. + +In response to those intolerable words Bobby's sick nerves stretched too +tight. No masquerade remained before this huntsman who had his victim +trapped, and calmly studied his agony. The horror of the accusation shot +at him across the body of the man he couldn't be sure he hadn't murdered, +robbed him of his last control. He cried out hysterically: + +"Why don't you do something? For God's sake, why don't you arrest me?" + +A chuckle came from the man in ambush behind the yellow flame. + +"Listen to the boy! What's he talking about? Grief for his grandfather. +That's what it is--grief." + +"Stop!" Bobby shouted. "It's what you've been accusing me with ever +since you stopped me at the station." He indicated the silent form of +the old man. "You keep telling me I murdered him. Why don't you arrest +me then? Why don't you lock me up? Why don't you put the case on a +reasonable basis?" + +He waited, trembling. The flame continued to flicker, but the hand +holding the candlestick failed to move, and Bobby knew that the eyes +didn't waver, either. He forced his glance from the searching flame. He +managed to lower and steady his voice. + +"You can't. That's the trouble. He wasn't murdered. The coroner will tell +you so. Anybody who looks at him will tell you so. Since you haven't the +nerve to arrest me. I'm going. I'm glad to have had this out with you. +Understand. I'm my own master. I do what I please. I go where I please." + +At last the candle moved to one side. The detective straightened and +walked to Bobby. The multitude of small lines in his face twitched. His +voice was too cold for the fury of his words. + +"That's just what I want you to do, damn you--anything you please. I'm +accusing nobody, but I'm getting somebody. I've got somebody right now +for this old man's murder. My man's going to writhe and burn in the +chair, confession or no confession. Now get out of this room since you're +so anxious, and don't come near it again." + +Bobby went. At the end of the corridor he heard the closing of the door, +the scraping of the key. He was afraid the detective might follow him to +his room to heckle him further. To avoid that he hurried to the lower +floor. He wanted to be alone. He must have time to accustom himself to +this degrading fate which loomed in the too-close future. Unless they +could demolish the detective's theory he, Bobby Blackburn, would go to +the death house. + +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?" + +"Go away," Bobby groaned. "Leave me in peace." + +And peace for a little time came to him. It was the sound of voices in +the room that aroused him. He lay for a time, scarcely knowing where he +was, but little by little the sickening truth came back, and he realized +that it was Graham and the detective, Howells, who talked close to the +window, and Graham had already fulfilled his promise. + +Bobby didn't want to eavesdrop, but it was patent he would embarrass +Graham by disclosing himself now, and it was likely Graham would be glad +of a witness to anything the detective might say. + +It was still light. A ray from the low sun entered the window and rested +on the door of the enclosed staircase. + +Graham's anxious demand was the first thing Bobby heard distinctly--the +thing that warned him to remain secreted. + +"I think now with the coroner on his way it's time you defined your +suspicions a trifle more clearly. I am a lawyer. In a sense I represent +young Mr. Blackburn. Please tell me why you are so sure his grandfather +was murdered." + +"All right," the detective's level voice came back. "Half an hour ago I +would have said no again, but now I've got the evidence I wanted. I +appreciate, Mr. Graham, that you're a friend of that young rascal, and +what I have to say isn't pleasant for a friend to hear. But first you +want to know why I'm so sure the case is murder, in spite of the doctor +who made his diagnosis without really looking." + +"Go on," Graham said softly. + +Bobby waited--his nerves as tense as they had grown in the presence of +the dead man. + +"Two days ago," the detective went on quietly, "old Mr. Blackburn came to +the court house in Smithtown and asked for the best detective the +district attorney could put his hand on. I don't want to blow my own +trumpet, but I've got away with one or two pretty fair jobs. I've had +good offers from private firms in New York. So they turned him over to +me. It was easy to see the old man was scared, just as his niece says he +was last night. The funny part was he wouldn't say definitely what he was +afraid of. I thought he might be shielding somebody until he was a little +surer of his ground. He told me he was afraid of being murdered, and he +wanted a good man he could call on to come out here to the Cedars if +things got too hot for him. I can hear his voice now as distinctly as if +he was standing where you are. + +"'My heart's all right,' he said. 'It won't stop awhile yet unless it's +made to. So if I'm found cold some fine morning you can be sure I was +put out of the way.' + +"I tried to pump him, naturally, but he wouldn't say another word except +that he'd send for me if there was time. He didn't want any fuss made, +and he gave me a handsome present to keep my mouth shut and not to bother +him with any more questions. I figured--you can't blame me, Mr. +Graham--that the old boy was a little cracked. So I took his money and +let it go at that. I didn't think much more about it until they told me +early this morning he lay dead here under peculiar circumstances." + +"Odd!" Graham commented. "It does make it more like murder, Howells. But +he doesn't look like a murdered man." + +"When you know as much about crime as I do, Mr. Graham, you'll realize +that murders which are a long time planning are likely to take on one of +two appearances--suicide or natural death." + +"All right," Graham said. "For the purpose of argument let us agree it's +murder. Even so, why do you suspect young Blackburn?" + +"Without a scrap of evidence it's plain as the nose on your face," the +detective answered. "If old Blackburn had lived until this morning our +young man would have been a pauper. As it is, he's a millionaire, but I +don't think he'll enjoy his money. The two had been at sword's points for +a long time. Robert hated the old man--never made any bones about it. You +couldn't ask for a more damaging motive." + +"You can't convict a man on motive," Graham said shortly. "You spoke of +evidence." + +"More," the detective replied, "than any jury in the land would ask." + +Bobby held his breath, shrinking from this information, which, however, +he realized it was better he should know. + +"When I got here," the detective said, "I decided on the theory of murder +to make a careful search as soon as day broke. I didn't have to wait for +day, though, to find one crying piece of evidence. For a long time I was +alone in the room with the body. Queer feeling about that room, Mr. +Graham. Don't know how to describe it except to say it's uncomfortable. +Too old, maybe. Maybe it was just being there alone with the dead man +before the dawn, although I thought I was hardened to that sort of thing. +Anyway, I didn't like it. To keep my spirits up, as well as to save time, +I commenced searching the place with a candle. Nothing about the bed. +Nothing in the closets or the bureau." + +He grinned sheepishly. + +"You know I kind of was afraid to open the closet doors. Then I got on my +knees and looked under the bed. The light was bad and I didn't see +anything at first. After a minute, close against the wall, I noticed +something white. I reached in and pulled it out. It was a handkerchief, +and it had a monogram, Mr. Graham--R. B. in purple and green." + +He paused. Graham exclaimed sharply. Bobby felt the net tighten. If that +evidence was conclusive to the others, how much more so was it for him! +He recalled how, after awaking in the empty house, he had searched +unsuccessfully in all his pockets for his handkerchief, intending to +brush the dirt from his shoes. + +"I went to his room," the detective hurried on, "and found a lot of his +clothes and his stationery and his toilet articles marked with the same +cipher. I knew my man had made a big mistake--the sort of mistake every +criminal makes no matter how clever he is--and I had him. But that isn't, +by any means, all. Don't look so distressed, Mr. Graham. There isn't the +slightest chance for him. You see I repaired the lock, and, as soon as it +was day, closed the room and went outside to look for signs. Since +nightfall no one had come legitimately through the court except Doctor +Groom and myself. Our footprints were all right--making a straight line +along the path to the front door. In the soft earth by the fountain I +found another and a smaller print, made by a very neat shoe, sir, and I +said to myself: 'There is almost certainly the footprint of the +murderer.' + +"There were plenty of others coming across the grass. He'd evidently +avoided the path. And there was one directly under the open window where +the body lies. It's still there. Perhaps you can see it. No matter. +That's the last one I found. The prints ceased there. There wasn't a one +going back, and I was fair up a stump. Then I saw a little undefined +sign of pressure on the grass, and I got an idea. 'Suppose,' I says, 'my +man took his shoes off and went around in his stockinged feet!' I +couldn't understand, though, why he hadn't thought of that before. I went +back to Robert Blackburn's room and got one of his shoes, and ran into a +snag again. The sole of the shoe was a trifle larger than the footprints. +Every one of his shoes I tried was the same way. I argued that the +handkerchief was enough, but I wanted this other evidence. I simply had +to clear up these queer footprints. + +"I figured, since the murder had been made to look so much like a natural +death, that he'd come out here some time to-day, expecting to carry it +off. I wanted to go to the station, anyway, to find out if he'd been seen +coming through last night or early this morning. While I was talking to +the station agent I had my one piece of luck. I couldn't believe my eyes. +Mr. Robert walks up from the woods. He'd been hiding around the +neighbourhood all the time. Probably had missed his handkerchief and +decided he'd better not take any chances. Yet it must have seemed a +pretty sure thing that the station wouldn't be watched, and it's those +nervy things, doing the obvious, that skilful criminals get away with all +the time. I needed only one look at him, and I had the answer to the +mystery of the footprints. I gave him plenty of time to come here and +change his clothes, then I manoeuvered him out of his room and went there +and found the pumps he'd worn last night and to-day. You see, they'd be +a little smaller than his ordinary shoes. Not only did they fit the +footprints exactly, but they were stained with soil exactly like that in +the court. There you are, sir. I've made a plaster cast of one of the +prints. I've got it here in my pocket where I intend to keep it until I +clear the whole case up and turn in my report." + +Graham's tone was shocked and discouraged. + +"What more do you want? Why haven't you arrested him?" + +In this room the detective's satisfied chuckle was an offence. + +"No good detective would ask that, Mr. Graham. I want my report clean. +The coroner will tell us how the old man was killed. I want to tell how +young Blackburn got into that room. One of the windows was raised a +trifle, but that's no use. I've figured on the outside of the wing until +I'm dizzy. There's no way up for a normal man. An orangoutang would make +hard work of it. His latch key would have let him into the house, and it +would have been simple enough for him to find out that the old man had +changed his room. I've got to find out how he got past those doors, +locked on the inside." + +He chuckled again. + +"Almost like a sleep-walker's work." + +Bobby shivered. Was that where the evidence pointed? Already the net was +too finely woven. The detective continued earnestly: + +"I'm figuring on some scheme to make him show me the way. I've a sort of +plan for to-night, but it's only a chance." + +"What?" Graham asked. + +"Oh, no, sir," Howells laughed. "You'll learn about that when the +time comes." + +"I don't understand you," Graham said. "You're sure of your man but you +keep no close watch on him. Do you know where he is now?" + +"Haven't the slightest idea, Mr. Graham." + +"What's to prevent his running away?" + +"I'm offering him every opportunity. He wouldn't get far, and I've a +feeling that if he confessed by running he'd break down and give up the +whole thing. You've no idea how it frets me, Mr. Graham. I've got my man +practically in the chair, but from a professional point of view it isn't +a pretty piece of work until I find out how he got in and out of that +room. The thing seems impossible, and yet here we are, knowing that he +did it. Well, maybe I'll find out to-night. Hello!" + +The door opened. Bobby from his hiding place could see Paredes on the +threshold, yawning and holding a cigarette in his fingers. + +"Here you are," he said drowsily. "I've just been in the court. It made +me seek company. That court's too damp, Mr. Detective." + +His laugh was lackadaisical. + +"When the sun leaves it, the court seems full of, unfriendly things--what +the ignorant would call, ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." + +The detective grunted. + +"Funny!" Paredes went on. "Observation doesn't seem to interest you. I'd +rather fancied it might." + +He yawned again and put his cigarette to his lips. Puffing placidly, he +turned and left. + +"What do you suppose he means by that?" the detective said to Graham. + +Without waiting for an answer he followed Paredes from the room. Graham +went after him. Bobby threw back the rug and arose. For a moment he was +as curious as the others as to Paredes's intention. He slipped across the +dining room. The hall was deserted. The front door stood open. From the +court came Paredes's voice, even, languid, wholly without expression: + +"Mean to tell me you don't react to the proximity of unaccountable forces +here, Mr. Howells?" + +The detective's laugh was disagreeable. + +"You trying to make a fool of me? That isn't healthy." + +As Bobby hurried across the hall and up the stairs he heard +Paredes answer: + +"You should speak to Doctor Groom. He says this place is too crowded by +the unpleasant past--" + +Bobby climbed out of hearing. He entered his bedroom and locked the door. +He resented Paredes's words and attitude which he defined as studied to +draw humour out of a tragic and desperate situation. He thought of them +in no other way. His tired mind dismissed them. He threw himself on the +bed, muttering: + +"If I run away I'm done for. If I stay I'm done for." + +He took a fierce twisted joy in one phase of the situation. + +"If I was there last night," he thought, "Howells will never find out +how I got into the room, because, no matter what trap he sets, I can't +tell him." + +His leaden weariness closed his eyes. For a few minutes he slept again. + +Once more it was a voice that awakened him--this time a woman's, raised +in a scream. He sprang up, flung open the door, and stumbled into the +corridor. Katherine stood there, holding her dressing gown about her with +trembling hands. The face she turned to Bobby was white and +panic-stricken. She beckoned, and he followed her to the main hall. The +others came tearing up the stairs--Graham, Paredes, the detective, and +the black and gigantic doctor. + +In answer to their quick questions she whispered breathlessly: + +"I heard. It was just like last night. It came across the court and stole +in at my window." + +She shook. She stretched out her hands in a terrified appeal. + +"Somebody--something moved in that room where he--he's dead." + +"Nonsense," the detective said. "Both doors are locked, and I have the +keys in my pocket." + +Paredes fumbled with a cigarette. + +"You're forgetting what I said about my sensitive apprehension of +strange things--" + +The detective interrupted him loudly, confidently: + +"I tell you the room is empty except for the murdered man--unless +someone's broken down a door." + +Katherine cried out: + +"No. I heard that same stirring. Something moved in there." + +The detective turned brusquely and entered the old corridor. + +"We'll see." + +The others followed. Katherine was close to Bobby. He touched her hand. + +"He's right, Katherine. No one's there. No one could have been there. You +mustn't give way like this. I'm depending on you--on your faith." + +She pressed his hand, but her assurance didn't diminish. + +The key scraped in the lock. They crowded through the doorway after +the detective. He struck a match and lighted the candle. He held it +over the bed. He sprang back with a sharp cry, unlike his level +quality, his confident conceit. He pointed. They all approximated his +helpless gesture, his blank amazement. For on the bed had occurred an +abominable change. + +The body of Silas Blackburn no longer lay peacefully on its back. It had +been turned on its side, and remained in a stark and awkward attitude. +For the first time the back of the head was disclosed. + +Their glances focussed there--on the tiny round hole at the base of the +brain, on the pillow where the head had rested and which they saw now was +stained with an ugly and irregular splotch of blood. + +Bobby saw the candle quiver at last in the detective's hand. The man +strode to the door leading to the private hall and examined the lock. + +"Both doors," he said, "were locked. There was no way in--" + +He turned to the others, spreading his hands in justification. The +candle, which he seemed to have forgotten, cast gross, moving shadows +over his face and over the face of the dead man. + +"At least you'll all grant me now that he was murdered." + +They continued to stare at the body of Silas Blackburn. Cold for many +hours, it was as if he had made this atrocious revealing movement to +assure them that he had, indeed, been murdered; to expose to their +startled eyes the sly and deadly method. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOWELLS DELIVERS HIMSELF TO THE ABANDONED ROOM + + +For a long time no one spoke. The body of Silas Blackburn had been alone +in a locked room, yet before their eyes it lay, turned on its side, as if +to inform them of the fashion of this murder. The tiny hole at the base +of the brain, the blood-stain on the pillow, which the head had +concealed, offered their mute and ghastly testimony. + +Doctor Groom was the first to relax. He raised his great, hairy hand to +the bed-post and grasped it. His rumbling voice lacked its usual +authority. It vibrated with a childish wonder: + +"I'm reminded that it isn't the first time there's been blood from a +man's head on that pillow." + +Katherine nodded. + +"What do you mean?" the detective snarled. "There's only one answer to +this. There must have been a mechanical post-mortem reaction." + +For a moment Doctor Groom's laugh filled the old room. It ceased +abruptly. He shook his head. + +"Don't be a fool, Mr. Policeman. At the most conservative estimate this +man has been dead more than thirteen hours. Even a few instants after +death the human body is incapable of any such reaction." + +"What then?" the detective asked. "Some one of us, or one of the +servants, must have overcome the locks again and deliberately disturbed +the body. That must be so, but I don't get the motive." + +"It isn't so," Doctor Groom answered bluntly. + +Already the detective had to a large extent controlled his bewilderment. + +"I'd like your theory then," he said dryly. "You and Mr. Paredes have +both been gossiping about the supernatural. When you first came you +hinted dark things. You said he'd probably died what the world would call +a natural death." + +"I meant," the doctor answered, "only that Mr. Blackburn's heart might +have failed under the impulse of a sudden fright in this room. I also +said, you remember, that the room was nasty and unhealthy. Plenty of +people have remarked it before me." + +Graham touched the detective's arm. + +"A little while ago you admitted yourself that the room was +uncomfortable." + +Doctor Groom smiled. The detective faced him with a fierce belligerency. + +"You'll agree he was murdered." + +"Certainly, if you wish to call it that. But I ask for the sharp +instrument that caused death. I want to know how, while Blackburn lay on +his back, it was inserted through the bed, the springs, the mattress, +and the pillow." + +"What are you driving at?" + +Doctor Groom pointed to the dead man. + +"I merely repeat that it isn't the first time that pillow's been stained +from unusual wounds in the head. Being, as you call it, a trifle +superstitious, I merely ask if the coincidence is significant." + +Katherine cried out. Bobby, in spite of his knowledge that sooner or +later he would be arrested for his grandfather's murder, stepped +forward, nodding. + +"I know what you mean, doctor." + +"Anybody," the doctor said, "who's ever heard of this house knows what I +mean. We needn't talk of that." + +The detective, however, was insistent. Paredes in his unemotional way +expressed an equal curiosity. Bobby and Katherine had been frightened as +children by the stories clustering about the old wing. They nodded from +time to time while the doctor held them in the desolate room with the +dead man, speaking of the other deaths it had sheltered. + +Silas Blackburn's great grandfather, he told the detective, had been +carried to that bed from a Revolutionary skirmish with a bullet at the +base of his brain. For many hours he had raved deliriously, fighting +unsuccessfully against the final silence. + +"It has been a legend in the family, as these young people will tell you, +that Blackburns die hard, and there are those who believe that people who +die hard leave something behind them--something that clings to the +physical surroundings of their suffering. If it was only that one case! +But it goes on and on. Silas Blackburn's father, for instance, killed +himself here. He had lost his money in silly speculations. He stood where +you stand, detective, and blew his brains out. He fell over and lay where +his son lies, his head on that pillow. Silas Blackburn was a money +grubber. He started with nothing but this property, and he made a +fortune, but even he had enough imagination to lock this room up after +one more death of that kind. It was this girl's father. You were too +young, Katherine, to remember it, but I took care of him. I saw it. He +was carried here after he had been struck at the back of the head in a +polo match. He died, too, fighting hard. God! How the man suffered. He +loosened his bandages toward the end. When I got here the pillow was +redder than it is to-day. It strikes me as curious that the first time +the room has been slept in since then it should harbour a death behind +locked doors--from a wound in the head." + +Paredes's fingers were restless, as if he missed his customary cigarette. +The detective strolled to the window. + +"Very interesting," he said. "Extremely interesting for old women and +young children. You may classify yourself, doctor." + +"Thanks," the doctor rumbled. "I'll wait until you've told me how these +doors were entered, how that wound was made, how this body turned on its +side in an empty room." + +The detective glanced at Bobby. His voice lacked confidence. + +"I'll do my best. I'll even try to tell you why the murderer came back +this afternoon to disturb his victim." + +Bobby went, curiously convinced that the doctor had had the better of +the argument. + +For a moment Katherine, Graham, Paredes, and he were alone in the +main hall. + +"God knows what it was," Graham said, "but it may mean something to you, +Bobby. Tell us carefully, Katherine, about the sounds that came to you +across the court." + +"It was just what I heard last night when he died," she answered. "It was +like something falling softly, then a long-drawn sigh. I tried to pay no +attention. I fought it. I didn't call at first. But I couldn't keep +quiet. I knew we had to go to that room. It never occurred to me that the +detective or the coroner might be there moving around." + +"You were alone up here?" Graham said. + +"I think so." + +"No," Bobby said. "I was in my room." + +"What were you doing?" Graham asked. + +"I was asleep. Katherine's call woke me up." + +"Asleep!" Paredes echoed. "And she didn't call at once--" + +He broke off. Bobby grasped his arm. + +"What are you trying to do?" + +"I'm sorry," Paredes said. "Now, really, you mustn't think of that. I +shouldn't have spoken. I'm more inclined to agree with the doctor's +theory, impossible as it seems." + +"Yesterday," Katherine said, "I would have thought it impossible. After +last night and just now I'm not so sure. I--I wish the doctor were right. +It would clear you, Bobby." + +He smiled. + +"Do you think any jury would listen to such a theory?" + +Katherine put her finger to her lips. Howells and the doctor came +from the corridor of the old wing. At the head of the stairs the +detective turned. + +"You will find it very warm and comfortable by the fire in the lower +hall, Mr. Blackburn." + +He waited until Katherine had slipped to her room until Graham, Paredes, +the doctor, and Bobby were on the stairs. Then he walked slowly into the +new corridor. + +Bobby knew what he was after. The detective had made no effort to +disguise his intention. He wanted Bobby out of the way while he searched +his room again, this time for a sharp, slender instrument capable of +penetrating between the bones at the base of a man's brain. + +Paredes lighted a cigarette and warmed his back at the fire. The doctor +settled himself in his chair. He paid no attention to the others. He +wouldn't answer Paredes's slow remarks. + +"Interesting, doctor! I am a little psychic. Always in this house I have +responded to strange, unfriendly influences. Always, as now, the approach +of night depresses me." + +Bobby couldn't sit still. He nodded at Graham, arose, got his coat and +hat, and stepped into the court. The dusk was already thick there. +Dampness and melancholy seemed to exude from the walls of the old house. +He paused and gazed at one of the foot-prints in the soft earth by the +fountain. Shreds of plaster adhered to the edges, testimony that the +detective had made his cast from this print. He tried to realize that +that mute, familiar impression had the power to send him to his +execution. Graham, who had come silently from the house, startled him. + +"What are you looking at?" + +"No use, Hartley. I was on the library lounge. I heard every word +Howells said." + +"Perhaps it's just as well," Graham said. "You know what you face. But I +hate to see you suffer. We've got to find a way around that evidence." + +Bobby pointed to the windows of the room of death. + +"There's no way around except the doctor's theory." + +He laughed shortly. + +"Much as I've feared that room, I'm afraid the psychic explanation won't +hold water. Paredes put his finger on it. I would have had time to get +back to my room before Katherine called--" + +"Stop, Bobby!" + +"Hartley! I'm afraid to go to sleep. It's dreadful not to know whether +you are active in your sleep, whether you are evil and ingenious to the +point of the miraculous in your sleep. I'm so tired, Hartley." + +"Why should you have gone to that room this afternoon?" Graham asked. +"You must get this idea out of your head. You must have sleep, and, +perhaps, when you're thoroughly rested, you will remember." + +"I'm not so sure," Bobby said, "that I want to remember." + +He pointed to the footprint. + +"There's no question. I was here last night." + +"Unless," Graham said, "your handkerchief and your shoes were stolen." + +"Nonsense!" Bobby cried. "The only motive would be to commit a murder in +order to kill me by sending me to the chair. And who would know his way +around that dark house like me? Who would have found out so easily that +my grandfather had changed his room?" + +"It's logical," Graham admitted slowly, "but we can't give in. By the +way, has Paredes ever borrowed any large sums?" + +Bobby hesitated. After all, Paredes and he had been good friends. + +"A little here and there," he answered reluctantly. + +"Has he ever paid you back?" + +"I don't recall," Bobby answered, flushing. "You know I've never been +exactly calculating about money. Whenever he wanted it I was always glad +to help Carlos out. Why do you ask?" + +"If any one," Graham answered, "looked on you as a certain source of +money, there would be a motive in conserving that source, in increasing +it. Probably lots of people knew Mr. Blackburn was out of patience with +you; would make a new will to-day." + +"Do you think," Bobby asked, "that Carlos is clever enough to have got +through those doors? And what about this afternoon--that ghastly +disturbing of the body?" + +He smiled wanly. + +"It looks like me or the ghosts of my ancestors." + +"If Paredes," Graham insisted, "tries to borrow any money from you now, +tell me about it. Another thing, Bobby. We can't afford to keep your +experiences of last night a secret any longer." + +He stepped to the door and asked Doctor Groom to come out. + +"He won't be likely to pass your confidences on to Howells," he said. +"Those men are natural antagonists." + +After a moment the doctor appeared, a slouch hat drawn low over his +shaggy forehead. + +"What you want?" he grumbled. "This court's a first-class place to catch +cold. Dampest hole in the neighbourhood. Often wondered why." + +"I want to ask you," Graham began, "something about the effects of such +drugs as could be given in wine. Tell him, will you, Bobby, what happened +last night?" + +Bobby vanquished the discomfort with which the gruff, opinionated +physician had always filled him. He recited the story of last night's +dinner, of his experience in the cafe, of his few blurred impressions of +the swaying vehicle and the woods. + +"Hartley thinks something may have been put in my wine." + +"What for?" the doctor asked. "What had these people to gain by drugging +you? Suppose for some far-fetched reason they wanted to have Silas +Blackburn put out of the way. They couldn't make you do it by drugging +you. At any rate, they couldn't have had a hand in this afternoon. Mind, +I'm not saying you had a thing to do with it yourself, but I don't +believe you were drugged. Any drug likely to be used in wine would +probably have sent you into a deep sleep. And your symptoms on waking up +are scarcely sharp enough. Sorry, boy. Sounds more like aphasia. The path +you've been treading sometimes leads to that black country, and it's +there that hates sharpen unknown. I remember a case where a tramp +returned and killed a farmer who had refused him food. Retained no +recollection of the crime--hours dropped out of his life. They executed +him while he still tried to remember." + +"I read something about the case," Bobby muttered. + +"Been better if you hadn't," the doctor grumbled. "Suggestions work in a +man's brain without his knowing it." + +He thought for a moment, his heavy, black brows coming closer together. +He glanced at the windows of the old room. His sunken, infused eyes +nearly closed. + +"I know how you feel, and that's a little punishment maybe you deserve. +I'll say this for your comfort. You probably followed the plan that had +been impressed on your brain by Mr. Graham. You came here, no doubt, and +stood around. With an automatic appreciation of your condition you may +have taken that old precaution of convivial men returning home, and +removed your shoes. Then your automatic judgment may have warned you that +you weren't fit to go in at all, and you probably wandered off to the +empty house." + +"Then," Bobby asked, "you don't think I did it?" + +"God knows who did it. God knows what did it. The longer I live the surer +I become that we scientists can't probe everything. Whenever I go near +Silas Blackburn's body I receive a very powerful impression that his +death in that room from such a wound goes deeper than ordinary murder, +deeper than a case of recurrent aphasia." + +His eyes widened. He turned with Graham and Bobby at the sound of an +automobile coming through the woods. + +"Probably the coroner at last," he said. + +The automobile, a small runabout, drew up at the entrance to the court. A +little wizened man, with yellowish skin stretched across high cheek +bones, stepped out and walked up the path. + +"Well!" he said shrilly. "What you doing, Doctor Groom?" + +"Waiting to witness another reason why coroners should be abolished," the +doctor rumbled. "This is the dead man's grandson, Coroner; and Mr. +Graham, a friend of the family's." + +Bobby accepted the coroner's hand with distaste. + +"Howells," the coroner said in his squeaky voice, "seems to think it's a +queer case. Inconvenient, I call it. Wish people wouldn't die queerly +whenever I go on a little holiday. I had got five ducks, gentlemen, when +they came to me with that damned telegram. Bad business mine, 'cause +people will die when you least expect them to. Let's go see what Howells +has got on his mind. Bright sleuth, Howells! Ought to be in New York." + +He started up the path, side by side with Doctor Groom. + +"Are you coming?" Graham asked Bobby. Bobby shook his head. "I don't want +to. I'd rather stay outside. You'd better be there, Hartley." + +Graham followed the others while Bobby wandered from the court and +started down a path that entered the woods from the rear of the house. + +Immediately the forest closed greedily about him. Here and there, where +the trees were particularly stunted, branches cut against a pallid, +greenish glow in the west--the last light. + +Bobby wanted, if he could, to find that portion of the woods where he had +stood last night, fancying the trees straining in the wind like puny men, +visualizing a dim figure in a black mask which he had called his +conscience. + +The forest was all of a pattern--ugly, unfriendly, melancholy. He went +on, however, hoping to glimpse that particular picture he remembered. He +left the path, walking at haphazard among the undergrowth. Ahead he saw a +placid, flat, and faintly luminous stretch. He pushed through the bushes +and paused on the shore of a lake, small and stagnant. Dead, stripped +trunks of trees protruded from the water. At the end a bird arose with a +sudden flapping of wings; it cried angrily as it soared above the trees +and disappeared to the south. + +The morbid loneliness of the place touched Bobby's spirit with chill +hands. As a child he had never cared to play about the stagnant lake, +nor, he recalled, had the boys of the village fished or bathed there. +Certainly he hadn't glimpsed it last night. He was about to walk away +when a movement on the farther bank held him, made him gaze with eager +eyes across the sleepy water. + +He thought there was something black in the black shadows of the +trees--a thing that stirred through the heavy dusk without sound. He +received, moreover, an impression of anger and haste as distinct as the +bird had projected. But he could see nothing clearly in this bad light. +He couldn't be sure that there was any one over there. + +He started around the end of the lake, and for a moment he thought that +the shape of a woman, clothed in black, detached itself from the +shadow. The image dissolved. He wondered if it had been more +substantial than fancy. + +"Who is that?" he called. + +The woods muffled his voice. There was no answer. Nor was there, he +noticed, any crackling of twigs or rustling of dead leaves. If there +had been a woman there she had fled noiselessly, yet, as he went on +around the lake, his own progress was distinctly audible through the +decay of autumn. + +It was too dark on the other side to detect any traces of a recent human +presence in the thicket. He couldn't quiet, however, the feeling that he +had had a glimpse of a woman clothed in black who had studied him +secretly across the stagnant stretch of the lake. + +On the other hand, there was no logic in a woman's presence here at such +an hour, no logic in a stranger's running away from him. While he +pondered the night invaded the forest completely, making it impossible +for him to search farther. It had grown so dark, indeed, that he found +his way out with difficulty. The branches caught at his clothing. The +underbrush tangled itself about his feet. It was as if the thicket were +trying to hold him away from the house. + +As he entered the court he noticed a discoloured glow diffusing itself +through the curtains of the room of death. + +He opened the front door. Paredes and Graham alone sat by the fire. + +"Then they're not through yet," Bobby said. + +Graham arose. He commenced to pace the length of the hall. + +"They've had Katherine in that room. One would think she'd been through +enough. Now they've sent for the servants." + +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"After this," he said, "I'm afraid, Bobby, you'll need the powers of the +police to keep servants in your house." + +Muttering, frightened voices came from the dining-room. Jenkins entered, +and, shaking his head, went up the stairs. The two women who followed +him, were in tears. They paused, as if seeking an excuse to linger on +the lower floor, to postpone as long as possible their entrance of the +room of death. + +Ella, a pretty girl, whose dark hair and eyes suggested a normal +vivacity, spoke to Bobby. + +"It's outrageous, Mr. Robert. He found out all we knew this morning. +What's he after now? You might think we'd murdered Mr. Blackburn." + +Jane was older. An ugly scar crossed her cheek. It was red and like an +open wound as she demanded that Bobby put a stop to these inquisitions. + +"I can do nothing," he said. "Go on up and answer or they can make +trouble for you." + +Muttering again to each other, they followed Jenkins, and in the lower +hall the three men waited. + +Jenkins came down first. His face was white. It twitched. + +"The body!" he mouthed. "It's moved! I saw it before." + +He stretched out his hands to Bobby. + +"That's why they wanted us, to find out where we were this afternoon, and +everything we've done, as if we might have gone there, and disturbed--" + +Angry voices in the upper hall interrupted him. The two women ran down, +as white as Jenkins. At an impatient nod from Bobby the three servants +went on to the kitchen. Howells, the coroner, and Doctor Groom descended. + +"What ails you, Doctor?" the coroner was squeaking. "I agree it's an +unpleasant room. Lots of old rooms are. I follow you when you say no +post-mortem contraction would have caused such an alteration in the +position of the body. There's no question about the rest of it. The man +was clearly murdered with a sharp tool of some sort, and the murderer was +in the room again this afternoon, and disturbed the corpse. Howells says +he knows who. It's up to him to find out how. He says he has plenty of +evidence and that the guilty person's in this house, so I'm not fretting +myself. I'm cross with you, Howells, for breaking up my holiday. One of +my assistants would have done as well." + +Howells apparently paid no attention to the coroner. His narrow eyes +followed the doctor with a growing curiosity. His level smile seemed +to have drawn his lips into a line, inflexible, a little cruel. The +doctor grunted: + +"Instead of abolishing coroners we ought to double their salaries." + +The coroner made a long squeak as an indication of mirth. + +"You think unfriendly spooks did it. I've always believed you were an old +fogy. Hanged if that doesn't sound modern." + +The doctor ran his fingers through his thick, untidy hair. + +"I merely ask for the implement that caused death. I only ask to know how +it was inserted through the bed while Blackburn lay on his back. And if +you've time you might tell me how the murderer entered the room last +night and to-day." + +The coroner repeated his squeak. He glanced at the little group by the +fire. + +"Out in the kitchen, upstairs, or right here under our noses is almost +certainly the person who could tell us. Interesting case, Howells!" + +Howells, who still watched the doctor, answered dryly: + +"Unusually interesting." + +The coroner struggled into his coat. + +"Permits are all available," he squeaked. "Have your undertakers out when +you like." + +Graham answered him brusquely. + +"Everything's arranged. I've only to telephone." + +The coroner nodded at Doctor Groom. His voice pointed its humour with a +thinner tone. + +"If I were you, Howells, I'd take this hairy old theorist up as a +suspicious character." + +The doctor made a movement in his direction while Howells continued to +stare. The doctor checked himself. He went to the closet and got his +hat and coat. + +"Want me to drop you, old sawbones?" the coroner asked. + +Savagely the doctor shook his head. + +"My buggy's in the stable." + +The coroner's squeak was thinner, more irritating than ever. + +"Then don't let the spooks get you, driving through the woods. Old folks +say there are a-plenty there." + +Bobby arose. He couldn't face the prospect of the man's squeaking again. + +"We find nothing to laugh at in this situation," he said. "You're +quite through?" + +The coroner's eyes blazed. + +"I'm through, if that's the way you feel. Goodnight." He added with a +sharp maliciousness: "I leave my sympathy for whoever Howells has his +eagle eye on." + +Howells, when the doctor and the coroner had gone, excused himself with a +humility that mocked the others: + +"With your permission I shall write in the library until dinner." + +He bowed and left. + +"He wants to work on his report," Graham suggested. + +"An exceptional man!" Paredes murmured. + +"Has he questioned you?" Graham asked. + +"I'd scarcely call it that," Paredes replied. "We've both questioned, and +we've both been clams. I fancy he doesn't think much of me since I +believe in ghosts, yet the doctor seems to interest him." + +"Where were you?" Graham asked, "when Miss Perrine's scream called us?" + +Paredes stifled a yawn. + +"Dozing here by the fire. I am very tired after last night." + +"You don't look particularly tired." + +"Custom, I'm ashamed to say, constructs a certain armour. To-morrow, with +a fresh mind, I hope to be able to dissect all I have seen and heard, all +that has happened here to-day." + +"The thing that counts is what happened to me last night, Carlos," Bobby +said. "It's the only way you can help me." + +As Paredes strolled to the foot of the stairs Bobby waited for a +defensive reply, for a sign, perhaps, that the Panamanian was offended +and proposed to depart. Paredes, however, went upstairs, yawning. He +called back: + +"I must make myself a trifle more presentable for dinner." + +Graham faced Bobby with the old question: + +"What can he want hanging around here unless it's money?" And after a +moment: "He's clever--hard to sound. I have to leave you, Bobby. I must +telephone--the ugly formalities." + +"It's good of you to take them off my mind," Bobby answered. + +He remained in his chair, gazing drowsily at the fire, trying, +always trying to remember, yet finding no new light among the +shadows of his memory. + +Just before dinner Katherine joined him. She wore a sombre gown that +made her face seem too white, that heightened the groping curiosity +of her eyes. + +Without speaking she sat down beside him and stared, too, at the +smouldering fire. From her presence, from her tactful silence he drew +comfort--to an extent, rest. + +"You make me ashamed," he whispered once. "I've been a beast, leaving you +here alone these weeks. You don't understand quite, why that was." She +wouldn't let him go on. She shook her head. They remained silently by the +fire until Graham and Paredes joined them. + +When dinner was announced the detective came from the library, and, +uninvited, sat at the table with them. His report evidently still +filled his mind, for he spoke only when it was unavoidable and then +in monosyllables. Paredes alone ate with a show of enjoyment, alone +attempted to talk. Eventually even he fell silent before the lack +of response. + +Afterward he arranged a small card table by the fire in the hall. He +found cards, and, with a package of cigarettes and a box of matches +convenient to his hand, commenced to play solitaire. The detective, Bobby +gathered, had brought his report up to date, for he lounged near by, +watching the Panamanian's slender fingers as they handled the cards +deftly. Bobby, Graham, and Katherine were glad to withdraw beyond the +range of those narrow, searching eyes. They entered the library and +closed the door. + +Graham, expectant of a report from his man in New York as to the +movements of Maria and the identity of the stranger, was restless. + +"If we could only get one fact," he said, "one reasonable clue that +didn't involve Bobby! I've never felt so at sea. I wonder if, in spite of +Howells's evidence, we're not all a little afraid since this afternoon, +of something such as Katherine felt last night--something we can't +define. Howells alone is satisfied. We must believe in the hand of +another man. Doctor Groom talks about indefinable hands." + +"Uncle Silas was so afraid last night!" Katherine whispered. + +"That," Bobby cried, "is the fact we must have." + +He paused. + +"What's that?" he asked sharply. + +They sat for some time, listening to the sound of wheels on the gravel, +to the banging of the front door, and, later, to the pacing of men in the +room of death overhead. They tried again to thread the mazes of this +problem whose only conceivable exit led to Bobby's guilt. The movements +upstairs persisted. At last they became measured and dragging, like the +footsteps of men who carried some heavy burden. + +They looked at each other then. Katherine hid her eyes. + +"It's like a tomb here," Bobby said. + +He arranged kindling in the fireplace and touched a match to it. It +hadn't occurred to him to ring for Jenkins. None of them wished to be +disturbed. Eventually it was the detective who intruded. He strolled in, +glanced at them curiously for a moment, then walked to the door of the +enclosed staircase. He grasped the knob. + +"To-night," he announced, "I am trying a small experiment on the +chance of clearing up the last details of the mystery. Since it +depends on the courage of whoever murdered Mr. Blackburn I've small +hope of its success." + +He indicated the ceiling. "You've heard, I daresay, what's been going on +up there. Mr. Blackburn's body has been removed to his own room. The room +where he was killed is empty. I mean to go up and enter and lock the +doors as he did last night. I shall leave the window up as it was last +night. I shall blow out the candle as he did." + +He lowered his voice. He looked directly at Bobby. His words carried a +definite challenge. + +"I shall lie on the bed and await the murderer under the precise +conditions Mr. Blackburn did." + +"What do you expect to gain by that?" Graham asked. + +"Probably nothing," Howells answered, "because, as I have said, success +depends upon the courage of a man who kills in the dark while his victim +sleeps. I simply give him the chance to attack me as he did Mr. +Blackburn. Of course he realizes it would be a good deal to his advantage +to have me out of the way. I ask him to come, therefore, as stealthily as +he did last night. I beg him to match his skill with mine. I want him to +play his miracle with the window or one of the locks. But I'll wager he +hasn't the nerve, although I don't see why he should hesitate. He's a +doomed man. I shall make my arrest in the morning. I shall publish all my +evidence." + +Bobby wouldn't meet the narrow, menacing eyes, for he knew that Howells +challenged him to a duel of slyness with the whole truth at stake. The +detective's manner increased the hatred which had blazed in Bobby's mind +when he had stood in the bedroom over his grandfather's body. For a +moment he wished with all his heart that he might accept the challenge. +He did the best he could. + +"I gather," he said, "that you haven't unearthed the motive for +disturbing the body. And have you found the sharp instrument that +caused death?" + +The detective answered tolerantly: + +"I have found a number of sharp instruments. None of them, however, seems +quite slender or round enough. I'll get all that out of my man when I +lock him up. I'll get it to-night if he dares come." + +"Why," Graham said, "do you announce your plans so accurately to us?" + +The detective's level smile widened. + +"You shouldn't ask that, Mr. Graham. I've caused the servants to know my +plans. Mr. Paredes knows them. I wish every one in the house to know +them. That is in order that the murderer, who is in the house, may come +if he wishes." + +Katherine arose abruptly. + +"When you come down to it," she said, "you are accusing one of us. It's +brutal, unfair--absurd." + +"I am a detective, Miss," Howells answered. "I have my own methods." + +Bobby stared at the slight protuberance in the breast pocket of the +detective's coat. The cast of his footprint must be secreted there, and +almost certainly the handkerchief which had been found beneath the bed. +He shrank from his own thoughts. + +If he had consciously committed this murder he could understand a desire +to get that evidence. + +Katherine had gone closer to the detective. + +"In any case," she urged him, "I wish you wouldn't try to spend the night +in that room. It isn't pleasant. After what the doctor has said, +it--well, it isn't safe." + +Howells burst out laughing. + +"Never fear, Miss. I'm content to give Doctor Groom's spirits as much +chance to take a fall out of me as anybody. I'll be going up now." He +bowed. "Good-night to you all, and pleasant dreams." + +He opened the door and slipped into the darkness of the private +staircase. They heard him, after he had closed the door, climbing upward. +Katherine shivered. + +"He has plenty of courage, Hartley! If nothing happens to him to-night +he'll finish Bobby in the morning. That mustn't happen. He mustn't go to +jail. You understand. Things would never be the same for him again." + +Graham spread his hands. + +"What am I to do? I might go to New York and get after these +people myself." + +"Don't leave the Cedars," Bobby begged, "until he does arrest me. +There'll be plenty of time for the New York end then. I've no faith in +it. Watch Carlos if you want, but most important of all, find +out--somehow you've got to find out--what my grandfather was afraid of." + +Graham nodded. + +"And if it does come to an arrest, Bobby, you're not to say a word to +anybody without my advice. You ought to get to bed now. You must have +rest, and Katherine, too. Don't listen to-night, Katherine, for messages +from across the court." + +"I'll try," she said, "but, Hartley, I wish that man wasn't there. I wish +no one was in that room." + +She took Bobby's hand. + +"Good-night, Bobby, and don't give up hope. We'll do something. Somehow +we'll pull you through." + +Bobby waited, hoping that Graham would offer to share his room with him. +For, as he had said earlier, the prospect of going to sleep, of losing +control of his thoughts and actions, appalled him. Yet such an offer, he +realized, must impress Graham as delicate, as an indication that he +really doubted Bobby's innocence, as a sort of spying. He wasn't +surprised, therefore, when Graham only said: + +"I'll be in the next room, Bobby. If you're restless or need me you've +only to knock on the wall." + +Bobby didn't leave the library with them. The warmth with which Katherine +had just filled him faded as he watched her go out side by side with +Graham. Her hand was on Graham's arm. There was, he fancied, in her eyes +an emotion deeper than gratitude or friendship. He sighed as the door +closed behind them. He was himself largely to blame for that situation. +His very revolt against its imminence had hastened its shaping. + +He walked anxiously to the table. He had remembered the medicine Doctor +Groom had prepared for him that afternoon to make him sleep. He hadn't +taken it then. If it remained where he had left it, which was likely +enough in the disordered state of the household, he would drink it now. +Reinforced by his complete weariness, it ought to send him into a sleep +profound enough to drown any possible abnormal impulses of +unconsciousness. + +The glass was there. He drained it, and stood for a time looking at the +pinkish sediment in the bottom. That was all right for to-night, but +afterward--he couldn't shrink perpetually from sleep. He shrugged his +shoulders, remembering it would make little difference what he did in his +sleep when they had him behind prison bars. Perhaps this would be his +last night of freedom. + +He found Paredes still in the hall. The Panamanian, with languid +gestures, continued to play his solitaire. His box of cigarettes was +much reduced. + +"I thought you were tired, Carlos." + +Paredes glanced up. His eyes were neither weary nor alert. As usual his +expression disclosed nothing of his thoughts, yet he must have read in +Bobby's tone a reproach at this indifference. + +"The game intrigues me," he murmured, "and you know," he added dreamily. +"I sometimes think better while I amuse myself." + +Bobby nodded good-night and went on up to his room. Even while he +undressed the effects of the doctor's narcotic were perceptible. His eyes +had grown heavy, his brain a trifle numb. + +Almost apathetically he assured himself that he couldn't accomplish these +mad actions in his sleep. + +"Yet last night--" he murmured. "That finishes me in the eyes of the +law. The doctor will testify to aphasia. According to him I am two +men--two men!" + +He yawned, recalling snatches of books he had read and one or two +scientific reports of such cases. He climbed into bed and blew out his +candle. His drowsiness thickened. In his dulled mind one recollection +remained--the picture of Howells coldly challenging him with his level +smile to make a secret entrance of the old bedroom in a murderous effort +to escape the penalty of the earlier crime. And Howells had been right. +His death would give Bobby a chance. The destruction of the evidence, the +bringing into the case of a broader-minded man, a man without a carefully +constructed theory--all that would help Bobby, might save him. Howells, +moreover, had indicated that he had so far withheld his evidence. But +that was probably a bait. + +In his drowsy way Bobby hated more powerfully than before this detective +who, with a serene malevolence, made him writhe in his net. Thought +ceased. He drifted into a trance-like sleep. He swung in the black pit +again, fighting out against crushing odds. The darkness thundered as +though informing him that graver forces than any he had ever imagined +had definitely grasped him. Then he understood. He was in a black cell, +and the thundering was the steady advance of men along an iron floor to +take him-- + +"Bobby! Bobby!" + +He flung out his hands. He sat upright, opening his eyes. The blackness +assumed the familiar, yielding quality of the night. The thunder, the +footfalls, became a hurried knocking at his door. + +"Bobby! You're there--" It was Katherine. Her tone made the night as +frightening as the blackness of the pit. + +"What's the matter?" + +"You're there. I didn't know. Get up. Hartley's putting some clothes on. +Hurry! The house is so dark--so strange." + +"Tell me what's happened." + +She didn't answer at first. He struck a match, lighted his candle, threw +on a dressing gown, and stepped to the door. Katherine shrank against +the wall, hiding her eyes from the light of his candle. He thought it +odd she should wear the dress in which she had appeared at dinner. But +it seemed indifferently fastened, and her hair was in disorder. Graham +stepped from his room. + +"What is it?" Bobby demanded. + +"You wouldn't wake up, Bobby. You were so hard to wake." The idea seemed +to fill her mind. She repeated it several times. + +"It's nothing," Graham said. "Go back to your room, Katherine. She's +fanciful--" + +She lowered her hands. Her eyes were full of terror. "No. We have to go +to that room as I went last night, as we went to-day." + +Graham tried to quiet her. "We'll go to satisfy you." + +Her voice hardened. "I know. I was asleep. It woke me up, stealing in +across the court again." + +Bobby grasped her arm. "You came out and aroused up at once?" + +She shook her head. "I--I couldn't find my dressing gown. This dress was +by the bed. I put it on, but I couldn't seem to fasten it." + +Bobby stepped back, remembering his last thought before drifting into the +trance-like sleep. She seemed to know what was in his mind. + +"But when I knocked you were sleeping so soundly." + +"Too soundly, perhaps." + +"Come. We're growing imaginative," Graham said. "Howells would take care +of himself. He'll probably give us the deuce for disturbing him, but to +satisfy you, Katherine, we'll wake him up." + +"If you can," she whispered. + +They entered the main hall. Light came through the stair well from the +lower floor. Graham walked to the rail and glanced down. Bobby followed +him. On the table by the fireplace the cards were arranged in neat +piles. A strong draft blew cigarette smoke up to them. + +"Paredes," Graham said, amazed, "is still downstairs. The front door's +open. He's probably in the court." + +"It must be very late," Bobby said. + +Katherine shivered. + +"Half-past two. I looked at my watch. The same time as last night." + +With a gesture of resolution she led the way into the corridor. Bobby +shrank from the damp and musty atmosphere of the narrow passage. + +"Why do you come, Katherine?" he asked. + +"I have to know, as I had to know last night." + +Graham raised his hand and knocked at the door which again was locked on +the inside. The echoes chattered back at them. Graham knocked again. With +a passionate revolt Katherine raised her hands, too, and pounded at the +panels. Suddenly she gave up. She let her hands fall listlessly. + +"It's no use." + +"Howells! Howells!" Graham called. "Why don't you answer?" + +"When he boasted to-night," Katherine whispered, "the murderer +heard him." + +"Suppose he's gone down to the library?" Graham said. + +Bobby gave Katherine the candle. + +"No. He'd have stayed. We've got to break in here. We've got to +find out." + +Graham placed his powerful shoulder against the door. The lock strained. +Bobby added his weight. With a splintering of wood the door flew open, +precipitating them across the threshold. Through the darkness Graham +sprang for the opposite door. + +"It's locked," he called, "and the key's on this side." + +Bobby took the candle from Katherine and forced himself to approach the +bed. The flame flickered a little in the breeze which stole past the +curtain of the open window. It shook across the body of Howells, fully +clothed with his head on the stained pillow. His face, intricately lined, +was as peaceful as Silas Blackburn's had been. Its level smile persisted. + +Bobby caught his breath. + +"Howells--" + +He set the candle on the bureau. + +"It's no use. We must look at the back of his head." + +"The back of his head!" Katherine echoed. + +"It's illegal," Graham said. + +"Look!" Bobby cried. "We've got to look!" + +Graham tiptoed forward. He stretched out his hand. With a motion of +abhorrence he drew it back. Bobby watched him hypnotically, thinking: + +"I wanted this. I hated him. I thought of it just before I went to +sleep." + +Graham reached out again. This time he touched Howells's head. It rolled +over on the pillow. + +"Good God!" he said. + +They stared at the red hole, near the base of the brain, at a fresh +crimson splotch, straying beyond the edges of the darker one they had +seen that afternoon. + +Graham turned away, his hand still outstretched, as if it had touched +some poisonous thing and might retain a contamination. + +"He was prepared against it," he whispered, "expected it, yet it got +him." + +He glanced rapidly around the room whose shadows seemed crowding about +the candle to stifle it. + +"Unless we're all mad," he cried, "the murderer must be hidden in this +room now. Don't you see? He's got to be, or Groom's right, and we're +fighting the dead. Go out, Katherine. Stand by that broken door, Bobby. +I'm going to look." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A STRANGE LIGHT APPEARS AT THE DESERTED HOUSE + + +Graham's intention, logical as it was, impressed Bobby as quite futile. +Silas Blackburn had died in this ancient, melancholy room behind locked +doors. This afternoon, with a repetition of the sounds that had probably +accompanied his death, they had been drawn to find that, behind locked +doors again, the position of the body had changed incredibly, as if to +expose to them the tiny fatal wound at the base of the brain. Now for the +third time those stealthy movements had aroused Katherine, and they had +found, once more behind locked doors, the determined and malicious +detective, murdered precisely as old Blackburn had been. + +Of course Graham was logical. By every rational argument the murderer +must still be in the room. Yet Bobby foresaw that, as always, no one +would be found, that nothing would be unearthed to explain the succession +of tragic mysteries. While Graham commenced his search, indeed, he +continued to stare at the little round hole in Howells's head, at the +fresh, irregular stain on the pillow, and he became absorbed in his own +predicament. Again and again he asked himself if he could be responsible +for these murders which had been committed with an inhuman ingenuity. He +knew only that he had wandered, unconscious, in the vicinity of the +Cedars last night; that he had been asleep when his grandfather's body +had altered its position; that he had gone to sleep a little while ago +too profoundly, brooding over Howells's challenge to the murderer to +invade the room of death and kill him if he could. Howells had been +confident that he could handle a man and so solve the riddle of how the +room had been entered. Certainly Howells's challenge had been accepted, +and Bobby knew that he had fallen into that deep sleep hating the +detective, telling himself that the man's death might save him from +arrest, from conviction, from an intolerable walk to a little room with a +single chair. + +"Recurrent aphasia." The doctor's expression came back to him. In such a +state a man could overcome locked doors, could accomplish apparent +miracles and retain no recollection. And Bobby had hated and feared +Howells more than he had his grandfather. + +Dully he saw Katherine go out at Graham's direction. As one in a dream he +moved toward the door they had had to break down on entering. + +"Stand close to it," Graham said. "We'll cover everything." + +"You'll find no one," Bobby answered with a perfect assurance. + +He saw Graham take the candle and explore the large closets. He watched +him examine the spaces behind the window curtains. He could smile a +little as Graham stooped, peering beneath the bed, as he moved each piece +of furniture large enough to secrete a man. + +"You see, Hartley, it's no use." + +Graham's lack of success, however, stimulated his anger. + +"Then," he said, "there must be some hiding place in the walls. Such +devices are common in houses as old as this." + +Bobby indicated the silent form of the detective. + +"He believed I killed my grandfather. The only reason he didn't arrest me +was his failure to find out how the room had been entered and left. Don't +you suppose he looked for a hiding place or a secret entrance the first +thing? It's obvious." + +But Graham's savage determination increased. He sounded each panel. None +gave the slightest revealing response. He got a tape from Katherine and +measured the dimensions of the room, the private hall, and the corridor. +At last he turned to Bobby, his anger dead, his face white and tired. + +"Everything checks," he admitted. "There's no secret room, no way in or +out. Logically Groom's right. We're fighting the dead who resent the +intrusion of your grandfather and Howells." + +He laughed mirthlessly. + +"After all, we can't surrender to that. There must be another answer." + +"From the first Howells was satisfied with me," Bobby said. + +Graham flung up his hands. + +"Then tell me how you got in without disturbing those locks. I grant you, +Bobby, you had sufficient motive for both murders, but I don't believe +you have two personalities, one decent and lovable, the other cruel and +cunning to the point of magic. I don't believe if a man had two such +personalities the actions of one would be totally closed to the memory of +the other." + +Bobby smiled wanly. + +"It isn't pleasant to confess it, Hartley, but I have read of such +cases." + +"Fiction!" + +"Scientific fact." + +"I wish to the devil I had shared your room with you to-night," Graham +muttered. "I might have furnished you an alibi for this affair at least." + +"Either that," Bobby answered frankly, "or you might have followed me and +learned the whole secret. Honestly, isn't that what you were thinking of, +Hartley? And I did go to sleep, telling myself it would help me if +something of the sort happened to Howells. Now I'm not so sure that it +will. I--I suppose you've got to notify the police." + +Graham held up his hand. + +"What's that? In the corridor!" + +There were quiet footsteps in the corridor. Bobby turned quickly, +Paredes strolled slowly through the passage, a cigarette held in his +slender, listless fingers. Bobby stared at him, remembering his surprise +a few minutes ago that the Panamanian should have sat up so late, should +have been, probably, in the court when they had followed Katherine to the +discovery of this new crime. + +Paredes paused in the doorway. He took in the tragic picture framed by +the sinister room without displaying the slightest interest. He continued +to hold his cigarette until it expired. Then he crossed the threshold. +Graham and Bobby watched the expressionless face. Gracefully Paredes +raised his finger and pointed to the bed. When he spoke his voice was low +and pleasant: + +"Appalling! I feared something of the kind when I heard you come to +this room." + +He glanced at the broken door. + +"The same unbelievable circumstance," he drawled. "I see you had to +break in." + +The colour flashed back to Graham's face. + +"You have taken plenty of time to solve your misgivings." + +"It hasn't been so long. I fancied everything was all right, and I was +immersed in my solitaire. Then I heard a stirring upstairs. As I've told +you, the house frightens me. It is not natural or healthy. So I came up +to investigate this stirring, and there was Miss Katherine in the hall. +She told me." + +Graham faced him with undisguised enmity. + +"Immersed in your solitaire! We were attracted by a light in the lower +hall at such an hour. We looked down. You were not there. The front door +was open." + +Paredes glanced at his cold cigarette. He yawned. + +"When Howells died precisely as Mr. Blackburn did," Graham hurried on, +"you alone were awake about the house. Weren't you at that moment in +the court?" + +Paredes laughed tolerantly. + +"It is clear, in spite of my apologies, that we are not friends, Graham; +but, may I ask, are you accusing me of this strange--accident?" + +"I should like to know what you were doing in the court." + +"Perhaps," Paredes answered, "I was attracted there by the sounds that +aroused Miss Katherine." + +Graham shook his head. + +"From her description I doubt if those sounds would have been audible in +the hall." + +"No matter," Paredes said. "I merely suggest that it's a case for Groom. +His hint of a spiritual enmity may be saner than you think." + +Katherine appeared in the doorway. She had evidently overheard Paredes's +comment, for she nodded. The determination in her eyes suggested that she +had struggled with the situation during these last moments and had +reached a definite conclusions That quality was in her voice. + +"At least, Hartley," she said, "you must send for Doctor Groom before +you notify the police." + +Graham waved his hand. + +"Why?" he asked. "The man is dead." + +With a movement, hidden from Paredes, she indicated Bobby. + +"Last time there was a good deal of delay before the doctor came. If we +get him right away he may be able to do something for this poor fellow. +At least his advice would be useful." + +Bobby realized that she was fighting for time for him. Any delay would be +useful that would give them a chance to plan before the police with +unimaginative efficiency should invade the house and limit their +opportunities. Graham showed that he caught her point. + +"Maybe it's better," he said. "Then, Bobby, telephone Groom to be ready +for you, and take my runabout. It's in the stable. You'll get him here +much faster than he could come in his carriage." + +"While I'm gone," Bobby asked, "what will you do?" + +"Watch this room," Graham jerked out. "See that no one enters or leaves +it, or touches the body. I'll hope for some clue." + +"You've plenty of courage," Paredes drawled. "I shouldn't care to watch +alone in this room." + +He followed Katherine into the corridor. Bobby looked at Graham. + +"You'll take no chances, Hartley?" + +Graham's smile wasn't pleasant. + +"According to you and the dead detective there's no risk while you're out +of the house. Still, I shall be nervous, but don't worry." + +Bobby joined the others before they had reached the hall. + +"Of course Hartley found nothing," Katherine said to him. + +"Nothing," Paredes answered, "except a very bad temper." + +Katherine's distaste for the man was no longer veiled. + +"You don't like Mr. Graham," she said, "but he is our friend, and he is +in this house to help us." + +Paredes bowed. + +"I regret that the amusement Mr. Graham causes me sometimes finds +expression. He is so earnest, so materialistic in his relation to the +world. That is why he will see nothing psychic in the situation." + +Paredes's easy contempt was like a tonic for Katherine. Her fear seemed +to drop from her. She turned purposefully to Bobby, ignoring the +Panamanian. + +"I shall watch with Hartley," she said. + +He was ashamed that jealousy should creep into such a moment, but her +resolve recalled his amorous discontent. The prospect of Graham and her, +watching alone, drawn to each other by their fright and uncertainty, by +their surroundings, by the hour, became unbearable. It placed him, to an +extent, on Paredes's side. It urged him, when Paredes had gone on +downstairs, to spring almost eagerly to his defence. + +"As Hartley says," Katherine began, "he makes you think of a snake. He +must see we dislike and resent him." + +"You and Hartley, perhaps," Bobby said. "Carlos says he is here to help +me. I've no reason to disbelieve him." + +A little colour came into Katherine's face. She half stretched out her +hand as if in an appeal. But the colour faded and her hand dropped. + +"We are wasting time," she said. "You had better go." + +"I am sorry we disagree about Carlos," he commenced. + +She turned deliberately away from him. + +"You must hurry," she said. "Hurry!" + +He saw her enter the corridor to join Graham. The obscurity of the narrow +place seemed to hold for him a new menace. + +He walked downstairs slowly. While he telephoned, instructing a servant +to tell the doctor to be dressed and ready in twenty minutes, he saw +Paredes go to the closet and get his hat and coat. + +"I shall keep you company," the Panamanian announced. + +Bobby was glad enough to have him. He didn't want to be alone. He was +aware by this time that no amount of thought would persuade useful +memories to emerge from the black pit. They walked to the stable, half +gone to ruin like the rest of the estate. Bobby started Graham's car. The +servants' quarters, he saw, were dark. Then Jenkins and the two women +hadn't been aroused, were still ignorant of the new crime. As they drove +smoothly past the gloomy house they glimpsed through the court the dimly +lit windows of the old room that persistently guarded its grim secret. +Bobby pictured the living as well as the dead there, and his mind +revolted, and he shivered. He opened the throttle wider. The car sprang +forward. The divergent glare from the headlights forced back the +reluctant thicket. Paredes drawled unexpectedly: + +"There is nothing as lonely anywhere in the world." + +He stooped behind the windshield and lighted a cigarette. + +"At least. Bobby," he said between puffs, "the Cedars has taken from you +the fear of Howells." + +And after a time, staring at the glow of his cigarette, he went on +softly: + +"Have you noticed anything significant about the discovery of each +mystery at the Cedars?" + +"Many things," Bobby muttered. + +"Think," Paredes urged him. + +Bobby answered angrily: + +"You've suggested that to me once to-day, Carlos. You mean that each time +I have been asleep or unconscious." + +"I mean something quite different," Paredes said. + +He hesitated. When he continued, his drawl was more pronounced. + +"Then you haven't remarked that each time it has been Miss Katherine who +has made the discovery, who has aroused the rest of the house?" + +The car swerved sharply. Bobby's first impulse had been to take his hands +from the wheel, to force Paredes to retract his sly insinuation. + +"That's the rottenest thing I've ever known you to do, Carlos. +Take it back." + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is nothing to take back. I accuse no one. I merely call attention +to a chain of exceptional coincidences." + +"You make me wonder," Bobby said, "if Hartley isn't justified in his +dislike of you. You'll kill such a ridiculous suspicion." + +"Or?" Paredes drawled. "Very well. It seems my fate recently to offend +those I like best. I merely thought that any theory leading away from you +would be welcome." + +"Any theory," Bobby answered, "involving Katherine is unthinkable." + +Paredes smiled. + +"I didn't understand exactly how you felt. I rather took it for granted +that Graham--Never mind. I take it back." + +"Then drop it," Bobby answered sullenly, sorry that there was nothing +else he could say. + +They continued in silence through the deserted forest whose aggressive +loneliness made words seem trivial. Bobby was asking himself again where +he had stood last night when he had glimpsed for a moment the straining +trees and the figure in a mask which he had called his conscience. If he +could only prove that figure substantial! Then Graham would have some +ground for his suspicion of Paredes and the dancer Maria. He glanced at +Paredes. Could there have been a conspiracy against him in the New York +cafe? Did Paredes, in fact, have some devious purpose in remaining at +the Cedars? + +The automobile took a sharp curve in the road. Bobby started, gazing +ahead with an interest nearly hypnotic. The headlights had caught in +their glare the deserted farmhouse in which he had awakened just before +Howells had told him of his grandfather's death and practically placed +him under arrest. In the white light the frame of the house from which +the paint had flaked, appeared ghastly, unreal, like a structure seen in +a nightmare from which one recoils with morbid horror. The light left the +building. As the car tore past, Bobby could barely make out the black +mass in the midst of the thicket. + +Paredes had observed it, too. + +"I daresay," he remarked casually, "the Cedars will become as deserted as +that. It is just that it should, for the entire neighbourhood impresses +one as unfriendly to life, as striving through death to drive life out." + +"Have you ever seen that house before?" Bobby asked quickly. + +"I have never seen it before. I do not care ever to see it again." + +It was a relief when the forest thinned and fields stretched, flat and +pleasant, like barriers against the stunted growth. Bobby stopped the car +in front of one of a group of houses at a crossroads. He climbed the +steps and rang. Doctor Groom opened the door himself. His gigantic, hairy +figure was silhouetted against the light from within. + +"What's the matter now?" he demanded in his gruff voice. "Fortunately I +hadn't gone to bed. I was reading some books on psychic manifestations. +Who's sick? Or--" + +Bobby's face must have told him a good deal, for he broke off. + +"Get your things on," Bobby said, "and I will tell you as we drive +back, for you must come. Howells has been killed precisely as my +grandfather was." + +For a moment Doctor Groom's bulky frame remained motionless in the +doorway. Instead of the surprise and horror Bobby had foreseen, the old +man expressed only a mute wonder. He got his hat and coat and entered the +runabout, Paredes made room for him, sitting on the floor, his feet on +the running board. + +Bobby had told all he knew before they had reached the forest. The doctor +grunted then: + +"The wound at the back of the head was the same as in your +grandfather's case?" + +"Exactly." + +"Then what good am I? Why am I routed out?" + +"A formality," Bobby answered. "Katherine thought if we got you quickly +you might do something. Anyway, she wanted your advice." + +The woods closed about them. Again the lights seemed to push back a +palpable barrier. + +"I can't work miracles," the doctor was murmuring. "I can't bring men +back to life. Such a wound leaves no ground for hope. You'd better have +sent for the police at once. Hello!" + +He strained forward, peering around the windshield. + +"Funny!" Paredes called. + +Bobby's eyes were on the road. + +"What do you see?" + +"The house, Bobby!" Paredes cried. + +"No one, to my certain knowledge," the doctor said, "has lived in that +house for ten years. You say it was empty and falling to pieces when you +woke up there this morning." + +Bobby knew what they meant then, and he reduced the speed of the car and +looked ahead to the right. A pallid glow sifted through the trees from +the direction of the deserted house. + +Bobby guided the car to the side of the road, stopped it, and shut off +the engine. At first no one moved. The three men stared as if in the +presence of an unaccountable phenomenon. Even when Bobby had +extinguished the headlights the glow failed to brighten. Its pallid +quality persisted. It seemed to radiate from a point close to the ground. + +"It comes from the front of the house," Bobby murmured. + +He stepped from the automobile. + +"What are you going to do?" Paredes wanted to know. + +"Find out who is in that house." + +For Bobby had experienced a quick hope. If there was a man or a woman +secreted in the building the truth as to his own remarkable presence +there last night might not be so far to seek after all. There was, +moreover, something lawless about this light escaping from the place at +such an hour. A little while ago, when Paredes and he had driven past, +the house had been black. They had remarked its lonely, abandoned +appearance. It had led Paredes to speak of the neighbourhood as the +domain of death. Yet the strange, pallid quality of the light itself made +him pause by the broken fence. It did come from the lower part of the +front of the house, yet, so faint was it, it failed to outline the +aperture through which it escaped. The doctor and Paredes joined him. + +"When I was here," he said, "all the shutters were closed. This glow is +too white, too diffused. We must see." + +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. + +Suddenly Bobby turned, grasping the doctor's arm. + +"Did you hear anything?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"Or feel anything?" + +"No." + +"I thought," Bobby said excitedly, "that there was some one in the +hall. I--I simply got that impression, for I saw nothing myself. My +back was turned." + +Paredes strolled silently in. + +"It may have been Mr. Paredes," the doctor said. + +But Bobby wasn't convinced. + +"Did you see or hear anything coming through the hall, Carlos?" + +"No," Paredes said. + +He had brought the light. With its help they explored the tiny cellar and +the upper floor. There was no sign of a recent occupancy. Everything was +as Bobby had found it on awakening. A vagrant wind sighed about the +place. They looked at each other with startled eyes. They filed out with +an incongruous stealth. + +"Then there are ghosts here, too!" Paredes whispered. + +"Who knows?" Doctor Groom mused. "It is as puzzling as anything that has +happened at the Cedars unless the light we saw was some phosphorescent +effect of decaying wood or vegetation." + +"Then why should it go out all at once?" Bobby asked. "Is there any +connection between this light and what has happened at the Cedars?" + +"The house at least," Paredes put in, "is connected with what has +happened at the Cedars through your experience here." + +At Doctor Groom's suggestion they sat in the automobile for some time, +watching the house for a repetition of the pallid light. After several +minutes, when it failed to come, Bobby set his gears. + +"Graham and Katherine will be worried." + +They drove quickly away from the black, uncommunicative mass of the +abandoned building. The woods were lonelier than before. They impressed +Bobby as guarding something. + +He drove straight to the stable. As they walked into the court they saw +the uncertain candlelight diffused from the room of death. In the hall +Bobby responded to a quick alarm. The Cedars was too quiet. What had +happened since he and Paredes had left? + +"Katherine! Hartley!" he called. + +He heard running steps upstairs. Katherine leaned over the banister. Her +quiet voice reassured him. "Is the doctor with you?" + +He nodded. Paredes yawned and lighted a cigarette. He settled himself in +an easy chair. Bobby and Doctor Groom hurried up. Katherine led them down +the old corridor. Two chairs had been placed in the broken doorway. +Graham sat there. He arose and greeted the doctor. + +"Nothing has happened since I left?" Bobby asked. + +Graham shook his head. + +"Katherine and I have watched every minute." + +Doctor Groom walked to the bed and for a long time looked down at +Howells. Once he put out his hand, quickly withdrawing it. + +"It's simply a repetition," he said at last, and his voice was softer +than its custom. "It may be a warning, for all we know, that no one may +sleep in this room without attracting death. Yet why should that be? I +miss this poor fellow's materialistic viewpoint. There's nothing I can do +for him, nothing I can say, except that death must have been +instantaneous. The police must seek again for a man to place in the +electric chair." + +Graham touched his arm with an odd reluctance. + +"Sitting here for so long I've been thinking. I have always been +materialistic, too. Tell me seriously, doctor, do you believe there is +any psychic force capable of killing two men in this incisive fashion?" + +"No one," the doctor answered, "can say what psychic force is capable of +doing. Some scientists have started to explore, but it is still uncharted +country. From certain places--I daresay you've noticed it--one gets an +impression of peace and content; from others a depression, a sense of +suffering. I think we have all experienced psychic force to that extent. +Remember that this room has a history of intense and rebellious +suffering. Some of it I have seen with my own eyes. Your father's fight +for life, Katherine, was horrible for those of us who knew he had no +chance. As I watched beside him I used to wonder if such violent agony +could ever drift wholly into silence, and when we had to tell him finally +that the fight was lost, it was beyond bearing." + +"If these men had been found dead without marks of violence," Graham +said, "I might consider such a possibility, irrational as it seems." + +"Irrational," Doctor Groom answered, "must not be confused with +impossible. The marks of a physical violence, far from proving that the +attack was physical, strengthens the case of the supernatural. Certainly +you have heard and read of pictures being dashed from walls by invisible +hands, of objects moved about empty rooms, of cases where human beings +have been attacked by inanimate things--heavy things--hurtling through +the air. Some scientists recognize such irrational possibilities. +Policemen don't." + +"Very well," Graham said stubbornly. "I'll follow you that far, but you +must show me in this room the sharp object with which these men were +attacked, no matter what the force behind it." + +The doctor spread his hands. His infused eyes nearly closed. + +"That I can't do. At any rate, Robert, this isn't wholly tragic to you. I +don't see how any one could accuse you of aphasia to-night." + +"You've not forgotten," Bobby said slowly, "that you spoke of a +recurrent aphasia." + +"That's the trouble," Graham put in under his breath. "He has no more +alibi now than he had when his grandfather was murdered." + +Bobby told of his heavy sleep, of the delay in Katherine's arousing him. + +The doctor's gruff voice was disapproving. + +"You shouldn't have drunk that medicine. It had stood too long. It would +only have approximated its intended effect." + +"You mean," Bobby asked, "that I wasn't sleeping as soundly as I +thought?" + +"Probably not, but you're by no means a satisfactory victim. Men do +unaccountable things in a somnambulistic state, but asleep they haven't +wings any more than they have awake. You've got to show us how you +entered this room without disturbing the locks. Now, Mr. Graham, we must +comply with the law. Call in the police." + +"There's nothing else to do," Bobby agreed. + +So they went along the dingy corridor and downstairs. From the depths of +the easy chair in which Paredes lounged smoke curled with a lazy +indifference. The Panamanian didn't move. + +While Graham and the doctor walked to the back of the hall to telephone, +Katherine, an anxious figure, a secretive one, beckoned Bobby to the +library. He went with her, wondering what she could want. + +It was quite dark in the library. As Bobby fumbled with the lamp and +prepared to strike a match he was aware of the girl's provocatively near +presence. He resisted a warm impulse to reach out and touch her hand. He +desired to tell her all that was in his heart of the division that had +increased between them the last few months. Yet to follow that impulse +would, he realized, place a portion of his burden on her shoulders; would +also, in a sense, be disloyal to Graham, for he no longer questioned that +the two had reached a definite sentimental understanding. So he sighed +and struck the match. Even before the lamp was lighted Katherine was +speaking with a feverish haste: + +"Before the police come--you've a chance, Bobby--the last chance. You +must do before the police arrive whatever is to be done." + +He replaced the shade and glanced at her, astonished by her intensity, by +the forceful gesture with which she grasped his arm. For the first time +since Silas Blackburn's murder all of her vitality had come back to her. + +"What do you mean?" + +She pointed to the door of the private staircase. + +"Just what Howells told you before he went up there to his death." + +Bobby understood. He reacted excitedly to her attitude of conspirator. + +"He said," she went on, "that the criminal had nothing to lose. That it +would be to his advantage to have him out of the way, to destroy that +evidence." + +"I thought of it," Bobby answered, "just before I went to sleep." + +"Don't you see?" she said. "If you had killed him you would have taken +the cast and the handkerchief and destroyed them? Hartley has told me +everything, and I could see his coat for myself. The cast and the +handkerchief are still in Howells's pocket." + +"Why should I have killed him if not to destroy those?" Bobby took her up +with a quick hope. + +"You didn't," she cried. "Nothing would ever make me believe +that you killed him, but you will be charged with it unless the +evidence--disappears. You'll have no defence." + +Bobby drew back a little. + +"You want me to go there--and--and take from his pocket those things?" + +She nodded. + +"You remember he suggested that he hadn't sent his report. That may be +there, too." + +Bobby shook his head. "He must have said that as a bait." + +"At the worst," she urged, "a report without evidence could only turn +suspicion against you. It wouldn't convict you as those other things may. +You must get them. You must destroy them." + +Graham slipped quietly in and closed the door. + +"The district attorney is coming himself with another detective," he +said. "I can guess what Katherine has been talking about. She's right. +I'm a lawyer, an I know the penalty of tampering with evidence. But I +don't believe you're a murderer, and I tell you as long as that evidence +exists they can convict you. They can send you to the chair. They may +arrest you and try you anyway on his report, but I don't believe they can +convict you on it alone. You're justified in protecting yourself, Bobby, +in the only way you can. No one will see you go in the room. We'll +arrange it so that no one can testify against you." + +Bobby felt himself at a cross roads. During the commission of those +crimes he had been unconscious. If he had, in fact, had anything to do +with them, his personality, his real self, had known nothing, had done no +wrong. His body had merely reacted to hideous promptings whose source +lurked at the bottom of the black pit. To tamper with evidence would be a +conscious crime. All the more, because of his doubt of himself, he shrank +from that. Katherine saw his hesitation. + +"It's a matter of your life or death." + +But although Katherine decided him it wasn't with that. She came closer. +She looked straight at him, and her eyes were full of an affection that +stirred him profoundly: + +"For my sake, Bobby--" + +He studied the dead ashes of the fire which a little while ago had +played on Howells, vital and antagonistic, by the door of the private +staircase. The man had challenged him to do just the thing from which he +shrank. But Howells was no longer vital or antagonistic, and it occurred +to him that a little of his shrinking arose from the thought of +approaching and robbing the still thing upstairs, all that was left of +the man who had not been afraid of the mystery of the locked room. + +"For my sake," Katherine repeated. + +Bobby squared his shoulders. He fought back his momentary cowardice. The +affection in Katherine's eyes was stronger than that. + +"All right," he said. "Howells never gave me a chance while he was alive. +He'll have to now he's dead." + +Katherine relaxed. Graham's face was quite white, but he gave his +instructions in a cold, even tone: + +"We'll go to the hall now. Katherine will go on upstairs. She mustn't see +you enter the room, but she will watch in the corridor while you are +there to be sure you aren't disturbed. You and I will chat for awhile +with the others, Bobby, then you will go up. You understand? Paredes +mustn't even guess what you are doing. I'll keep him and Groom +downstairs. If he spied, if he knew what you were at, he'd have a weapon +in his hands I'd hate to think about. He may be all right, but we can't +risk any more than we have to. We must go on tiptoe." + +He opened the door. Katherine gave Bobby's hand a quick, +encouraging pressure. + +"Take the stuff to my room," Graham whispered. "The first chance, we'll +destroy it so that no trace will be left." + +They went to the hall. Without speaking, Katherine climbed the stairs. +Graham drew a chair between Paredes and the doctor. Bobby lounged against +the mantel, trying to find in the Panamanian's face some clue as to his +real feelings. But Paredes's eyes were closed. His hand drooped across +the chair arm. His slender, pointed fingers held, as if from mere habit, +a lifeless cigarette. + +"Asleep," Graham whispered. + +Without opening his eyes Paredes spoke: "No; I feel curiously awake." +He yawned. + +Doctor Groom glanced at his watch. "The powers of prosecution," he +grumbled, "ought to be here within the next fifteen or twenty minutes." + +Bobby glanced at Graham. Then it wasn't safe to delay too long. More and +more as he waited he shrank from the invasion of the room of death. The +prospect of reaching out and touching the still, cold thing on the bed +revolted him. Was there anything in that room capable of forbidding his +intention? Was there, in short, a surer, more malicious force for evil +than his unconscious self, at work in the house? He was about to make +some formal comment to the others, to embark on his distasteful +adventure, when Paredes, as if he had read Bobby's mind, opened his +eyes, languidly left his chair, and walked to the foot of the stairs. + +"Where you going?" Graham asked sharply. + +Paredes waved his hand indifferently and walked on up. There was +something of stealth in his failure to reply, in his cat-like tread on +the stairs. Graham and Bobby stared after him, unable to meet this new +situation audibly because of Groom. Yet five minutes had gone. There was +no time to be lost. Paredes mustn't rob Bobby of his chance. With a sort +of desperation he started for the stairs. Graham held out his hand as if +to restrain him, then nodded. Bobby had his foot on the first step when +Katherine's cry reached them, shaping the moment to their use. For there +was no fright in her cry. It was, rather, angry. And Bobby and Graham ran +up while Doctor Groom remained in his chair, an expression of blank +amazement on his face. + +A candle burned on the table in the upper hall. Katherine and Paredes +stood near the entrance of the old corridor. Paredes, as usual, was quite +unruffled. Katherine's attitude was defensive. She seemed to hold the +corridor against him. The anger of her cry was active in her eyes. +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"Sorry to have given the household one more shock. Fortunately no +harm done." + +"What is it, Katherine?" Graham demanded. + +"I don't know," she answered. "He startled me. He entered the corridor." + +Paredes nodded. + +"Quite right. She was there. I was on my way to my room. If your house +had electricity, Bobby, this incident would have been avoided. I saw +something dark in the corridor." + +"You may not know," Graham said, "that ever since we found Howells, one +of us has tried, more or less, to keep the entrance of that room under +observation." + +"Yet you were all downstairs a little while ago," Paredes yawned. "It's +too bad. I might have taken my turn then. At any rate, since I was +excluded from your confidence, I overcame my natural fear, and, for +Bobby's sake, slipped in, and, I am afraid, startled Miss Katherine." + +"Yes," she said. + +His explanation was reasonable. There was nothing more to be said, but +Bobby's doubt of his friend, sown by Graham and stimulated by the +incidents of the last hour, was materially strengthened. He felt a +sharp fear of Paredes. Such reserve, such concealment of emotion, was +scarcely human. + +"If," Graham was saying, "you really want to help Bobby, there is +something you can do. Will you come downstairs with me for a moment? I'd +like to suggest one or two things before the police arrive." + +Without hesitation Paredes followed Graham down the stairs. + +Katherine turned immediately to Bobby, her eyes eager, full of the tense +determination that had dictated her plan in the library. + +"Now, Bobby!" she whispered. "And there's no time to waste. They may be +here any minute. I won't see you go, but I'll be back at once to guard +you against Paredes if he slips up again." + +She walked across the hall and disappeared in the newer corridor. Without +witness he faced the old corridor, and with the attempt directly ahead +his repugnance achieved a new power. The black entrance with its scarcely +dared memories reminded him that what he was about to do was directed +against more than human law, was an outrage against the dead man. He had +to remind himself of the steely purpose with which Howells had marked him +as the murderer; and the man's power persisted after death. In such a +contest he was justified. + +He took the candle from the table. Through the stair-well the murmur of +Graham's voice, occasionally interrupted by Groom's heavy tones or the +languid accents of Paredes, drifted encouragingly. Trying to crush his +premonitions, Bobby entered the corridor. Instead of illuminating the +narrow passage the candle seemed half smothered by its blackness. For the +first time in his memory Bobby faced the entrance of the sinister room +alone. He pushed open the broken door. He paused on the threshold. It +impressed him as not unnatural that he should experience such misgivings. +They sprang not alone from the fact that within twenty-four hours two men +had died unaccountably within these faded walls. Nor did the evidence +pointing to his own unconscious guilt wholly account for them. At the +bottom of everything was the fact that from his earliest childhood he had +looked upon the room as consecrated to death; had consequently feared it; +had, he recalled, always hurried past the disused corridor leading in its +direction. + +Through its wide spaces the light of the candle scarcely penetrated. No +more than an indefinite radiance thrust back the obscurity and outlined +the bed. He could barely see the stark, black form outstretched there. + +The dim, vast room, as he advanced, imposed upon him a sense of +isolation. Katherine in the upper hall, the others downstairs, whose +voices no longer reached him, seemed all at once far away. He stood in a +place lonelier and more remote than the piece of woods where he had +momentarily opened his eyes last night; and, instead of the straining +trees and the figure in the black mask which he had called his +conscience, he had for motion and companionship only the swaying of the +curtains in the breeze from the open window and the dark, prostrate thing +whose face as he went closer was like a white mask--a mask with a fixed +and malevolent sneer. + +The wind caught the flame of the candle, making it flicker. Tenuous +shadows commenced to dance across the walls. He paused with a tightening +throat, for the form on the bed seemed moving, too, with sly and scarcely +perceptible gestures. Then he understood. It was the effect of the +shaking candle, and he forced himself to go on, but a sense of a multiple +companionship accompanied him--a sense of a shapeless, soundless +companionship that projected an idea of a steady regard. There swept +through his mind a procession of figures in quaint dress and with faces +not unlike his own, remembered from portraits and family legends, men and +women to whom this room had been familiar, within whose limits they had +suffered, cried out a too-powerful agony, and died. It seemed to him that +he waited for voices to guide him, to urge him on as Katherine had urged +him, or to drive him back, because he was an intruder in a company whose +habit was strange and terrifying. + +He forced his glance from the shadows which seemed more active along the +walls. He raised his candle and stared at the dead man. The cast was +undoubtedly there. The coat, stretched tightly across the breast, +outlined it. He stood at the side of the bed. He had only to bend and +place his hand in the pocket which the cast filled awkwardly. The wind +alone, he saw, wasn't responsible for the shaking of the candle. His hand +shook as the shadows shook, as the thing on the bed shook. The sense of +loneliness grew upon him until it became complete, appalling. For the +first time he understood that loneliness can possess a ponderable +quality. It was, he felt, potent and active in the room--a thing he +couldn't understand, or challenge, or overcome. + +His hand tightened. He thought of Katherine guarding the corridor; of +Paredes and Doctor Groom, held downstairs by Graham; of the county +authorities hurrying to seize this evidence that would convict him; and +he realized that his duty and his excuse were clear. He understood that +just now he had been captured by a force undefinable in terms of the +world he knew. For a moment he eluded the stealthy fleshless hands of its +impalpable skirmishers. He reached impulsively out to the dead man. He +was about to place his fingers in the pocket, which, after all was said +and done, held his life. + +In the light of the candle the face seemed alive and more menacing than +it had ever done in life. About the straight smile was a wider, more +triumphant quality. + +The candle flickered sharply. It expired. The conquering blackness took +his breath. + +He told himself it was the draft from the window which was strong, but +the companionship of the night was closer and more numerous. The darkness +wreathed itself into mocking and tortuous bodies whose faces were hidden. + +In an agony of revolt against these incorporeal, these fanciful horrors, +he reached in the pocket. + +He sprang back with a choked, inaudible cry, for the dead thing beneath +his hand was stirring. The dead, cold thing with a languid and impossible +rebuke, moved beneath his touch. And the pocket he had felt was empty. +The coat, a moment ago bulging and awkward, was flat. There sprang to +his mind the mad thought that the detective, malevolent in life, had long +after death snatched from his hand the evidence, carefully gathered, on +which everything for him depended. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CRYING THROUGH THE WOODS + + +Bobby's inability to cry out alone prevented his alarming the others and +announcing to Paredes and Doctor Groom his unlawful presence in the room. +During the moment that the shock held him, silent, motionless, bent in +the darkness above the bed, he understood there could have been no +ambiguity about his ghastly and loathsome experience. The dead detective +had altered his position as Silas Blackburn had done, and this time +someone had been in the room and suffered the appalling change. Bobby's +fingers still responded to the charnel feeling of cold, inactive flesh +suddenly become alive and potent beneath his touch. And a reason for the +apparent miracle offered itself. Between the extinction of his candle and +the commencement of that movement!--only a second or so--the evidence had +disappeared from the detective's pocket. + +Bobby relaxed. He stumbled across the room and into the corridor. He went +with hands outstretched through the blackness, for no candle burned in +the upper hall, but he knew that Katherine was on guard there. When he +left the passage he saw her, an unnatural figure herself, in the +yellowish, unhealthy twilight which sifted through the stair well from +the lamp in the hall below. + +She must have sensed something out of the way immediately, for she +hurried to meet him and her whisper held no assurance. + +"You got the cast and the handkerchief, Bobby?" + +And when he didn't answer at once she asked with a sharp rush of fear: + +"What's the matter? What's happened?" + +He shuddered. At last he managed to speak. + +"Katherine! I have felt death cease to be death." + +Later he was to recall that phrase with a sicker horror than he +experienced now. + +"You saw something!" she said. "But your candle is out. There is no light +in the room." + +He took her hand. He pressed it. + +"You're real!" he said with a nervous laugh. "Something I can understand. +Everything is unreal. This light--" + +He strode to the table, found a match, and lighted his candle. Katherine, +as she saw his face, drew back. + +"Bobby!" + +"My candle went out," he said dully, "and he moved through the darkness. +I tell you he moved beneath my hand." + +She drew farther away, staring at him. + +"You were frightened--" + +"No. If we go there with a light now," he said with the same dull +conviction, "we will find him as we found my grandfather this afternoon." + +The monotonous voices of the three men in the lower hall weaved a +background for their whispers. The normal, familiar sound was like a +tonic. Bobby straightened. Katherine threw off the spell of his +announcement. + +"But the evidence! You got--" + +She stared at his empty hands. He fancied that he saw contempt in her +eyes. + +"In spite of everything you must go back. You must get that." + +"Even if I had the courage," he said wearily, "it would be no use, for +the evidence is gone." + +"But I saw it. At least I saw his pocket--" + +"It was there," he answered, "when my light went out. I did put my hand +in his pocket. In that second it had gone." + +"There was no one there," she said, "no one but you, because I watched." + +He leaned heavily against the wall. + +"Good God, Katherine! It's too big. Whatever it is, we can't fight it." + +She looked for some time down the corridor at the black entrance of the +sinister room. At last she turned and walked to the banister. She called: + +"Hartley! Will you come up?" + +Bobby wondered at the steadiness of her voice. The murmuring below +ceased. Graham ran up the stairs. Her summons had been warning enough. +Their attitudes, as Graham reached the upper hall, were eloquent of +Bobby's failure. + +"You didn't get the cast and the handkerchief?" he said. + +Bobby told briefly what had happened. + +"What is one to do?" he ended. "Even the dead are against me." + +"It's beyond belief," Graham said roughly. + +He snatched up the candle and entered the corridor. Uncertainly Katherine +and Bobby followed him. He went straight to the bed and thrust the candle +beneath the canopy. The others could see from the door the change that +had taken place. The body of Howells was turned awkwardly on its side. +The coat pocket was, as Bobby had described it, flat and empty. + +Katherine turned and went back to the hall. Graham's hand shook as +Bobby's had shaken. + +"No tricks, Bobby?" + +Bobby couldn't resent the suspicion which appeared to offer the only +explanation of what had happened. The candle flickered in the draft. + +"Look out!" Bobby warned. + +The misshapen shadows danced with a multiple vivacity across the walls. +Graham shaded the candle flame, and the shadows became like morbid +decorations, gargantuan and motionless. + +"It's madness," Graham said. "There's no explanation of this that we can +understand." + +Howells's straight smile mocked them. As if in answer to Graham a voice +sighed through the room. Its quality was one with the shadows, +unsubstantial and shapeless. Bobby grasped one of the bed posts and +braced himself, listening. The candle in Graham's hand commenced to +flicker again, and Bobby knew that it hadn't been his fancy, for Graham +listened, too. + +It shook again through the heavy, oppressive night, merely accentuated +by the candle--a faint ululation barely detaching itself from silence, +straying after a time into the silence again. At first it was like the +grief of a woman heard at a great distance. But the sound, while it +gained no strength, forced on them more and more an abhorrent sense of +intimacy. This crying from an infinite distance filled the room, +seemed finally to have its source in the room itself. After it had +sobbed thinly into nothing, its pulsations continued to sigh in +Bobby's ears. They seemed timed to the renewed and eccentric dancing +of the amorphous shadows. + +Graham straightened and placed the candle on the bureau. He seemed +more startled than he had been at the unbelievable secretiveness of +a dead man. + +"You heard it?" Bobby breathed. + +Graham nodded. + +"What was it? Where did you think it came from?" Bobby demanded. "It was +like someone mourning for this--this poor devil." + +Graham couldn't disguise his effort to elude the sombre spell of the +room, to drive from his brain the illusion of that unearthly moaning. + +"It must have come from outside the house," he answered "There's no use +giving way to fancies where there's a possible explanation. It must have +come from outside--from some woman in great agony of mind." + +Bobby recalled his perception of a woman moving with a curious absence of +sound about the edges of the stagnant lake. He spoke of it to Graham. + +"I couldn't be sure it was a woman, but there's no house within two +miles. What would a woman be doing wandering around the Cedars?" + +"At any rate, there are three women in the house," Graham said, +"Katherine and the two servants, Ella and Jane. The maids are badly +frightened. It may have come from the servants' quarters. It must have +been one of them." + +But Bobby saw that Graham didn't believe either of the maids had released +that poignant suffering. + +"It didn't sound like a living voice," he said simply. + +"Then how are we to take it?" Graham persisted angrily. "I shall question +Katherine and the two maids." + +He took up the candle with a stubborn effort to recapture his old +forcefulness, but as they left the room the shadows thronged thickly +after them in ominous pursuit; and it wasn't necessary to question +Katherine. She stood in the corridor, her lips parted, her face white +and shocked. + +"What was it?" she said. "That nearly silent grief?" + +She put her hands to her ears, lowering them helplessly after a moment. + +"Where did you think it came from?" Graham asked. + +"From a long ways off," she answered. "Then I--I thought it must be in +the room with you, and I wondered if you saw--" + +Graham shook his head. + +"We saw nothing. It was probably Ella or Jane. They've been badly +frightened. Perhaps a nightmare, or they've heard us moving around the +front part of the house. I am going to see." + +Katherine and Bobby followed him downstairs. Doctor Groom and Paredes +stood in front of the fireplace, questioningly looking upward. Paredes +didn't speak at first, but Doctor Groom burst out in his grumbling, +bass voice: + +"What's been going on up there?" + +"Did you hear just now a queer crying?" Graham asked. + +"No." + +"You, Paredes?" + +"I've heard nothing," Paredes answered, "except Doctor Groom's +disquieting theories. It's an uncanny hour for such talk. What kind of a +cry--may I ask?" + +"Like a woman moaning," Bobby said, "and, Doctor, Howells has changed his +position." + +"What are you talking about?" the doctor cried. + +"He has turned on his side as Mr. Blackburn did," Graham told him. + +Paredes glanced at Bobby. + +"And how was this new mystery discovered?" + +Bobby caught the implication. Then the Panamanian clung to his slyly +expressed doubt of Katherine which might, after all, have had its impulse +in an instinct of self-preservation. Bobby knew that Graham and Katherine +would guard the fashion in which the startling discovery had been made. +Before he could speak for himself, indeed, Graham was answering Paredes: + +"This crying seemed after a time to come from the room. We entered." + +"But Miss Katherine called you up," Paredes said. "I supposed she had +heard again movements in the room." + +Bobby managed a smile. + +"You see, Carlos, nothing is consistent in this case." + +Paredes bowed gravely. + +"It is very curious a woman should cry about the house." + +"The servants may make it seem natural enough," Graham said. "Will you +come, Bobby?" + +As they crossed the dining room they heard a stirring in the kitchen. +Graham threw open the door. Jenkins stood at the foot of the servants' +stairs. The old butler had lighted a candle and placed it on the mantel. +The disorder of his clothing suggested the haste with which he had left +his bed and come downstairs. His wrinkled, sunken face had aged +perceptibly. He advanced with an expression of obvious relief. + +"I was just coming to find you, Mr. Robert." + +"What's up?" Bobby asked. "A little while ago I thought you were all +asleep back here." + +"One of the women awakened him," Graham said. "It's just as I thought." + +"Was that it?" the old butler asked with a quick relief. But immediately +he shook his head. "It couldn't have been that, Mr. Graham, for I stopped +at Ella's and Jane's doors, and there was no sound. They seemed to be +asleep. And it wasn't like that." + +"You mean," Bobby said, "that you heard a woman crying?" + +Jenkins nodded. "It woke me up." + +"If you didn't think it was one of the maids," Graham asked, "what did +you make of it?" + +"I thought it came from outside. I thought it was a woman prowling around +the house. Then I said to myself, why should a woman prowl around the +Cedars? And it was too unearthly, sir, and I remembered the way Mr. Silas +was murdered, and the awful thing that happened to his body this +afternoon, and I--you won't think me foolish, sirs?--I doubted if it was +a human voice I had heard." + +"No," Graham said dryly, "we won't think you foolish." + +"So I thought I'd better wake you up and tell you." + +Graham turned to Bobby. + +"Katherine and you and I," he said, "fancied the crying was in the room +with us. Jenkins is sure it came from outside the house. That is +significant." + +"Wherever it came from," Bobby said softly, "it was like some one +mourning for Howells." + +Jenkins started. + +"The policeman!" + +Bobby remembered that Jenkins hadn't been aroused by the discovery of +Howells's murder. + +"You'd know in a few minutes anyway," he said. "Howells has been killed +as my grandfather was." + +Jenkins moved back, a look of unbelief and awe in his wrinkled face. + +"He boasted he was going to sleep in that room," he whispered. + +Bobby studied Jenkins, not knowing what to make of the old man, for into +the awe of the wrinkled face had stolen a positive relief, an emotion +that bordered on the triumphant. + +"It's terrible," Jenkins whispered. + +Graham grasped his shoulder. + +"What's the matter with you, Jenkins? One would say you were glad." + +"No. Oh, no, sir. It is terrible. I was only wondering about the +policeman's report." + +"What do you know about his report?" Bobby cried. + +"Only that--that he gave it to me to mail just before he went up to the +old room." + +"You mailed it?" Graham snapped. + +Jenkins hesitated. When he answered his voice was self-accusing. + +"I'm an old coward, Mr. Robert. The policeman told me the letter was very +important, and if anything happened to it I would get in trouble. He +couldn't afford to leave the house himself, he said. But, as I say, I'm a +coward, and I didn't want to walk through the woods to the box by the +gate. I figured it all out. It wouldn't be taken up until early in the +morning, and if I waited until daylight it would only be delayed one +collection. So I made up my mind I'd sleep on it, because I knew he had +it in for you, Mr. Robert. I supposed I'd mail it in the morning, but I +decided I'd think it over anyway and not harrow myself walking through +the woods." + +"You've done a good job," Graham said excitedly. "Where is the +report now?" + +"In my room. Shall I fetch it, sir?" + +Graham nodded, and Jenkins shuffled up the stairs. + +"What luck!" Graham said. "Howells must have telephoned his suspicions to +the district attorney. He must have mentioned the evidence, but what does +that amount to since it's disappeared along with the duplicate of the +report, if Howells made one?" + +"I can fight with a clear conscience," Bobby cried. "I wasn't asleep +when Howells's body altered its position. Do you realize what that means +to me? For once I was wide awake when the old room was at its tricks." + +"If Howells were alive," Graham answered shortly, "he would look on the +fact that you were awake and alone with the body as the worst possible +evidence against you." + +Bobby's elation died. + +"There is always something to tangle me in the eyes of the law with these +mysteries. But I know, and I'll fight. Can you find any trace of a +conspiracy against me in this last ghastly adventure?" + +"It complicates everything," Graham admitted. + +"It's beyond sounding," Bobby said, "for my grandfather's death last +night and the disturbance of his body this afternoon seemed calculated to +condemn me absolutely, yet Howells's murder and the movement of his body, +with the disappearance of the cast and the handkerchief, seem designed to +save me. Are there two influences at work in this house--one for me, one +against me?" + +"Let's think of the human elements," Graham answered with a frown. "I +have no faith in Paredes. My man has failed to report on Maria. That's +queer. You fancy a woman in black slipping through the woods, and we hear +a woman cry. I want to account for those things before I give in to +Groom's spirits. I confess at times they seem the only logical +explanation. Here's Jenkins." + +"If trouble comes of his withholding the report I'll take the blame," +Bobby said. + +Graham snatched the long envelope from Jenkins' hand. It was addressed in +a firm hand to the district attorney at the county seat. + +"There's no question," Graham said. "That's it. We mustn't open it. We'd +better not destroy it. Put it where it won't be easily found, Jenkins. If +you are questioned you have no recollection of Howells having given it to +you. Mr. Blackburn promises he will see you get in no trouble." + +The old man smiled. + +"Trouble!" he scoffed. "Mr. Blackburn needn't fret himself about me. He's +the last of this family--that is Miss Katherine and he. I'm old and about +done for. I don't mind trouble. Not a bit, sir." + +Bobby pressed his hand. His voice was a little husky: "I didn't think +you'd go that far in my service, Jenkins." + +The old butler smiled slyly: "I'd go a lot further than that, sir." + +"We'd better get back," Graham said. "The blood hounds ought to be +here, and they'll sniff at the case harder than ever because it's done +for Howells." + +They watched Jenkins go upstairs with the report. + +"We're taking long chances," Graham said, "desperately long chances, but +you're in a desperately dangerous position. It's the only way. You'll be +accused of stealing the evidence; but remember, when they question you, +they can prove nothing unless the cast and the handkerchief turn up. If +they've been taken by an enemy in some magical fashion to be produced at +the proper moment, there's no hope. Meantime play the game, and Katherine +and I will help you all we can. The doctor, too, is friendly. There's no +doubt of him. Come, now. Let's face the music." + +Bobby followed Graham to the hall, trying to strengthen his nerves for +the ordeal. Even now he was more appalled by the apparently supernatural +background of the case than he was by the material details which pointed +to his guilt. More than the report and the cast and the handkerchief, +the remembrance of that impossible moment in the blackness of the old +room filled his mind, and the unearthly and remote crying still throbbed +in his ears. + +Katherine, Graham, and the doctor waited by the fireplace. They had heard +nothing from the authorities. + +"But they must be here soon," Doctor Groom said. + +"Did you learn anything back there, Hartley?" Katherine asked. + +"It wasn't the servants," he said. "Jenkins heard the crying. He's +certain it came from outside the house." + +Paredes looked up. + +"Extraordinary!" he said. + +"I wish I had heard it," Doctor Groom grumbled. + +Paredes laughed. + +"Thank the good Lord I didn't. Perpetually, Bobby, your house reminds me +that I've nerves sensitive to the unknown world. I will go further than +the doctor. I will say that this house _is_ crowded with the +supernatural. It shelters things that we cannot understand, that we will +never understand. When I was a child in Panama I had a nurse who, +unfortunately, developed too strongly my native superstition. How she +frightened me with her bedtime stories! They were all of men murdered or +dead of fevers, crossing the trail, or building the railroad, or digging +insufficient ditches for De Lesseps. Some of her best went farther back +than that. They were thick with the ghosts of old Spaniards and the +crimson hands of Morgan's buccaneers. Really that tiny strip across the +isthmus is crowded with souls snatched too quickly from torn and tortured +bodies. If you are sensitive you feel they are still there." + +"What has all this to do with the Cedars?" Doctor Groom grumbled. + +"It explains my ability to sense strange elements in this old house. +There are in Panama--if you don't mind, doctor--improvised graveyards, +tangled by the jungle, that give you a feeling of an active, unseen +population precisely as this house does." + +He arose and strolled with a cat-like lack of sound about the hall. When +he spoke again his voice was scarcely audible. It was the voice of a man +who thinks aloud, and the doctor failed to interrupt him again. + +"I have felt less spiritually alarmed in those places of grinning +skulls, which always seem trying to recite agonies beyond expression, +than I feel in this house. For here the woods are more desolate than the +jungle, and the walls of houses as old as this make a prison for +suffering." + +A vague discomfort stole through Bobby's surprise. He had never heard +Paredes speak so seriously. In spite of the man's unruffled manner there +was nothing of mockery about his words. What, then, was their intention? + +Paredes said no more, but for several minutes he paced up and down the +hall, glancing often with languid eyes toward the stairs. He had the +appearance of one who expects and waits. + +Katherine, Graham, and the doctor, Bobby could see, had been made as +uneasy as himself by the change in the Panamanian. The doctor cleared his +throat. His voice broke the silence tentatively: + +"If this house makes you so unhappy, young man, why do you stay?" + +Paredes paused in his walk. His thin lips twitched. He indicated Bobby. + +"For the sake of my very good friend. What are a man's personal fears and +desires if he can help his friends?" + +Graham's distaste was evident. Paredes recognized it with a smile. Bobby +watched him curiously, realizing more and more that Graham was right to +this extent: they must somehow learn the real purpose of the +Panamanian's continued presence here. + +Paredes resumed his walk. He still had that air of expectancy. He seemed +to listen. This feeling of imminence reached Bobby; increased his +restlessness. He thought he heard an automobile horn outside. He sprang +up, went to the door, opened it, and stood gazing through the damp and +narrow court. Yet, he confessed, he listened for a repetition of that +unearthly crying through the thicket rather than for the approach of +those who would try to condemn him for two murders. Paredes was right. +The place was unhealthy. Its dark walls seemed to draw closer. They had a +desolate and unfriendly secretiveness. They might hide anything. + +The whirring of a motor reached him. Headlights flung gigantic, +distorted shadows of trees across the walls of the old wing. Bobby faced +the others. + +"They're coming," he said, and his voice was sufficiently +apprehensive now. + +Graham joined him at the door. "Yes," he said. "There will be another +inquisition. You all know that Howells for some absurd reason suspected +Bobby. Bobby, it goes without saying, knows no more about the crimes than +any of us. I dare say you'll keep that in mind if they try to confuse +you. After all, there's very little any of us can tell them." + +"Except," Paredes said with a yawn, "what went on upstairs when the woman +cried and Howells's body moved. Of course I know nothing about that." + +Graham glanced at him sharply. + +"I don't know what you mean, but you have told us all that you are +Bobby's friend." + +"Quite so. And I am not a spy." + +He moved his head in his grave and dignified bow. + +The automobile stopped at the entrance to the court. Three men stepped +out and hurried up the path. As they entered the hall Bobby recognized +the sallow, wizened features of the coroner. One of the others was short +and thick set. His round and florid face, one felt, should have expressed +friendliness and good-humour rather than the intolerant anger that marked +it now. The third was a lank, bald-headed man, whose sharp face released +more determination than intelligence. + +"I am Robinson, the district attorney," the stout one announced, "and +this is Jack Rawlins, the best detective I've got now that Howells is +gone. Jack was a close friend of Howells, so he'll make a good job of it, +but I thought it was time I came myself to see what the devil's going on +in this house." + +The lank man nodded. + +"You're right, Mr. Robinson. There'll be no more nonsense about the case. +If Howells had made an arrest he might be alive this minute." + +Bobby's heart sank. These men would act from a primary instinct of +revenge. They wanted the man who had killed Silas Blackburn principally +because it was certain he had also killed their friend. Rawlins's words, +moreover, suggested that Howells must have telephoned a pretty clear +outline of the case. Robinson stared at them insolently. + +"This is Doctor Groom, I know. Which is young Mr. Blackburn?" + +Bobby stepped forward. The sharp eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, +studied him aggressively. Bobby forced himself to meet that unfriendly +gaze. Would Robinson accuse him now, before he had gone into the case +for himself? At least he could prove nothing. After a moment the man +turned away. + +"Who is this?" he asked, indicating Graham. + +"A very good friend--my lawyer, Mr. Graham," Bobby answered. + +Robinson walked over to Paredes. + +"Another lawyer?" he sneered. + +"Another friend," Paredes answered easily. + +Robinson glanced at Katherine. + +"Of course you are Miss Perrine. Good. Coroner, these are all that were +in the front part of the house when you were here before?" + +"The same lot," the coroner squeaked. + +"There are three servants, a man and two women," Robinson went on. +"Account for them, Rawlins, and see what they have to say. Come upstairs +when you're through. All right, Coroner." + +But he paused at the foot of the steps. + +"For the present no one will leave the house without my permission. If +you care to come upstairs with me, Mr. Blackburn, you might be useful." + +Bobby shrank from the thought of returning to the old room even with this +determined company. He didn't hesitate, however, for Robinson's purpose +was clear. He wanted Bobby where he could watch him. Graham prepared to +accompany them. + +"If you need me," the doctor said. "I looked at the body--" + +"Oh, yes," Robinson sneered. "I'd like to know exactly what time you +found the body." + +Graham flushed, but Katherine answered easily: + +"About half-past two--the hour at which Mr. Blackburn was killed." + +"And I," Robinson sneered, "was aroused at three-thirty. An hour during +which the police were left out of the case!" + +"We thought it wise to get a physician first of all," Graham said. + +"You knew Howells never had a chance. You knew he had been murdered the +moment you looked at him," Robinson burst out. + +"We acted for the best," Graham answered. + +His manner impressed silence on Katherine and Bobby. + +"We'll see about that later," Robinson said with a clear threat. "If it +doesn't inconvenience you too much we'll go up now." + +In the upper hall he snatched the candle from the table. + +"Which way?" + +Katherine nodded to the old corridor and slipped to her room. Robinson +stepped forward with the coroner at his heels. Bobby, Graham, and the +doctor followed. Inside the narrow, choking passage Bobby saw the +district attorney hesitate. + +"What's the matter?" the doctor rumbled. + +The district attorney went on without answering. He glanced at the +broken lock. + +"So you had to smash your way in?" + +He walked to the bed and looked down at Howells. + +"Poor devil!" he murmured. "Howells wasn't the man to get caught +unawares. It's beyond me how any one could have come close enough to make +that wound without putting him on his guard." + +"It's beyond us, as it was beyond him," Graham answered, "how any one got +into the room at all." + +In response to Robinson's questions he told in detail about the discovery +of both murders. Robinson pondered for some time. + +"Then you and Mr. Blackburn were asleep," he said. "Miss Perrine aroused +you. This foreigner Paredes was awake and dressed and in the lower hall." + +"I think he was in the court as we went by the stair-well," Graham +corrected him. + +"I shall want to talk to your foreigner," Robinson said. He shivered. +"This room is like a charnel house. Why did Howells want to sleep here?" + +"I don't think he intended to sleep," Graham said. "From the start +Howells was bound to solve the mystery of the entrance of the room. He +came here, hoping that the criminal would make just such an attempt as he +did. He was confident he could take care of himself, get his man, and +clear up the last details of the case." + +Robinson looked straight at Bobby. + +"Then Howells knew the criminal was in the house." + +"Howells, I daresay," Graham said, "telephoned you something of his +suspicions." Robinson nodded. + +"He was on the wrong line," Graham argued, "or he wouldn't have been so +easily overcome. You can see for yourself. Locked doors, a wound that +suggests the assailant was close to him, yet he must have been awake and +watchful; and if there had been a physical attack before the sharp +instrument was driven into his brain he would have cried out, yet Miss +Perrine was aroused by nothing of the sort, and the coroner, I daresay, +will find no marks of a struggle about the body." + +The coroner who had been busy at the bed glanced up. + +"No mark at all. If Howells wasn't asleep, his murderer must have been +invisible as well as noiseless." + +Doctor Groom smiled. The coroner glared at him. + +"I suggest, Mr. District Attorney," he squeaked, "that the ordinary +layman wouldn't know that this type of wound would cause immediate +death." + +"Nor would any man," the doctor answered angrily, "be able to make such a +wound with his victim lying on his back." + +"On his back!" Robinson echoed. "But he isn't on his back." + +The doctor told of the amazing alteration in the positions of both +victims. Bobby regretted with all his heart that he had made the attempt +to get the evidence. Already complete frankness was impossible for him. +Already a feeling of guilt sprang from the necessity of withholding the +first-hand testimony which he alone could give. + +"And a woman cried!" Robinson said, bewildered. "All this sounds like a +ghost story." + +"You've more sense than I thought," Doctor Groom said dryly. "I never +could get Howells to see it that way." + +"What are you driving at?" Robinson snapped. + +"These crimes," the doctor answered, "have all the elements of a +ghostly impulse." + +Robinson's laugh was a little uncomfortable. + +"The Cedars is a nice place for spooks, but it won't do. I'll be frank. +Howells telephoned me. He had found plenty of evidence of human +interference. It's evident in both cases that the murderer came back and +disturbed the bodies for some special purpose. I don't know what it was +the first time, but it's simple to understand the last. The murderer +came for evidence Howells had on his person." + +Bobby couldn't meet the sharp, puffy eyes. He alone was capable of +testifying that the evidence had been removed as if to secrete it from +his unlawful hand. Yet if he spoke he would prove the district attorney's +point. He would condemn himself. + +"Curious," Graham said slowly, "that the murderer didn't take the +evidence when he killed his man." + +"I don't know about that," Robinson said, "but I know Howells had +evidence on his person. You through, Coroner? Then we'll have a look, +although it's little use." + +He walked to the bed and searched Howells's pockets. + +"Just as I thought. Nothing. He told me he was preparing a report. If he +didn't mail it, that was stolen with the rest of the stuff. Rawlins's +right. He waited too long to make his arrest." + +Again Bobby wondered if the man would bring matters to a head now. He +could appreciate, however, that Robinson, with nothing to go on but +Howells's telephoned suspicions, might spoil his chances of a solution by +acting too hastily. Rawlins strolled in. + +"The two women were asleep," he said. "The old man knows nothing beyond +the fact that he heard a woman crying outside a little while ago." + +"I don't think we need bother about the back part of the house for the +present," Robinson said. "Howells's evidence has been stolen. It's your +job to find it unless it's been destroyed. Your other job is to discover +the instrument that caused death in both cases. Then maybe our worthy +doctor will desert his ghosts. Mr. Blackburn, if you will come with me +there's a slight possibility of checking up some of the evidence of which +Howells spoke. Our fine fellow may have made a slip in the court." + +Bobby understood and was afraid--more afraid than he had been at any time +since he had overheard Howells catalogue his case to Graham in the +library. Why, even in so much confusion, had Graham and he failed to +think of those tell-tale marks in the court? They had been intact when he +had stood there just before dark. It was unlikely any one had walked +across the grass since. He saw Graham's elaborate precautions demolished, +the case against him stronger than it had been before Howells's murder. +Graham's face revealed the same helpless comprehension. They followed +Robinson downstairs. Graham made a gesture of surrender. Bobby glanced at +Paredes who alone had remained below. The Panamanian smoked and lounged +in the easy chair. His eyes seemed restless. + +"I shall wish to ask you some questions in a few minutes, Mr. Paredes," +the district attorney said. + +"At your service, I'm sure," Paredes drawled. + +He watched them until they had entered the court and closed the door. +The chill dampness of the court infected Bobby as it had always done. +It was a proper setting for his accusation and arrest. For Robinson, he +knew, wouldn't wait as Howells had done to solve the mystery of the +locked doors. + +Robinson, while the others grouped themselves about him, took a +flashlight from his pocket and pressed the control. The brilliant +cylinder of light illuminated the grass, making it seem unnaturally +green. Bobby braced himself for the inevitable denouement. Then, while +Robinson exclaimed angrily, his eyes widened, his heart beat rapidly +with a vast and wondering relief. For the marks he remembered so +clearly had been obliterated with painstaking thoroughness, and at +first the slate seemed perfectly clean. He was sure his unknown friend +had avoided leaving any trace of his own. Each step in the grass had +been carefully scraped out. In the confusion of the path there was +nothing to be learned. + +The genuine surprise of Bobby's exclamation turned Robinson to him with a +look of doubt. + +"You acknowledge these footmarks were here, Mr. Blackburn?" + +"Certainly," Bobby answered. "I saw them myself just before dark. I knew +Howells ridiculously connected them with the murderer." + +"You made a good job of it when you trampled, them out," Robinson +hazarded. + +But it was clear Bobby's amazement had not been lost on him. + +"Or," he went on, "this foreigner who advertises himself as your friend! +He was in the court tonight. We know that." + +Suddenly he stooped, and Bobby got on his knees beside him. The cylinder +of light held in its centre one mark, clear and distinct in the trampled +grass, and with a warm gratitude, a swift apprehension, Bobby thought of +Katherine. For the mark in the grass had been made by the heel of a +woman's shoe. + +"Not the foreigner then," Robinson mused, "not yourself, Blackburn, but a +woman, a devoted woman. That's something to get after." + +"And if she lies, the impression of the heel will give her away," the +coroner suggested. + +Robinson grinned. + +"You'd make a rotten detective, Coroner. Women's heels are cut to a +pattern. There are thousands of shoes whose heels would fit this +impression. We need the sole for identification, and that she hasn't left +us. But she's done one favour. She's advertised herself as a woman, and +there are just three women in the house. One of those committed this +serious offence, and the inference is obvious." + +Before Bobby could protest, the doctor broke in with his throaty rumble: +"One of those, or the woman who cried about the house." + +Bobby started. The memory of that eerie grief was still uncomfortable in +his brain. Could there have been actually a woman at the stagnant lake +that afternoon and close to the house to-night--some mysterious friend +who assumed grave risks in his service? He recognized Robinson's logic. +Unless there were something in that far-fetched theory, Katherine faced a +situation nearly as serious as his own. Robinson straightened. At the +same moment the scraping of a window reached them. Bobby glanced at the +newer wing. Katherine leaned from her window. The coincidence disturbed +him. In Robinson's mind, he knew, her anxiety would assume a colour of +guilt. Her voice, moreover, was too uncertain, too full of misgivings: + +"What is going on down there? There have been no--no more tragedies?" + +"Would you mind joining us for a moment?" Robinson asked. + +She drew back. The curtain fell over her lighted window. The darkness of +the court was disturbed again only by the limited radiance of the +flashlight. She came hurriedly from the front door. + +"I saw you gathered here. I heard you talking. I wondered." + +"You knew there were footprints in this court," Robinson said harshly, +"that Howells connected them with the murderer of your uncle." + +"Yes," she answered simply. + +"Why then," he asked, "did you attempt to obliterate them?" + +She laughed. + +"What do you mean? I didn't. I haven't been out of the house since just +after luncheon." + +"Can you prove that?" + +"It needs no proof. I tell you so." + +The flashlight exposed the ugly confidence of Robinson's smile. + +"I am sorry to suggest the need of corroboration." + +"You doubt my word?" she flashed. + +"A woman," he answered, "has obliterated valuable testimony, I shall make +it my business to punish her." + +She laughed again. Without another word she turned and reentered the +house. Robinson's oath was audible to the others. + +"We can't put up with that sort of thing, sir," Rawlins said. + +"I ought to place this entire household under arrest," Robinson muttered. + +"As a lawyer," Graham said easily, "I should think with your lack of +evidence it might be asking for trouble. There is Paredes who +acknowledges he was in the court." + +"All right. I'll see what he's got to say." + +He started for the house. Bobby lingered for a moment with Graham. + +"Do you know anything about this, Hartley?" + +"Nothing," Graham whispered. + +"Then you don't think Katherine--" + +"If she'd done it she'd have taken good care not to be so curious. I +doubt if it was Katherine." + +They followed the others into the hall. Bobby, scarcely appreciating why +at first, realized there had been a change there. Then he understood: +Robinson faced an empty chair. The hall was pungent with cigarette smoke, +but Paredes had gone. + +Robinson pointed to the stairs. + +"Get him down," he said to Rawlins. + +"He wouldn't have gone to bed," Graham suggested. "Suppose he's in the +old room where Howells lies?" + +But Rawlins found him nowhere upstairs. With an increasing excitement +Robinson joined the search. They went through the entire house. Paredes +was no longer there. He had, to all appearances, put a period to his +unwelcome visit. He had definitely disappeared from the Cedars. + +His most likely exit was through the kitchen door which was unlocked, but +Jenkins who had returned to his room had heard no one. With their +electric lamps Robinson and Rawlins ferreted about the rear entrance for +traces. The path there was as trampled and useless as the one in front. +Rawlins, who had gone some distance from the house, straightened with a +satisfied exclamation. The others joined him. + +"Here's where he left the path right enough," he said. "And our foreigner +wasn't making any more noise than he had to." + +He flashed his lamp on a fresh footprint in the soft soil at the side of +the path. The mark of the toe was deep and firm. The impression of the +heel was very light. Paredes, it was clear, had walked from the house +on tiptoe. + +"Follow on," Robinson commanded. "I told this fellow I wanted to question +him. I've scared him off." + +Keeping his light on the ground, Rawlins led the way across the clearing. +The trail was simple enough to follow. Each of the Panamanian's +footprints was distinct. Each had that peculiarity that suggested the +stealth of his progress. + +As they continued Bobby responded to an excited premonition. He sensed +the destination of the chase. He could picture Paredes now in the +loneliest portion of the woods, for the trail unquestionably pointed to +the path he had taken that afternoon toward the stagnant lake. + +"Hartley!" he said. "Paredes left the house to go to the stagnant lake +where I fancied I saw a woman in black. Do you see? And he didn't hear +the crying of a woman a little while ago, and when we told him he became +restless. He wandered about the hall talking of ghosts." + +"A rendezvous!" Graham answered. "He may have been waiting for just that. +The crying may have been a signal. Perhaps you'll believe now, Bobby, +that the man has had an underhanded purpose in staying here." + +"I've made too many hasty judgments in my life, Hartley. I'll go slow on +this. I'll wait until we see what we find at the lake." + +Rawlins snapped off his light. The little party paused at the black +entrance of the path into the thicket. + +"He's buried himself in the woods," Rawlins said. + +They crowded instinctively closer in the sudden darkness. A brisk wind +had sprung up. It rattled among the trees, and set the dead leaves in +gentle, rustling motion. It suggested to Bobby the picture which had been +forced into his brain the night of his grandfather's death. The moon now +possessed less light, but it reminded him again of a drowning face, and +through the darkness he could fancy the trees straining in the wind like +puny men. Abruptly the thought of penetrating the forest became +frightening. The silent loneliness of the stagnant lake seemed as +unfriendly and threatening as the melancholy of the old room. + +"There are too many of us," Robinson was saying. "You'd better go on +alone, Rawlins, and don't take any chances. I've got to have this man. +You understand? I think he knows things worth while." + +The rising wind laughed at his whisper. The detective flashed his +lamp once, shut it off again, and stepped into the close embrace of +the thicket. + +Suddenly Bobby grasped Graham's arm. The little group became +tense, breathless. For across the wind with a diffused quality, a +lack of direction, vibrated to them again the faint and mournful +grief of a woman. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ONE WHO CREPT IN THE PRIVATE STAIRCASE + + +The odd, mournful crying lost itself in the restless lament of the wind. +The thicket from which it had seemed to issue assumed in the pallid +moonlight a new unfriendliness. Instinctively the six men moved closer +together. The coroner's thin tones expressed his alarm: + +"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." + +"Graham and I had thought of that," Bobby said. + +"Howells was a sharp one," Robinson mused, "but he must have gone wrong +on this fellow. He 'phoned me the man knew nothing. Spoke of him as a +foreigner who lolled around smoking cigarettes and trying to make a fool +of him with a lot of talk about ghosts." + +"Howells," Graham said, "misjudged the case from the start. He wasn't to +blame, but his mistake cost him his life." + +Robinson didn't answer. Bobby saw that the man had discarded his +intolerant temper. From that change he drew a new hope. He accepted it as +the beginning of fulfilment of his prophecy last night that an accident +to Howells and the entrance of a new man into the case would give him a +fighting chance. It was clearly Paredes at the moment who filled the +district attorney's mind. + +"Go after him," he said shortly to Rawlins. "If you can get away with it +bring him back and whoever you find with him." + +Rawlins hesitated. + +"I'm no coward, but I know what's happened to Howells. This isn't an +ordinary case. I don't want to walk into an ambush. It would be safer not +to run him down alone." + +"All right," Robinson agreed, "I don't care to leave the Cedars for the +present. Perhaps Mr. Graham--" + +But Graham wasn't enthusiastic. It never occurred to Bobby that he was +afraid. Graham, he guessed, desired to remain near Katherine. + +"I'll go, if you like," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +It was probable that Graham's instinct to stay had sprung from service +rather than sentiment. The man, it was reasonable, sought to protect +Katherine from the Cedars itself and from Robinson's too direct methods +of examination. As an antidote for his unwelcome jealousy Bobby offered +himself to Rawlins. + +"Would you mind if I came, too? I've known Paredes a long time." + +Robinson sneered. + +"What do you think of that, Rawlins?" + +But the detective stepped close and whispered in the district +attorney's ear. + +"All right," Robinson said. "Go with 'em, if you want, Mr. Blackburn." + +And Bobby knew that he would go, not to help, but to be watched. + +The others strayed toward the house. The three men faced the entrance of +the path alone. + +"No more loud talk now," the detective warned. "If he went on tiptoe +so can we." + +Even with this company Bobby shrank from the dark and restless forest. +With a smooth skill the detective followed the unfamiliar path. From time +to time he stooped close to the ground, shaded his lamp with his hand, +and pressed the control. Always the light verified the presence of +Paredes ahead of them. Bobby knew they were near the stagnant lake. The +underbrush was thicker. They went with more care to limit the sound of +their passage among the trees. And each moment the physical surroundings +of the pursuit increased Bobby's doubt of Paredes. No ordinary impulse +would bring a man to such a place in this black hour before the +dawn--particularly Paredes, who spoke constantly of his superstitious +nature, who advertised a thorough-paced fear of the Cedars. The +Panamanian's decision to remain, his lack of emotion before the tragic +succession of events at the house, his attempt to enter the corridor just +before Bobby had gone himself to the old room for the evidence, his +desire to direct suspicion against Katherine, finally this excursion in +response to the eerie crying, all suggested a definite, perhaps a +dangerous, purpose in the brain of the serene and inscrutable man. + +They slipped to the open space about the lake. The moon barely +distinguished for them the flat, melancholy stretch of water. They +listened breathlessly. There was no sound beyond the normal stirrings of +the forest. Bobby had a feeling, similar to the afternoon's, that he was +watched. He tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness across the +lake where he had fancied the woman skulking. The detective's keen senses +were satisfied. + +"Dollars to doughnuts they're not here. They've probably gone on. I'll +have to take a chance and show the light again." + +Fresh footprints were revealed in the narrow circle of illumination. +Testifying to Paredes's continued stealth, they made a straight line to +the water's edge. Rawlins exclaimed: + +"He stepped into the lake. How deep is it?" + +The black surface of the water seemed to Bobby like an opaque glass, +hiding sinister things. Suppose Paredes, instead of coming to a +rendezvous, had been led? + +"It's deep enough in the centre," he answered. + +"Shallow around the edges?" + +"Quite." + +"Then he knew we were after him," Groom said. + +Rawlins nodded and ran his light along the shore. A few yards to the +right a ledge of smooth rock stretched from the water to a grove of pine +trees. The detective arose and turned off his light. + +"He's blocked us," he said. "He knew he wouldn't leave his marks on the +rocks or the pine needles. No way to guess his direction now." + +Doctor Groom cleared his throat. With a hesitant manner he recited the +discovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountable +disappearances their failure to find its source. + +"I was thinking," he explained, "that Paredes alone saw the light give +out. It was his suggestion that he go to the front of the house to +investigate. This path might be used as a short cut to the deserted +house. The rendezvous may have been there." + +Rawlins was interested again. + +"How far is it?" + +"Not much more than a mile," Groom answered. + +"Then we'll go," the detective decided. "Show the way." + +Groom in the lead, they struck off through the woods. Bobby, who walked +last, noticed the faint messengers of dawn behind the trees in the east. +He was glad. The night cloaked too much in this neighbourhood. By +daylight the empty house would guard its secret less easily. Suddenly he +paused and stood quite still. He wanted to call to the others, to point +out what he had seen. There was no question. By chance he had +accomplished the task that had seemed so hopeless yesterday. He had found +the spot where his consciousness had come back momentarily to record a +wet moon, trees straining in the wind like puny men, and a figure in a +mask which he had called his conscience. He gazed, his hope retreating +before an unforeseen disappointment, for with the paling moon and the +bent trees survived that very figure on the discovery of whose nature he +had built so vital a hope; and in this bad light it conveyed to him an +appearance nearly human. Through the underbrush the trunk of a tree +shattered by some violent storm mocked him with its illusion. The dead +leaves at the top were like cloth across a face. Therefore, he argued, +there had been no conspiracy against him. Paredes was clean as far as +that was concerned. He had wandered about the Cedars alone. He had opened +his eyes at a point between the court and the deserted house. + +Rawlins turned back suspiciously, asking why he loitered. He continued +almost indifferently. He still wanted to know Paredes's goal, but his +disappointment and its meaning obsessed him. + +When they crept up the growing light exposed the scars of the deserted +house. Everything was as Bobby remembered it. At the front there was no +decayed wood or vegetation to strengthen the doctor's half-hearted theory +of a phosphorescent emanation. + +The tangle of footsteps near the rear door was confusing and it was some +time before the three men straightened and glanced at each other, knowing +that the doctor's wisdom was proved. For Paredes had been there recently; +for that matter, might still be in the house. Moreover, he hadn't hidden +his tracks, as he could have done, in the thick grass. Instead he had +come in a straight line from the woods across a piece of sandy ground +which contained the record of his direction and his continued stealth. +But inside they found nothing except burnt-out matches strewn across the +floor, testimony of their earlier search. The fugitive had evidently +left more carefully than he had come. The chill emptiness of the deserted +house had drawn and released him ahead of the chase. + +"I guess he knew what the light meant," the detective said, "as well as +he did that queer calling. It complicates matters that I can't find a +woman's footprints around here. She may have kept to the grass and this +marked-up path, for, since I don't believe in banshees, I'll swear +there's been a woman around, either a crazy woman, wandering at large, +who might be connected with the murders, or else a sane one who +signalled the foreigner. Let's get back and see what the district +attorney makes of it." + +"It might be wiser not to dismiss the banshees, as you call them, too +hurriedly," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +As they returned along the road in the growing light Bobby lost the +feeling he had had of being spied upon. The memory of such an adventure +was bound to breed something like confidence among its actors. Rawlins, +Bobby hoped, would be less unfriendly. The detective, in fact, talked as +much to him as to the doctor. He assured them that Robinson would get the +Panamanian unless he proved miraculously clever. + +"He's shown us that he knows something," he went on. "I don't say how +much, because I can't get a motive to make it worth his while to commit +such crimes." + +The man smiled blandly at Bobby. + +"While in your case there's a motive at least--the money." + +He chuckled. + +"That's the easiest motive to understand in the world. It's stronger +than love." + +Bobby wondered. Love had been the impulse for the last few months' folly +that had led him into his present situation. Graham, over his stern +principles of right, had already stepped outside the law in backing +Katherine's efforts to save Bobby. So he wondered how much Graham would +risk, how far he was capable of going himself, at the inspiration of +such a motive. + +The sun was up when they reached the Cedars. Katherine had gone to her +room. The coroner had left. Robinson and Graham had built a fresh fire in +the hall. They sat there, talking. + +"Where you been?" Robinson demanded. "We'd about decided the spooks had +done for you." + +The detective outlined their failure. The district attorney listened with +a frown. At the end he arose and, without saying anything, walked to the +telephone. When he returned he appeared better satisfied. + +"Mr. Paredes," he said, "will have to be a slick article to make a clean +getaway. And I'm bringing another man to keep reporters out. They'll know +from Howells's murder that Mr. Blackburn didn't die a natural death. If +reporters get in don't talk to them. I don't want that damned foreigner +reading in the papers what's going on here. I'd give my job to have him +in that chair for five minutes now." + +Graham cleared his throat. + +"I scarcely know how to suggest this, since it is sufficiently clear, +because of Howells's suspicions, that you have Mr. Blackburn under close +observation. But he has a fair idea of Paredes's habits, his haunts, and +his friends in New York. He might be able to learn things the police +couldn't. I've one or two matters to take me to town. I would make myself +personally responsible for his return--" + +The district attorney interrupted. + +"I see what you mean. Wait a minute." + +He clasped his hands and rolled his fat thumbs one around the other. The +little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, became enigmatic. All at once he +glanced up with a genial smile. + +"Why not? I haven't said anything about holding Mr. Blackburn as more +than a witness." + +His tone chilled Bobby as thoroughly as a direct accusation would +have done. + +"And," Robinson went on, "the sooner you go the better. The sooner you +get back the better." + +Graham was visibly puzzled by this prompt acquiescence. He started for +the stairs, but the district attorney waved him aside. + +"Coats and hats are downstairs. No need wasting time." + +Graham turned to Doctor Groom. + +"You'll tell Miss Perrine, Doctor?" + +The doctor showed that he understood the warning Graham wished to convey. + +The district attorney made a point of walking to the stable to see them +off. Graham gestured angrily as they drove away. + +"It's plain as the nose on your face. I was too anxious to test their +attitude toward you, Bobby. He jumped at the chance to run us out of the +house. He'll have several hours during which to turn the place upside +down, to give Katherine the third degree. And we can't go back. We'll +have to see it through." + +"Why should he give me a chance to slip away?" Bobby asked. + +But before long he realized that Robinson was taking no chances. At the +junction of the road from Smithtown a car picked them up and clung to +their heels all the way to the city. + +"Rawlins must have telephoned," Graham said, "while we went to the +stable. They're still playing Howells's game. They'll give you +plenty of rope." + +He drove straight to Bobby's apartment. The elevator man verified their +suspicions. Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search. A +familiar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outside +Bobby's door. + +"I'm through, gentlemen," he greeted them impudently. + +Graham faced him in a burst of temper. + +"The city may have to pay for this outrage." + +The man grinned. + +"I should get gray hairs about that." + +He went on downstairs. They entered the apartment to find confusion in +each room. Bureau drawers had been turned upside down. The desk had been +examined with a reckless thoroughness. Graham was frankly worried. + +"I wonder if he found anything. If he did you won't get out of town." + +"What could he find?" Bobby asked. + +"If the court was planted," Graham answered, "why shouldn't these rooms +have been?" + +"After last night I don't believe the court was planted," Bobby said. + +In the lower hall the elevator man handed Bobby the mail that had come +since the night of his grandfather's murder. In the car again he glanced +over the envelopes. He tore one open with a surprised haste. + +"This is Maria's handwriting," he told Graham. + +He read the hastily scrawled note aloud with a tone that failed +toward the end. + +"DEAR BOBBY; + +"You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport. You were very wicked +last night. Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty little +cocktails. Why should you threaten poor Maria? And you boasted you were +going out to the Cedars to kill your grandfather because you didn't like +him any more. So I told Carlos to take you home. I was afraid of a scene +in public. Come around. Have tea with me. Tell me you forgive me. Tell me +what was the matter with you." + +"She must have written that yesterday morning," Bobby muttered. "Good +Lord, Hartley! Then it was in my mind!" + +"Unless that letter's a plant, too," Graham said. "Yet how could she know +there'd be a search? Why shouldn't she have addressed it to the Cedars +where there was a fair chance of its being opened and read by the police? +Why hasn't my man made any report on her? We've a number of questions to +ask Maria." + +But word came down from the dancer's apartment that Maria wasn't at home. + +"When did she go out?" Graham asked the hall man. + +"Not since I came on duty at six o'clock." + +Graham slipped a bill in the man's hand. + +"We've an important message for her. We'd better leave it with the maid." + +When they were alone in the upper hall he explained his purpose to Bobby. + +"We must know whether she's actually here. If she isn't, if she hasn't +been back for the last twenty-four hours--don't you see? It was +yesterday afternoon you thought you saw a woman at the lake, and last +night a woman cried about the Cedars--" + +"That's going pretty far, Hartley." + +"It's a chance. A physical one." + +A pretty maid opened the door. Her face was troubled. She studied them +with frank disappointment. + +"I thought--" she began. + +"That your mistress was coming back?" Graham flashed. + +There was no concealment in the girl's manner. It was certain that Maria +was not in the apartment. + +"You remember me?" Bobby asked. + +"Yes. You have been here. You are a friend of mademoiselle's. You can, +perhaps, tell me where she is." + +Bobby shook his head. The girl spread her hands. She burst out excitedly: + +"What is one to do? I have telephoned the theatre. There was no one there +who knew anything at all, except that mademoiselle had not appeared at +the performance last night." + +Graham glanced at Bobby. + +"When," he asked, "did you see her last?" + +"It was before luncheon yesterday." + +"Did she leave no instructions? Didn't she say when she would be back?" + +The girl nodded. + +"That's what worries me, for she said she would be back after the +performance last night." + +"She left no instructions?" Graham repeated. + +"Only that if any one called or telephoned I was to make no appointments. +What am I to do? Perhaps I shouldn't be talking to you. She would never +forgive me for an indiscretion." + +"For the present I advise you to do nothing," Graham said. "You can +safely leave all that to her managers. I am going to see them now. I +will tell them what you have said." + +The girl's eyes moistened. + +"Thank you, sir. I have been at my wits' end." + +Apparently she withheld nothing. She played no part to confuse the +dancer's friends. + +On the way to the managers' office, with the trailing car behind them, +Graham reasoned excitedly: + +"For the first time we seem to be actually on the track. Here's a +tangible clue that may lead to the heart of the case. Maria pulled the +wool over the maid's eyes, too. She didn't want her to know her plans, +but her instructions show that she had no intention of returning last +night. She probably made a bee line for the Cedars. It was probably she +that you saw at the lake, probably she who cried last night. If only she +hadn't written that note! I can't get the meaning of it. It's up to her +managers now. If they haven't heard from her it's a safe guess she's +playing a deep game, connected with the crying, and the light at the +deserted house, and the disappearance of Paredes before dawn. You must +realize the connection between that and your condition the other evening +after you had left them." + +Bobby nodded. He began to hope that at the managers' office they would +receive no explanation of Maria's absence destructive to Graham's theory. +Early as it was they found a bald-headed man in his shirt sleeves pacing +with an air of panic a blantantly furnished office. + +"Well!" he burst out as they entered. "My secretary tells me you've come +about this temperamental Carmen of mine. Tell me where she is. Quick!" + +Graham smiled at Bobby. The manager ran his fingers across his bald and +shining forehead. + +"It's no laughing matter." + +"Then she has definitely disappeared?" Graham said. + +"Disappeared! Why did I come down at this ungodly hour except on the +chance of getting some word? She didn't even telephone last night. I had +to show myself in front of the curtain and give them a spiel about a +sudden indisposition. And believe me, gentlemen, audiences ain't what +they used to be. Did these ginks sit back and take the show for what it +was worth? Not by a darn sight. Flocked to the box office and howled for +their money back. If she doesn't appear to-night I might as well close +the house. I'll be ruined." + +"Unless," Graham suggested, "you get your press agent to make capital out +of her absence. The papers would publish her picture and thousands of +people would look her up for you." + +The manager ceased his perplexed massage of his forehead. He shook +hands genially. + +"I'd thought of that with some frills. 'Has beautiful dancer met foul +play? Millions in jewels on her person when last seen.' Old stuff, but +they rise to it." + +"That will help," Graham said to Bobby when they were in the car again. +"The reporters will find Maria quicker than any detective I can put my +hand on. My man evidently fell down because she had gone before I got him +on the case." At his office they learned that was the fact. The private +detective had been able to get no slightest clue as to Maria's +whereabouts. Moreover, Bobby's description of the stranger who had +entered the cafe with her merely suggested a type familiar to the +Tenderloin. For purposes of identification it was worthless. Always +followed by the car from Smithtown, they went to the hotel where Paredes +had lived, to a number of his haunts. Bobby talked with men who knew him, +but he learned nothing. Paredes's friends had had no word since the man's +departure for the Cedars the day before. So they turned their backs on +the city, elated by the significance of Maria's absence, yet worried by +the search and the watchful car which never lost sight of them. When they +were in the country Graham sighed his relief. "You haven't been stopped. +Therefore, nothing was found at your apartment, but if that wasn't +planted why should Maria have sent an incriminating note there?" +"Unless," Bobby answered, "she told the truth. Unless she was sincere +when she mailed it. Unless she learned something important between the +time she wrote it and her disappearance from her home." + +"Frankly, Bobby," Graham said, "the note and the circumstances under +which it came to you are as damaging as the footprints and the +handkerchief, but it doesn't tell us how any human being could have +entered that room to commit the murders and disturb the bodies. At least +we've got one physical fact, and I'm going to work on that." + +"If it is Maria prowling around the Cedars," Bobby said, "she's amazingly +slippery, and with Paredes gone what are you going to do with your +physical fact? And how does it explain the friendly influence that wiped +out my footprints? Is it a friendly or an evil influence that snatched +away the evidence and that keeps it secreted?" + +"We'll see," Graham said. "I'm going after a flesh-and-blood criminal who +isn't you. I'm going to try to find out what your grandfather was afraid +of the night of his murder." + +After a time he glanced up. + +"You've known Paredes for a long time, Bobby, but I don't think you've +ever told me how you met him." + +"A couple of years ago I should think," Bobby answered. "Somebody brought +him to the club. I've forgotten who. Carlos was working for a big Panama +importing firm. He was trying to interest this chap in the New York end. +I saw him off and on after that and got to like him for his quiet manner +and a queer, dry wit he had in those days. Two or three months ago he--he +seemed to fit into my humour, and we became pretty chummy as you know. +Even after last night I hate to believe he's my enemy." + +"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." + +"Yet," Graham said harshly, "you have had practically no sleep since you +came here." + +Paredes nodded. + +"Very distressing, isn't it?" + +"Maybe," Rawlins sneered, "you'll tell us why you went on tiptoe, and I +suppose you didn't hear a woman crying in the woods?" + +"That's just it," Paredes answered. "I did hear something like that, and +it occurred to me to follow such a curious sound. So I went on tiptoe, as +you call it." + +"Why," Robinson exclaimed angrily, "you walked in the lake to hide +your tracks!" + +Paredes smiled. + +"It was very dark. That was chance. Quite silly of me. My feet got wet." + +"I gather," Rawlins said, "it was chance that took you to the +deserted house." + +Paredes shook his head. + +"Don't you think I was as much puzzled as the rest by that strange, +disappearing light? It was as good a place to walk as any." + +"Where have you been since?" Graham asked. + +"When I had got there I was tired," Paredes answered. "Since it wasn't +far to the station I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and have a bath and +rest. But I assure you I've trudged back from the station just now." + +Suddenly he repeated the apparently absurd formula he had used +with Howells. + +"You know the court seems full of unfriendly things--what the ignorant +would call ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." After a moment he added: "The +woods, too. I shouldn't care to wander through them too much after dark." + +Robinson stared, but Rawlins brushed the question aside. + +"What hotel did you go to in Smithtown?" + +"It's called the 'New.' Nothing could be farther from the fact." + +"Shall I see if that's straight, sir?" + +The district attorney agreed, and Rawlins left the room. Paredes laughed. + +"How interesting! I'm under suspicion. It would be something, wouldn't +it, to commit crimes with the devilish ingenuity of these? No, no, Mr. +District Attorney, look to the ghosts. They alone are sufficiently +clever. But I might say, since you take this attitude, that I don't care +to answer any more questions until you discover something that might give +you the right to ask them." + +He lay back on the divan, languidly lighting another cigarette. Graham +beckoned Robinson. Bobby followed them out, suspecting Graham's purpose, +unwilling that action should be taken too hastily against the Panamanian; +for even now guilty knowledge seemed incompatible with Paredes's polished +reserve. When he joined the others, indeed, Graham with an aggressive air +was demanding the district attorney's intentions. + +"If he could elude you so easily last night, it's common sense to put him +where you can find him in case of need. He's given you excuse enough." + +"The man's got me guessing," Robinson mused, "but there are other +elements." + +"What's happened since we left?" Graham asked quickly. "Have you got any +trace of Howells's evidence?" + +Robinson smiled enigmatically, but his failure was apparent. + +"I'm like Howells," he said. "I'd risk nearly anything myself to learn +how the room was entered, how the crimes were committed, how those poor +devils were made to alter their positions." + +"So," Bobby said, "you had my rooms in New York searched. You had me +followed to-day. It's ridiculous." + +Robinson ignored him. He stepped to the front door, opened it, and looked +around the court. + +"What did the sphinx mean about ghosts in the court?" + +They walked out, gazing helplessly at the trampled grass about the +fountain, at the melancholy walls, at the partly opened window of the +room of mystery. + +"He knows something," Robinson mused. "Maybe you're right, Mr. Graham, +but I wonder if I oughtn't to go farther and take you all." + +Graham smiled uncomfortably, but Bobby knew why the official failed to +follow that radical course. Like Howells, he hesitated to remove from the +Cedars the person most likely to solve its mystery. As long as a chance +remained that Howells had been right about Bobby he would give Silas +Blackburn's grandson his head, merely making sure, as he had done this +morning, that there should be no escape. He glanced up. + +"I wonder if our foreigner's laughing at me now." + +Graham made a movement toward the door. + +"We might," he said significantly, "find that out without disturbing +him." + +Robinson nodded and led the way silently back to the house. Such a method +was repugnant to Bobby, and he followed at a distance. Then he saw from +the movements of the two men ahead that the library had again offered the +unexpected, and he entered. Paredes was no longer in the room. Bobby was +about to speak, but Robinson shook his head angrily, raising his hand in +a gesture of warning. All three strained forward, listening, and Bobby +caught the sound that had arrested the others--a stealthy scraping that +would have been inaudible except through such a brooding silence as +pervaded the old house. + +Bobby's interest quickened at this confirmation of Graham's theory. +There was a projection of cold fear, moreover, in its sly allusion. It +gave to his memory of Paredes, with his tall, graceful figure, his lack +of emotion, his inscrutable eyes, and his pointed beard, a suggestion +nearly satanic. For the stealthy scraping had come from behind the closed +door of the private staircase. Howells had gone up that staircase. None +of them could forget for a moment that it led to the private hall outside +the room in which the murders had been committed. + +It occurred to Bobby that the triumph Graham's face expressed was out of +keeping with the man. It disturbed him nearly as thoroughly as Paredes's +stealthy presence in that place. + +"We've got him," Graham whispered. + +Robinson's bulky figure moved cautiously toward the door. He grasped the +knob, swung the door open, and stepped back, smiling his satisfaction. + +Half way down the staircase Paredes leaned against the wall, one foot +raised and outstretched, as though an infinitely quiet descent had been +interrupted. The exposure had been too quick for his habit. His face +failed to hide its discomfiture. His laugh rang false. + +"Hello!" + +"I'm afraid we've caught you, Paredes," Graham said, and the triumph +blazed now in his voice. + +What Paredes did then was more startling, more out of key than any of his +recent actions. He came precipitately down. His eyes were dangerous. As +Bobby watched the face whose quiet had at last been tempestuously +destroyed, he felt that the man was capable of anything under sufficient +provocation. + +"Got me for what?" he snarled. + +"Tell us why you were sneaking up there. In connection with your little +excursion before dawn it suggests a guilty knowledge." + +Paredes straightened. He shrugged his shoulders. With an admirable effort +of the will he smoothed the rage from his face, but for Bobby the satanic +suggestion lingered. + +"Why do you suppose I'm here?" he said in a restrained voice that +scarcely rose above a whisper. "To help Bobby. I was simply looking +around for Bobby's sake." + +That angered Bobby. He wanted to cry out against the supposed friend who +had at last shown his teeth. + +"That," Graham laughed, "is why you sneaked, why you didn't make any +noise, why you lost your temper when we caught you at it? What about it, +Mr. District Attorney?" + +Robinson stepped forward. + +"Nothing else to do, Mr. Graham. He's too slippery. I'll put him in a +safe place." + +"You mean," Paredes cried, "that you'll arrest me?" + +"You've guessed it. I'll lock you up as a material witness." + +Paredes swung on Bobby. + +"You'll permit this, Bobby? You'll forget that I am a guest in your +house?" + +Bobby flushed. + +"Why have you stayed? What were you doing up there? Answer those +questions. Tell me what you want." + +Paredes turned away. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it. +His fingers were not steady. For the first time, it became evident to +Bobby, Paredes was afraid. Rawlins came back from the telephone. He took +in the tableau. + +"What's the rumpus?" + +"Run this man to Smithtown," Robinson directed. "Lock him up, and tell +the judge, when he's arraigned in the morning, that I want him held as a +material witness." + +"He was at the hotel in Smithtown all right," Rawlins said. + +He tapped Paredes's arm. + +"You coming on this little joy ride like a lamb or a lion? Say, you'll +find the jail about as comfortable as the New Hotel." + +Paredes smiled. The evil and dangerous light died in his eyes. He became +all at once easy and impervious again. + +"Like a lamb. How else?" + +"I'm sorry, Carlos," Bobby muttered. "If you'd only say something! If +you'd only explain your movements! If you'd only really help!" + +Again Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"Handcuffs?" he asked Rawlins. + +Rawlins ran his hands deftly over the Panamanian's clothing. + +"No armed neutrality for me," he grinned. "All right. We'll forget the +bracelets since you haven't a gun." + +Puffing at his cigarette, Paredes got his coat and hat and followed the +detective from the house. + +Robinson and Graham climbed the private staircase to commence another +systematic search of the hall, to discover, if they could, the motive for +Paredes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily this +opportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what had +happened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of her +despairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her door +and stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been an +expression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face of +Robinson's harsh determination. + +"He questioned me for an hour," she said, "principally about the heel +mark in the court. They cling to that, because I don't think they've +found anything new at the lake." + +"You don't know anything about it, do you, Katherine? You weren't there? +You didn't do that for me?" + +"I wasn't there, Bobby. I honestly don't know any more about it +than you do." + +"Carlos was in the court," he mused. "Did you know they'd taken him? We +found him creeping down the private stairway." + +There was a hard quality about her gratitude. + +"I am glad, Bobby. The man makes me shudder, and all morning they +seemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged every +room--even mine." + +She laughed feverishly. + +"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed--" She broke off. She picked +at her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyes +and continued: "They seemed almost as doubtful of me as of you." + +He recalled Paredes's suspicion of the girl. + +"It's nonsense, Katherine. And I'm to blame for that, too." + +She put her finger to her lips. Her smile was wistful. + +"Hush! You mustn't blame yourself. You mustn't think of that." + +Again her solicitude, their isolation in a darkened place, tempted him, +aroused impulses nearly irresistible. Her slender figure, the pretty +face, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swept +him to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the face +of Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn't +fight that truth eternally. She must have noticed his struggle without +grasping its cause, for she touched his hand, and the wistfulness of her +expression increased. + +"I wish you wouldn't think of me, Bobby. It's you we must all think of." + +He accepted with a cold dismay the sisterly anxiety of her attitude. It +made his renunciation easier. He walked away. + +"Why do you go?" she called after him. + +He gestured vaguely, without turning. + +He didn't see her again until dinner time. She was as silent then as she +had been the night before when Howells had sat with them, his moroseness +veiling a sharp interest in the plan that was to lead to his death. +Robinson's mood was very different. He talked a great deal, making no +effort to hide his irritation. His failure to find any clue in the +private staircase after Paredes's arrest had clearly stimulated his +interest in Bobby. The sharp little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, held +a threat for him. Bobby was glad when the meal ended. + +Howells's body was taken away that night. It was a relief for all of them +to know that the old room was empty again. + +"I daresay you won't sleep there," Graham said to Robinson. + +Robinson glanced at Bobby. + +"Not as things stand," he answered. "The library lounge is plenty good +enough for me tonight." + +Graham went upstairs with Bobby. There was no question about his +purpose. He wouldn't repeat last night's mistake. + +"At least," he said, when the door was closed behind them, "I can see if +you do get up and wander about in your sleep. I'd bet a good deal that +you won't." + +"If I did it would be an indication?" + +"Granted it's your custom, what is there to tempt you to-night?" + +Bobby answered, half jesting: + +"You've not forgotten Robinson on the library sofa. The man isn't exactly +working for me. Tonight he seems almost as unfriendly as Howells was." + +He yawned. + +"I ought to sleep now if ever. I've seldom been so tired. Two such +nights!" + +He hesitated. + +"But I am glad you're here, Hartley. I can go to sleep with a more +comfortable feeling." + +"Don't worry," Graham said. "You'll sleep quietly enough, and we'll all +be better for a good rest." + +For only a little while they talked of the mystery. While Graham +regretted his failure to find any trace of Maria, their voices dwindled +sleepily. Bobby recalled his last thought before losing himself last +night. He tried to force from his mind now the threat in Robinson's eyes. +He told himself again and again that the man wasn't actually unfriendly. +Then the blackness encircled him. He slept. + +Almost at once, it seemed to him, he was fighting away, demanding +drowsily: + +"What's the matter? Leave me alone." + +He heard Graham's voice, unnaturally subdued and anxious. + +"What are you doing, Bobby?" + +Then Bobby knew he was no longer in his bed, that he stood instead in +a cold place; and the meaning of his position came with a rush of +sick terror. + +"Get hold of yourself," Graham said. "Come back." + +Bobby opened his eyes. He was in the upper hall at the head of the +stairs. Unconsciously he had been about to creep quietly down, perhaps to +the library. Graham had awakened him. It seemed to offer the answer to +everything. It seemed to give outline to a monstrous familiar that +drowned his real self in the black pit while it conducted his body to the +commission of unspeakable crimes. + +He lurched into the bedroom and sat shivering on the bed. Graham entered +and quietly closed the door. + +"What time is it?" Bobby asked hoarsely. + +"Half-past two. I don't think Robinson was aroused." + +The damp moon gave an ominous unreality to the room. + +"What did I do?" Bobby whispered. + +"Got softly out of bed and went to the hall. It was uncanny. You were +like an automaton. I didn't wake you at once. You see, I--I thought you +might go to the old room." + +Bobby shook again. He drew a blanket about his shoulders. + +"And you believed I'd show the way in and out, but the room was empty, so +I was going downstairs--" + +He shuddered. + +"Good God! Then it's all true. I did it for the money. I put Howells out +to protect myself. I was going after Robinson. It's true. Hartley! Tell +me. Do you think it's true?" + +Graham turned away. + +"Don't ask me to say anything to help you just now," he answered huskily, +"for after this I don't dare, Bobby. I don't dare." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD + + +Bobby returned to his bed. He lay there still shivering, beneath +the heavy blankets. "I don't dare!" He echoed Graham's words. +"There's nothing else any one can say. I must decide what to do. I +must think it over." + +But, as always, thought brought no release. It merely insisted that the +case against him was proved. At last he had been seen slipping +unconsciously from his room--and at the same hour. All that remained was +to learn how he had accomplished the apparent miracles. Then no excuse +would remain for not going to Robinson and confessing. The woman at the +lake and in the courtyard, the movement of the body and the vanishing of +the evidence under his hand, Paredes's odd behaviour, all became in his +mind puzzling details that failed to obscure the chief fact. After this +something must be done about Paredes's detention. + +He hadn't dreamed that his weariness could placate even momentarily such +reflections, but at last he slept again. He was aroused by the tramping +of men around the house, and strange, harsh voices. He raised himself on +his elbow and glanced from the window. It had long been daylight. Two +burly fellows in overalls, carrying pick and spade across their +shoulders, pushed through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. He +turned. Graham, fully dressed, stood at the side of the bed. + +"Those men?" Bobby asked wearily. + +"The grave diggers," Graham answered. "They are going to work in the old +cemetery to prepare a place for Silas Blackburn with his fathers. That's +why I've come to wake you up. The minister's telephoned Katherine. He +will be here before noon. Do you know it's after ten o'clock?" + +For some time Bobby stared through the window at the desolate, ragged +landscape. It was abnormally cold even for the late fall. Dull clouds +obscured the sun and furnished an illusion of crowding earthward. + +"A funereal day." + +The words slipped into his mind. He repeated them. + +"When your grandfather's buried," Graham answered softly, "we'll all +feel happier." + +"Why?" Bobby asked. "It won't lessen the fact of his murder." + +"Time," Graham said, "lessens such facts--even for the police." + +Bobby glanced at him, flushing. + +"You mean you've decided to stand by me after what happened last night?" + +Graham smiled. + +"I've thought it all over. I slept like a top last night. I heard +nothing. I saw nothing." + +"Ought I to want you to stand by me?" Bobby said. "Oughtn't I to make a +clean breast of it? At least I must do something about Paredes." + +Graham frowned. + +"It's hard to believe he had any connection with your sleep-walking last +night, yet it's as clear as ever that Maria and he are up to some game in +which you figure." + +"He shouldn't be in jail," Bobby persisted. + +"Get up," Graham advised. "Bathe, and have some breakfast, then we can +decide. There's no use talking of the other thing. I've forgotten it. As +far as possible you must." + +Bobby sprang upright. + +"How can I forget it? If it was hard to face sleep before, what do you +think it is now? Have I any right--" + +"Don't," Graham said. "I'll be with you again to-night. If I were +satisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt I'd advise you to confess, but I +can't be until I know what Maria and Paredes are doing." + +When Bobby had bathed and dressed he found, in spite of his mental +turmoil, that his sleep had done him good. While he breakfasted Graham +urged him to eat, tried to drive from his brain the morbid aftermath of +last night's revealing moment. + +"The manager took my advice, but Maria's still missing. Her pictures are +in most of the papers. There have been reporters here this morning, about +the murders." + +He strolled over and handed Bobby a number of newspapers. + +"Where's Robinson?" Bobby asked. + +"I saw him in the court a while ago. I daresay he's wandering +around--perhaps watching the men at the grave." + +"He learned nothing new last night?" + +"I was with him at breakfast. I gather not." + +Bobby looked up. + +"Isn't that an automobile coming through the woods?" he asked. + +"Maybe Rawlins back from Smithtown, or the minister." + +The car stopped at the entrance of the court. They heard the remote +tinkling of the front door bell. Jenkins passed through. The cold air +invading the hall and the dining room told them he had opened the door. +His sharp exclamation recalled Howells's report which, at their +direction, he had failed to mail. Had his exclamation been drawn by an +accuser? Bobby started to rise. Graham moved toward the door. Then +Jenkins entered and stood to one side. Bobby shared his astonishment, for +Paredes walked in, unbuttoning his overcoat, the former easy-mannered, +uncommunicative foreigner. He appeared, moreover, to have slept +pleasantly. His eyes showed no weariness, his clothing no disarrangement. +He spoke at once, quite as if nothing disagreeable had shadowed his +departure. + +"Good morning. If I had dreamed of this change in the weather I would +have brought a heavier overcoat. I've nearly frozen driving from +Smithtown." + +Before either man could grope for a suitable greeting he faced Bobby. He +felt in his pockets with whimsical discouragement. + +"Fact is, Bobby, I left New York too suddenly. I hadn't noticed until a +little while ago. You see I spent a good deal in Smithtown yesterday." + +Bobby spoke with an obvious confusion: + +"What do you mean, Carlos? I thought you were--" + +Graham interrupted with a flat demand for an explanation. + +"How did you get away?" + +Paredes waved his hand. + +"Later, Mr. Graham. There is a hack driver outside who is even more +suspicious than you. He wants to be paid. I asked Rawlins to drive me +back, but he rushed from the courthouse, probably to telephone his +rotund superior. Fact is, this fellow wants five dollars--an +outrageous rate. I've told him so--but it doesn't do any good. So will +you lend me Bobby--" + +Bobby handed him a banknote. He didn't miss Graham's meaning glance. +Paredes gave the money to the butler. + +"Pay him, will you, Jenkins? Thanks." + +He surveyed the remains of Bobby's breakfast. He sat down. + +"May I? My breakfast was early, and prison food, when you're not in +the habit--" + +Bobby tried to account for Paredes's friendly manner. That he should have +come back at all was sufficiently strange, but it was harder to +understand why he should express no resentment for his treatment +yesterday, why he should fail to refer to Bobby's questions at the moment +of his arrest, or to the openly expressed enmity of Graham. Only one +theory promised to fit at all. It was necessary for the Panamanian to +return to the Cedars. His purpose, whatever it was, compelled him to +remain for the present in the mournful, tragic house. Therefore, he would +crush his justifiable anger. He would make it practically impossible for +Bobby to refuse his hospitality. And he had asked for money--only a +trifling sum, yet Graham would grasp at the fact to support his earlier +suspicion. + +Paredes's arrival possessed one virtue: It diverted Bobby's thoughts +temporarily from his own dilemma, from his inability to chart a course. + +Graham, on the other hand, was ill at ease. Beyond a doubt he was +disarmed by Paredes's good humour. For him yesterday's incident was not +so lightly to be passed over. Eventually his curiosity conquered. The +words came, nevertheless, with some difficulty: + +"We scarcely expected you back." + +His laugh was short and embarrassed. + +"We took it for granted you would find it necessary to stay in Smithtown +for a while." + +Paredes sipped the coffee which Jenkins had poured. + +"Splendid coffee! You should have tasted what I had this morning. Simple +enough, Mr. Graham. I telephoned as soon as Rawlins got me to the +Bastille. I communicated with the lawyer who represents the company for +which I once worked. He's a prominent and brilliant man. He planned it +with some local fellow. When I was arraigned at the opening of court this +morning the judge could hold me only as a material witness. He fixed a +pretty stiff bail, but the local lawyer was there with a bondsman, and I +came back. My clothes are here. You don't mind, Bobby?" + +That moment in the hall when Graham had awakened him urged Bobby to reply +with a genuine warmth: + +"I don't mind. I'm glad you're out of it. I'm sorry you went as you did. +I was tired, at my wits' end. Your presence in the private staircase was +the last straw. You will forgive us, Carlos?" + +Paredes smiled. He put down his coffee cup and lighted a cigarette. He +smoked with a vast contentment. + +"That's better. Nothing to forgive, Bobby. Let us call it a +misunderstanding." + +Graham moved closer. + +"Perhaps you'll tell us now what you were doing in the private +staircase." + +Paredes blew a wreath of smoke. His eyes still smiled, but his voice +was harder: + +"Bygones are bygones. Isn't that so, Bobby?" + +"Since you wish it," Bobby said. + +But more important than the knowledge Graham desired, loomed the old +question. What was the man's game? What held him here? + +Robinson entered. The flesh around his eyes was puffier than it had been +yesterday. Worry had increased the incongruous discontent of his round +face. Clearly he had slept little. + +"I saw you arrive," he said. "Rawlins warned me. But I must say I didn't +think you'd use your freedom to come to us." + +Paredes laughed. + +"Since the law won't hold me at your convenience in Smithtown I keep +myself at your service here--if Bobby permits it. Could you ask more?" + +Bobby shrank from the man with whom he had idled away so much time and +money. That fleeting, satanic impression of yesterday came back, sharper, +more alarming. Paredes's clear challenge to the district attorney was the +measure of his strength. His mind was subtler than theirs. His reserve +and easy daring mastered them all; and always, as now, he laughed at the +futility of their efforts to sound his purposes, to limit his freedom of +action. Bobby didn't care to meet the uncommunicative eyes whose depths +he had never been able to explore. Was there a special power there that +could control the destinies of other people, that might make men walk +unconsciously to accomplish the ends of an unscrupulous brain? + +The district attorney appeared as much at sea as the others. + +"Thanks," he said dryly to Paredes. + +And glancing at Bobby, he asked with a hollow scorn: + +"You've no objection to the gentleman visiting you for the present?" + +"If he wishes," Bobby answered, a trifle amused at Robinson's obvious +fancy of a collusion between Paredes and himself. + +Robinson jerked his head toward the window. + +"I've been watching the preparations out there. I guess when he's laid +away you'll be thinking about having the will read." + +"No hurry," Bobby answered with a quick intake of breath. + +"I suppose not," Robinson sneered, "since everybody knows well enough +what's in it." + +Bobby arose. Robinson still sneered. + +"You'll be at the grave--as chief mourner?" + +Bobby walked from the room. He hadn't cared to reply. He feared, as it +was, that he had let slip his increased self-doubt. He put on his coat +and hat and left the house. The raw cold, the year's first omen of +winter, made his blood run quicker, forced into his mind a cleansing +stimulation. But almost immediately even that prophylactic was denied +him. With his direction a matter of indifference, chance led him into the +thicket at the side of the house. He had walked some distance. The +underbrush had long interposed a veil between him and the Cedars above +whose roofs smoke wreathed in the still air like fantastic figures +weaving a shroud to lower over the time-stained, melancholy walls. For +once he was grateful to the forest because it had forbidden him to glance +perpetually back at that dismal and pensive picture. Then he became aware +of twigs hastily lopped off, of bushes bent and torn, of the uncovering, +through these careless means, of an old path. Simultaneously there +reached his ears the scraping of metal implements in the soft soil, the +dull thud of earth falling regularly. He paused, listening. The labour of +the men was given an uncouth rhythm by their grunting expulsions of +breath. Otherwise the nature of their industry and its surroundings had +imposed upon them a silence, in itself beast-like and unnatural. + +At last a harsh voice came to Bobby. Its brevity pointed the previous +dumbness of the speaker: + +"Deep enough!" + +And Bobby turned and hurried back along the roughly restored path, as if +fleeing from an immaterial thing suddenly quickened with the power of +accusation. + +He could picture the fresh oblong excavation in the soil of the family +burial ground. He could see where the men had had to tear bushes from +among the graves in order to insert their tools. There was an ironical +justice in the condition of the old cemetery. It had received no +interment since the death of Katherine's father. Like everything about +the Cedars, Silas Blackburn had delivered it to the swift, obliterating +fingers of time. If the old man in his selfishness had paused to gaze +beyond the inevitable fact of death, Bobby reflected, he would have +guarded with a more precious interest the drapings of his final sleep. + +This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket less +congenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keen +apprehension his approaching ordeal. It would, doubtless, be more +difficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's body +in the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment of his +grandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fall +noisily in that bleak place of silence without displaying for Robinson +the guilt that impressed him more and more? + +A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. His +black clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs between the +sleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony into +the landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to the +Cedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliage +between himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emerged +from the forest and saw again the leisurely weaving of the smoke shroud +above the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of a +pair of horses, standing in the shafts of a black wagon at the court +entrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass which offers no likely +path yet whose crossing is the price of salvation. + +He was glad to see Graham leave the court and hurry toward him. + +"I was coming to hunt you up, Bobby. The minister's arrived. So has +Doctor Groom. Everything's about ready." + +"Doctor Groom?" + +"Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enough +he should be here." + +Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Graham +made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead. + +"What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?" he +asked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in the +Cedars again." + +"I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlos +gave me the creeps." + +Graham glanced at him curiously. He spoke with pronounced deliberation, +startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that +Paredes's arrival had driven into his own mind. + +"Gave me the creeps, too. Makes me surer than ever that he has an +abominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggests +resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old +room. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence over +you--an influence for evil?" + +"I've liked to go around with him, if that's what you mean." + +"Isn't he the cause of the last two or three months nonsense in +New York?" + +"I won't blame Carlos for that," Bobby muttered. + +"He influenced you against your better judgment," Graham persisted, "to +refuse to leave with me the night of your grandfather's death." + +"Maria did her share," Bobby said. + +He broke off, looking at Graham. + +"What are you driving at?" + +"I've been asking myself since he came back," Graham answered, "if +there's any queer power behind his quiet manner. Maybe he _is_ psychic. +Maybe he can do things we don't understand. I've wondered if he had, +without your knowing it, acquired sufficient influence to direct your +body when your mind no longer controlled it. It's a nasty thought, but +I've heard of such things." + +"You mean Carlos may have made me go to the hall last night, perhaps sent +me to the old room those other times?" + +Now that another had expressed the idea Bobby fought it with all +his might. + +"No. I won't believe it. I've been weak, Hartley, but not that weak. And +I tell you I did feel Howells's body move under my hand." + +"Don't misunderstand me," Graham said gently. "I must consider every +possibility. You were excited and imaginative when you went to the old +room to take the evidence. It was a shock to have your candle go out. +Your own hand, reaching out to Howells, might have moved spasmodically. I +mean, you may have been responsible for the thing without realizing it." + +"And the disappearance of the evidence?" Bobby defended himself. + +"If it had been stolen earlier the coat pocket might have retained its +bulging shape. We know now that Paredes is capable of sneaking around +the house." + +"No, no," Bobby said hotly. "You're trying to take away my one hope. +But I was there, and you weren't. I know with my own senses what +happened, and you don't. Paredes has no such influence over me. I won't +think of it." + +"If it's so far-fetched," Graham asked quietly, "why do you revolt from +the idea?" + +Bobby turned on him. + +"And why do you fill my mind with such thoughts? If you think I'm guilty +say so. Go tell Robinson so." + +He glanced away while the angry colour left his face. He was a little +dazed by the realization that he had spoken to Graham as he might have +done to an enemy, as he had spoken to Howells in the old bedroom. He +felt the touch of Graham's hand on his shoulder. + +"I'm only working in your service," Graham said kindly. "I'm sorry if +I've troubled you by seeking physical facts in order to escape the +ghosts. For Groom has brought the ghosts back with him. Don't make any +mistake about that. You want the truth, don't you?" + +"Yes," Bobby said, "even if it does for me. But I want it quickly. I +can't go on this way indefinitely." + +Yet that flash of temper had given him courage to face the ordeal. A +lingering resentment at Graham's suggestion lessened the difficulty of +his position. Entering the court, he scarcely glanced at the black wagon. + +There were more dark-clothed men in the hall. Rawlins had returned. +From the rug in front of the fireplace he surveyed the group with a +bland curiosity. Robinson sat near by, glowering at Paredes. The +Panamanian had changed his clothing. He, too, was sombrely dressed, +and, instead of the vivid necktie he had worn from the courthouse, a +jet-black scarf was perfectly arranged beneath his collar. He lounged +opposite the district attorney, his eyes studying the fire. His fingers +on the chair arm were restless. + +Doctor Groom stood at the foot of the stairs, talking with the clergyman, +a stout and unctuous figure. Bobby noticed that the great stolid form of +the doctor was ill at ease. From his thickly bearded face his reddish +eyes gleamed forth with a fresh instability. + +The clergyman shook hands with Bobby. "We need not delay. Your cousin is +upstairs." He included the company in his circling turn of the head. + +"Any one who cares to go--" + +Bobby forced himself to walk up the staircase, facing the first phase +of his ordeal. He saw that the district attorney realized that, too, +for he sprang from his chair, and, followed by Rawlins, started upward. +The entire company crowded the stairs. At the top Bobby found Paredes +at his side. + +"Carlos! Why do you come?" + +"I would like to be of some comfort," Paredes answered gravely. + +His fingers on the banister made that restless, groping movement. + +Graham summoned Katherine. One of the black-clothed men opened the door +of Silas Blackburn's room. He stepped aside, beckoning. He had an air of +a showman craving approbation for the surprise he has arranged. + +Bobby went in with the others. Automatically through the dim light he +catalogued remembered objects, all intimate to his grandfather, each +oddly entangled in his mind with his dislike of the old man. The iron +bed; the chest of drawers, scratched and with broken handles; the closed +colonial desk; the miserly rag carpet--all seemed mutely asking, as +Bobby did, why their owner had deserted them the other night and +delivered himself to the ghostly mystery of the old bedroom. + +Reluctantly Bobby's glance went to the centre of the floor where the +casket rested on trestles. From the chest of drawers two candles, the +only light, played wanly over the still figure and the ashen face. So for +the second time the living met the dead, and the law watched hopefully. + +Robinson stood opposite, but he didn't look at Silas Blackburn who could +no longer accuse. He stared instead at Bobby, and Bobby kept repeating +to himself: + +"I didn't do this thing. I didn't do this thing." + +And he searched the face of the dead man for a confirmation. A chill +thought, not without excuse under the circumstances and in this vague +light, raced along his nerves. Silas Blackburn had moved once since his +death. If the power to move and speak should miraculously return to him +now! In this house there appeared to be no impossibilities. The cold +control of death had been twice broken. + +Katherine's entrance swung his thoughts and released him for a moment +from Robinson's watchfulness. He found he could turn from the wrinkled +face that had fascinated him, that had seemed to question him with a calm +and complete knowledge, to the lovely one that was active with a little +smile of encouragement. He was grateful for that. It taught him that in +the heavy presence of death and from the harsh trappings of mourning the +magnetism of youth is unconquerable. So in affection he found an antidote +for fear. Even Graham's quick movement to her side couldn't make her +presence less helpful to Bobby. He looked at his grandfather again. He +glanced at Robinson. As in a dream he heard, the clergyman say: + +"The service will be read at the grave." + +Almost indifferently he saw the dark-clothed men sidle forward, lift a +grotesquely shaped plate of metal from the floor, and fit it in place, +hiding from his eyes the closed eyes of the dead man. He nodded and +stepped to the hall when Robinson tapped his arm and whispered: + +"Make way, Mr. Blackburn." + +He watched the sombre men carry their heavy burden across the hall, down +the stairs, and into the dull autumn air. He followed at the side of +Katherine across the clearing and into the overgrown path. He was aware +of the others drifting behind. Katherine slipped her hand in his. + +"It is dreadful we shouldn't feel more sorrow, more regret," she said. +"Perhaps we never understood him. That is dreadful, too; for no one +understood him. We are the only mourners." + +Bobby, as they threaded the path behind the stumbling bearers, found a +grim justice in that also. Because of his selfishness Silas Blackburn had +lived alone. Because of it he must go to his long rest with no other +mourners than these, and their eyes were dry. + +Bobby clung to Katherine's hand. + +"If I could only know!" he whispered. + +She pressed his hand. She did not reply. + +Ahead the forest was scarred by a yellow wound. The bearers set their +burden down beside it, glancing at each other with relief. Across the +heap of earth Bobby saw the waiting excavation. In his ears vibrated the +memory of the harsh voice: + +"It's deep enough!" + +Another voice droned. It was soft and unctuous. It seemed to take a +pleasure in the terrible words it loosed to stray eternally through the +decaying forest. + +Bobby glanced at bent stones, strangled by the underbrush; at other +slabs, cracked and brown, which lay prone, half covered by creeping +vines. The tones of the clergyman were no longer revolting in his ears. +He scarcely heard them. He imagined a fantasy. He pictured the +inhabitants of these forgotten, narrow houses straying to the great +dwelling where they had lived, punishing this one, bringing him to suffer +with them the degradation of their neglect. So Robinson became less +important in his mind. Through such fancies the ordeal was made bearable. + +A wind sprang up, rattling through the trees and disturbing the vines on +the fallen stones. Later, he thought, it would snow, and he shivered for +those left helpless to sleep in the sad forest. + +The dark-clothed men strained at ropes now. They glanced at Katherine +and Bobby as at those most to be impressed by their skill. They lowered +Silas Blackburn's grimly shaped casing into the sorrel pit. It passed +from Bobby's sight. The two roughly dressed labourers came from the +thicket where they had hidden, and with their spades approached the +grave. The sound from whose imminence Bobby had shrunk rattled in his +ears. The yellow earth cut across the stormy twilight of the cemetery and +scattered in the trench. After a time the response lost its metallic +petulance. + +Katherine pulled at Bobby's hand. He started and glanced up. One of the +black-clothed men was speaking to him with a professional gentleness: + +"You needn't wait, Mr. Blackburn. Everything is finished." + +He saw now that Robinson stood across the grave still staring at him. +The professional mourner smiled sympathetically and moved away. +Katherine, Robinson, the two grave diggers, and Bobby alone were left of +the little company; and Bobby, staring back at the district attorney, +took a sombre pride in facing it out until even the men with the spades +had gone. The ordeal, he reflected, had lost its poignancy. His mind was +intent on the empty trappings he had witnessed. He wondered if there +was, after all, no justice against his grandfather in this unkempt +burial. The place might have something to tell him. If it could only +make him believe that beyond the inevitable fact nothing mattered. If +he were sure of that it would offer a way out at the worst; perhaps the +happiest exit for Katherine's sake. + +Then Doctor Groom returned. His huge hairy figure dominated the cemetery. +His infused eyes, beneath the thick black brows, were far-seeing. They +seemed to penetrate Bobby's thought. Then they glanced at the excavation, +appearing to intimate that Silas Blackburn's earthy blanket could hide +nothing from the closed eyes it sheltered. At his age he faced the near +approach of that inevitable fact, and he didn't hesitate to look beyond. +Bobby knew what Graham had meant when he had said that Groom had brought +the ghosts back with him. It was as if the cemetery had recalled the old +doctor to answer his presumptuous question. + +"There's no use your staying here." + +The resonance of the deep voice jarred through the woods. The broad +shoulders twitched. One of the hairy hands made a half circle. + +"I hope you'll clean this up, my boy. You ought to replace the stones and +trim the graves. You couldn't blame them, could you, if these old people +were restless and tried to go abroad?" + +For Bobby, in spite of himself, the man on whose last shelter the earth +continued to fall became once more a potent thing, able to appraise the +penalty of his own carelessness. + +"Come," Katherine whispered. + +But Bobby lingered, oddly fascinated, supporting the ordeal to its final +moment. The blows of the backs of the spades on the completed mound beat +into his brain the end. The workmen wandered off through the woods. From +a distance the harsh voice of one of them came back: + +"I don't want to dig again in such a place. People don't seem dead +there." + +Robinson tried to laugh. + +"That man's wise," he said to the doctor. "If Paredes spoke of this +cemetery as being full of ghosts I could understand him." + +The doctor's deep bass answered thoughtfully: + +"Paredes is probably right. The man has a special sense, but I have felt +it myself. The Cedars and the forest are full of things that seem to +whisper, things that one never sees. Such things might have an excuse +for evil." + +"Let's get out of it," Robinson said gruffly. + +Katherine withdrew her hand. Bobby reached for it again, but she seemed +not to notice. She walked ahead of him along the path, her shoulders a +trifle bent. Bobby caught up with her. + +"Katherine!" he said. + +"Don't talk to me, Bobby." + +He looked closer. He saw that she was crying at last. Tears stained her +cheeks. Her lips were strange to him in the distortion of a grief that +seeks to control itself. He slackened his pace and let her walk ahead. +He followed with a sort of awe that there should have been grief for +Silas Blackburn after all. He blamed himself because his own eyes were +not moist. + +Back of him he heard the murmuring conversation of the doctor and the +district attorney. Strangely it made him sorry that Robinson should have +been more impressed than Howells by the doctor's beliefs. + +They stepped into the clearing. The wind had dissipated the smoke shroud. +It was no longer low over the roofs. Against the forest and the darker +clouds the house had a stark appearance. It was like a frame from which +the flesh has fallen. + +The black wagon had gone. The Cedars was left alone to the solution of +its mystery. + +Paredes, Graham, and Rawlins waited for them in the hall. There was +nothing to say. Paredes placed with a delicate accuracy fresh logs upon +the fire. He arose, flecking the wood dust from his hands. + +"How cold it will be here," he mused, "how impossible of entrance when +the house is left as empty as the woods to those who only go unseen!" + +Bobby saw Katherine's shoulders shake. She had dried her eyes, but in her +face was expressed an aversion for solitude, a desire for any company, +even that of the man she disliked and feared. + +Robinson took Rawlins to the library for another futile consultation, +Bobby guessed. Katherine sat on the arm of a chair, thrusting one foot +toward the fresh blaze. + +"It will snow," she said. "It is very early for that." + +No one answered. The strain tightened. The flames leapt, throwing +evanescent pulsations of brilliancy about the dusky hall. They welcomed +Jenkins's announcement that luncheon was ready, but they scarcely +disturbed the hurriedly prepared dishes, and afterward they gathered +again in the hall, silent and depressed, appalled by the long, dreary +afternoon, which, however, possessed the single virtue of dividing them +from another night. + +For long periods the district attorney and the detective were closeted in +the library. Now and then they passed upstairs, and they could be heard +moving about, but no one, save Graham, seemed to care. Already the +officers had had every opportunity to search the house. The old room no +longer held an inhabitant to set its fatal machinery in motion. Yet Bobby +realized in a dull way that at any moment the two men might come down to +him, saying: + +"We have found something. You are guilty." + +The heavy atmosphere of the house crushed such forecasts, made them seem +a little trivial. Bobby fancied it gathering density to cradle new +mysteries. The long minutes loitered. Doctor Groom made a movement to go. + +"Why should I stay?" he grumbled. "What is there to keep me?" + +Yet he sat back in his chair again and appeared to have forgotten his +intention. + +Graham wandered off. Bobby thought he had joined Rawlins and Robinson in +the library. + +The only daylight entered the hall through narrow slits of windows on +either side of the front door. Bobby, watching these, was, even with the +problems night brought to him now, glad when they grew paler. + +Paredes, who had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, arose and +brought his card table. Drawing it close to him, he arranged the cards in +neat piles. The uncertain firelight made it barely possible to identify +their numbers. Doctor Groom gestured his disgust. Katherine stooped +forward, placing her hands on the table. + +"Is it kind," she asked, "so soon after he has left his house?" + +Paredes started. + +"Wait!" he said softly. + +Puzzled, she glanced at him. + +"Stay just as you are," he directed. "There has been so much death in +this house--who knows?" + +Languidly he placed his fingers on the edge of the table opposite hers. + +"What are you doing?" Dr. Groom asked hoarsely. + +"Wait!" Paredes said again. + +Then Bobby, scarcely aware of what was going on, saw the cards glide +softly across the face of the table and flutter to the floor. The table +had lifted slowly toward the Panamanian. It stood now on two legs. + +"What is it?" Katherine said. "It's moving. I can feel it move beneath +my fingers." + +Her words recalled to Bobby unavoidably his experience in the old room. + +"Don't do that!" the doctor cried. + +Paredes smiled. + +"If," he answered, "the source of these crimes is, as you think, +spiritual, why not ask the spirits for a solution? You see how quickly +the table responds. It is as I thought. There is something in this hall. +Haven't you a feeling that the dead are in this dark hall with us? They +may wish to speak. See!" + +The table settled softly down without any noise. It commenced to rise +again. Katherine lifted her hands with a visible effort, as if the table +had tried to hold them against her will. She covered her face and sat +trembling. + +"I won't! I--" + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders, appealing to the doctor. The huge, shaggy +head shook determinedly. + +"I'm not so sure I don't agree with you. I'm not so sure the dead aren't +in this hall. That is why I'll have nothing to do with such dangerous +play. It has shown us, at least, that you are psychic, Mr. Paredes." + +"I have a gift," Paredes murmured. "It would be useful to speak with +them. They see so much more than we do." + +He lifted his hands. He waved them dejectedly. He stooped and commenced +picking up the cards. The doctor arose. + +"I shall go now." He sighed. "I don't know why I have stayed." + +Bobby got his coat and hat. + +"I'll walk to the stable with you." + +He was glad to escape from the dismal hall in which the firelight +grew more eccentric. The court was colder and damper, and even beyond +the chill was more penetrating than it had been at the grave that +noon. Uneven flakes of snow sifted from the swollen sky, heralds of a +white invasion. + +"No more sleep-walking?" the doctor asked when he had taken the blanket +from his horse and climbed into the buggy. + +Bobby leaned against the wall of the stable and told how Graham had +brought him back the previous night from the stairhead, to which he had +gone with a purpose he didn't dare sound. The doctor shook his head. + +"You shouldn't tell me that. You shouldn't tell any one. You place +yourself too much in my hands, as you are already in Graham's hands. +Maybe that is all right. But the district attorney? You're sure he knows +nothing of this habit which seems to have commenced the night of the +first murder?" + +"No, and I think Paredes alone of those who know about that first night +would be likely to tell him." + +"See that he doesn't," the doctor said shortly. "I've been watching +Robinson. If he doesn't make an arrest pretty soon with something back of +it he'll lose his mind. He mightn't stop to ask, as I do, as Howells did, +about the locked doors and the nature of the wounds." + +"How shall I find the courage to sleep to-night?" Bobby asked. + +The doctor thought for a moment. + +"Suppose I come back?" he said. "I've only one or two unimportant cases +to look after. I ought to return before dinner. I'll take Graham's place +for to-night. It's time your reactions were better diagnosed. I'll share +your room, and you can go to sleep, assured that you'll come to no harm, +that harm will come to no one through you. I'll bring some books on the +subject. I'll read them while you sleep. Perhaps I can learn the impulse +that makes your body active while your mind's a blank." + +The idea of the influence of Paredes, which Graham had put into words, +slipped back to Bobby. He was, nevertheless, strengthened by the +doctor's promise. To an extent the dread of the night fell from him +like a smothering garment. This old man, who had always filled him with +discomfort, had become a capable support in his difficult hour. He saw +him drive away. He studied his watch, computing the time that must +elapse before he could return. He wanted him at the Cedars even though +the doctor believed more thoroughly than any one else in the spiritual +survival of old passions and the power of the dead to project a +physical evil. + +He didn't care to go back to the hall. It would do him good to walk, to +force as far as he could from his mind the memory of the ordeal at the +grave, the grim, impending atmosphere of the house. And suppose he +should accomplish something useful? Suppose he should succeed where +Graham had failed? + +So he walked toward the stagnant lake. The flakes of snow fell thicker. +Already they had gathered in white patches on the floor of the forest. If +this weather continued the woods would cease to be habitable for that +dark feminine figure through which they had accounted for the mournful +crying after Howells's death, which Graham had tried to identify with the +dancer, Maria. + +As he passed the neighbourhood of the cemetery; he walked faster. Many +yards of underbrush separated him from the little time-devastated city of +the dead, but its mere proximity forced on him, as the old room had done, +a feeling of a stealthy and intangible companionship. + +He stepped from the fringe of trees about the open space in the centre of +which the lake brooded. The water received with a destructive +indifference the fluttering caresses of the snowflakes. Bobby paused with +a quick expectancy. He saw nothing of the woman who had startled him that +first evening, but he heard from the thicket a sound like muffled +sobbing, and he responded again to the sense of a malevolent regard. + +He hid himself among the trees, and in their shelter skirted the lake. +The sobbing had faded into nothing. For a long time he heard only the +whispers of the snow and the grief of the wind. When he had rounded the +lake and was some distance beyond it, however, the moaning reached him +again, and through the fast-deepening twilight he saw, as indistinctly as +he had before, a black feminine figure flitting among the trees in the +direction of the lake. Graham's theory lost its value. It was impossible +to fancy the brilliant, colourful dancer in this black, shadowy thing. He +commenced to run in pursuit, calling out: + +"Stop! Who are you? Why do you cry through the woods?" + +But the dusk was too thick, the forest too eager. The black figure +disappeared. In retrospect it was again as unsubstantial as a phantom. +The flakes whispered mockingly. The wind was ironical. + +He found his pursuit had led him back to the end of the lake nearest the +Cedars. He paused. His triumph was not unmixed with fear. A black figure +stood in the open, quite close to him, gazing over the stagnant water +that was like a veil for sinister things. He knew now that the woman was +flesh and blood, for she did not glide away, and the snow made pallid +scars on her black cloak. + +He crept carefully forward until he was close behind the black figure. + +"Now," he said, "you'll tell me who you are and why you cry about +the Cedars." + +The woman swung around with a cry. He stepped back, abashed, not knowing +what to say, for there was still enough light to disclose to him the +troubled face of Katherine, and there were tears in her eyes as if she +might recently have expressed an audible grief. + +"You frightened me, Bobby." + +Without calculation he spoke his swift thought: "Was it you I saw here +before? But surely you didn't cry in the house the other night and +afterward when we followed Carlos!" + +The tranquil beauty of her face was disturbed. When she answered her +voice had lost something of its music: + +"What do you mean?" + +"It was you who cried just now? It was you I saw running through +the woods?" + +"What do you mean?" she asked again. "I have not run. I--I am not your +woman in black, if that's what you think. I happened to pick up this +cloak. You've seen it often enough before. And I haven't cried." + +She brushed the tears angrily from her eyes. + +"At least I haven't cried so any one could hear me. I wanted to walk. I +hoped I would find you. I thought you had come this way, so I came, too. +Why, Bobby, you're suspecting me of something!" + +But the problem of the fugitive figure receded before the more intimate +one of his heart. There was a thrill in her desire to find him in the +solitude of the forest. + +Only the faintest gray survived in the sky above the trees. The shadows +were thick about them. The whispering snow urged him to use this moment +for his happiness. It wasn't the thought of Graham that held him back. +Last night, under an equal temptation, he might have spoken. To-night a +new element silenced him and bound his eager hands. His awakening at the +head of the stairs raised an obstacle to self-revelation around which +there seemed to exist no path. + +"I'm sorry. Let us go back," he said. + +She looked at him inquiringly. + +"What is it, Bobby? You are more afraid to-day than you have ever been +before. Has something happened I know nothing of?" + +He shook his head. He couldn't increase her own trouble by telling +her of that. + +The woods seemed to receive an ashy illumination from the passage of the +snowflakes. Katherine walked a little faster. + +"Don't be discouraged, Bobby," she begged him. "Everything will come out +straight. You must keep telling yourself that. You must fight until you +believe it." + +The nearness of her dusk-clothed, slender figure filled him with a new +courage, obscured to an extent his real situation. He burst out +impulsively: + +"Don't worry. I'll fight. I'll make myself believe. If necessary I'll +tell everything I know in order to find the guilty person." + +She placed her hand on his arm. Her voice fell to a whisper. + +"Don't fight that way. Uncle Silas is dead; Howells has been taken away. +The police will find nothing. By and by they will leave. It will all be +forgotten. Why should you keep it active and dangerous by trying to find +who is guilty?" + +"Katherine!" he cried, surprised. "Why do you say that?" + +Her hand left his arm. She walked on without answering. Paredes came back +to him--Paredes serenely calling attention to the fact that Katherine had +alarmed the household and had led it to the discovery of the Cedars's +successive mysteries. He shrank from asking her any more. + +They left the thicket. In the open space about the house the snow had +spread a white mantle. From it the heavy walls rose black and forbidding. + +"I don't want to go in," Katherine said. + +Their feet lagged as they followed the driveway to the entrance of +the court. The curtains of the room of death, they saw, had been +raised. A dim, unhealthy light slipped from the small-paned windows +across the court, staining the snow. Robinson and Rawlins were +probably searching again. + +Suddenly Katherine stopped. She pointed. + +"What's that?" she asked sharply. + +Bobby followed the direction of her glance. He saw a black patch against +the wall of the wing opposite the lighted windows. + +"It is a shadow," he said. + +She relaxed and they walked on. They entered the court. There she +turned, and Bobby stopped, too, with a sudden fear. For the thing he had +called a shadow was moving. He stared at it with a hypnotic belief that +the Cedars was at last disclosing its supernatural secret. He knew it +could be no illusion, since Katherine swayed, half-fainting, against him. +The moving shadow assumed the shape of a stout figure, slightly bent at +the shoulders. A pipe protruded from the bearded mouth. One hand waved a +careless welcome. + +Bobby's first instinct was to cry out, to command this old man they had +seen buried that day to return to his grave. For there wasn't the +slightest doubt. The unhealthy candlelight from the room of death shone +full on the gray and wrinkled face of Silas Blackburn. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GRAVE + + +"Hello, Katy! Hello, Bobby! You shown your face at last? I hope you've +come sober." + +The thin, quarrelsome voice of Silas Blackburn echoed in the mouldy +court. The stout, bent figure in the candlelight studied them +suspiciously. Katherine clung to Bobby, trembling, startled beyond speech +by the apparition. They both stared at the gray face, at the thick +figure, which, three days after death, they had seen buried that noon in +the overgrown cemetery. Bobby recalled how Doctor Groom had reminded him +that an activity like this might emerge from such places. He had +suggested that the condition of the family burial ground might be an +inspiration to such strayings. Yet why should the spirit of Silas +Blackburn have escaped? Why should it have returned forthwith to the +Cedars, unless to face his grandson as his murderer? + +Afterward Bobby experienced no shame for these reflections. The encounter +was a fitting sequel to the moment in the dark room when he had felt +Howells move beneath his hand. He had a fleeting faith that the void +between the living and the dead had, indeed, been bridged. + +Then he wondered that the familiar figure failed to disintegrate, and he +noticed smoke curling from the blackened briar pipe. He caught its +pungent aroma in the damp air of the court. Moreover, Silas Blackburn had +spoken, challenging him as usual with a sneer. + +"Let us go past," Katherine whispered. + +But Silas Blackburn stepped out, blocking their way. He spoke again. His +whining accents held a reproach. + +"What's the matter with you two? You might 'a' seen a ghost. Or maybe +you're sorry to have me back. Didn't you wonder where I was, Katy? Reckon +you hoped I was dead, Bobby." + +Bobby answered. He had a fancy of addressing emptiness. + +"Why have you come? That is what you are to us--dead." + +Silas Blackburn chuckled. He took the pipe from his mouth and tapped the +tobacco down with a knotted forefinger. + +"I'll show you how dead I am! Trying to be funny, ain't you? I'll make +you laugh on the wrong side of your face. It's cold here. I'm going in." + +The same voice, the same manner! Yet his presence denied that great fact +which during three days had been impressed upon them with a growing fear. + +The old man jerked his thumb toward the dimly lighted windows of the +wing. + +"What you got the old room lighted up for? What's going on there? I tried +to sleep there the other night--" + +"Uncle!" + +Katherine sprang forward. She stretched out her hand to him with a +reluctance as pronounced as Graham's when he had touched Howells's body. +Her fingers brushed his hand. Her shoulders drooped. She clung to his +arm. To Bobby this resolution was more of a shock, less to be explained, +than his first assurance of an immaterial visitor. What did it mean to +him? Was it an impossible assurance of safety? + +The old man patted Katherine's shoulder. + +"Why, what you crying for, Katy? Always seems something to scare +you lately." + +He jerked his thumb again toward the lighted windows. + +"You ain't told me yet what's going on in the old room." + +Bobby's laugh was dazed, questioning. + +"They're trying to account for your murder there." + +His grandfather looked at him with blank amazement. + +"You out of your head?" + +"No," Katherine cried. "We saw you lying there, cold and still. I--I +found you." + +"You've not forgotten, Katherine," Bobby said breathlessly, "that he +moved afterward." + +Silas Blackburn took his hand from Katherine's shoulder. + +"Trying to scare me? What's the matter with you? Some scheme to get +my money?" + +"You slept in the old room the other night?" Bobby asked helplessly. + +"No, I didn't sleep there," his grandfather whined. "I went in and lay +down, but I didn't sleep. I defy anybody to sleep in that room. What you +talking about? It's cold here. This court was always damp. I want to go +in. Is there a fire in the hall? We'll light one, while you tell me +what's ailin' you." + +He turned, and grasped the door knob. They followed him into the hall, +shaking the snow from their coats. + +Paredes sat alone by the fire, languidly engaged in the solitaire which +exerted so potent a fascination for him. He didn't turn at their +entrance. It wasn't until Bobby called out that he moved. + +"Carlos!" + +Bobby's tone must have suggested the abnormal, for Paredes sprang to his +feet, knocking over the table. The cards fell lightly to the floor, +straying as far as the hearth. His hands caught at the back of his +chair. He remained in an awkward position, rigid, white-faced, staring +at the newcomer. + +"I told you all," he whispered, "that the court was full of ghosts." + +Silas Blackburn walked to the fire, and stood with his back to the +smouldering logs. In this light he had the pallor of death--the lack of +colour Bobby remembered beneath the glass of the coffin. The old man, +always so intolerant and authoritative, was no longer sure of himself. + +"Why do you talk about ghosts?" he whined. "I--I wish I hadn't waked up." + +Paredes sank back in his chair. + +"Waked up!" he echoed in an awe-struck voice. + +Bobby took a trivial interest, as one will turn to small things during +the most vital moments, in the reflection that twice within twenty-four +hours the Panamanian had been startled from his cold reserve. + +"Waked up!" Paredes repeated. + +His voice rose. + +"At what time? Do you remember the time?" + +"Not exactly. Sometime after noon." + +Bobby guessed the object of Paredes's question. He knew it had been +about noon when they had seen the coffin covered in the restless, +wind-swept cemetery. + +Paredes hurried on. + +"How long had you been asleep?" + +"What makes you ask that?" the other whined. "I don't know." + +"It was a long time?" + +Blackburn's voice rose complainingly. + +"How did you guess that? I never slept so. I dozed nearly three days, but +I'm tired now--tired as if I hadn't slept at all." + +Paredes made a gesture of surrender. Bobby struggled against the purpose +of the man's questions, against the suggestion of his grandfather's +unexpected answers. + +"Your idea is madness, Carlos," he whispered. + +"This house is filled with it," Paredes said. "I wish Groom were here. +Groom ought to be here." + +"He's coming back," Bobby told him. "He shouldn't be long now. He said +before dinner time." + +Paredes stirred. + +"I wish he would hurry." + +The Panamanian said nothing more, as if he realized the futility of +pressing the matter before Doctor Groom should return. Necessary +questions surged in Bobby's brain. The two that Paredes had put, however, +disturbed his logic. + +Katherine, who hadn't spoken since entering, kept her eyes fixed on her +uncle. Her lips were slightly parted. She had the appearance of one +afraid to break a silence covering impossible doubts. + +Bobby called on his reason. His grandfather stood before him in flesh. +With the old man, in spite of Paredes's ghastly hint, probably lay the +solution of the entire mystery and his own safety. He was about to speak +when he heard footsteps in the upper hall. His grandfather glanced +inquiringly through the stair-well, asking: + +"Who's that up there?" + +The sharp tone confessed that fear of the Cedars was active in the +warped brain. + +"The district attorney," Bobby answered, "a detective, probably +Hartley Graham." + +"What they doing here?" + +He indicated Paredes. + +"What's this fellow doing here? I never liked him." + +Katherine answered: + +"They've all come because I thought I saw you dead, lying in the +old room." + +"We all saw," Bobby cried angrily, and Paredes nodded. + +Blackburn shrank away from them. + +The three men descended the stairs. Half way down they stopped. + +"Who is that?" Robinson cried. + +Graham's face whitened. He braced himself against the banister. + +"Next time, Mr. District Attorney," Paredes said, "you'll believe me when +I say the court is full of ghosts. He walked in from the court. I tell +you they found him in the court." + +Silas Blackburn's voice rose, shrill and angry: + +"What's the matter with you all? Why do you talk of ghosts and my being +dead? Haven't I a right to come in my own house? You all act as if you +were afraid of me." + +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." + +"He must tell us why he went, why he was afraid to sleep in his own +room," Graham began. + +Robinson held up his hand. + +"One question at a time, Mr. Graham. The important thing now is to learn +what happened in the room. You're not forgetting Howells, are you?" + +Silas Blackburn glanced at the floor. He moved his feet restlessly. He +fumbled in his pocket for some loose tobacco. With shaking fingers he +refilled his pipe. + +"Except for Bobby and Katherine," he quavered, "you don't know what that +room means to Blackburns; and they only know by hearsay, because I've +seen it was kept closed. Don't see how I'm going to tell you--" + +"You needn't hesitate," Robinson encouraged him. "We've all experienced +something of the peculiarities of the Cedars. Your return alone's enough +to keep us from laughter." + +"All right," the old man stumbled on. "I was raised on stories of that +room--even before my father shot himself there. Later on I saw +Katherine's father die in the big bed, and after that I never cared to +go near the place unless I had to. The other night, when I made up my +mind to sleep there, I tried to tell myself all this talk was tommyrot. +I tried to make myself believe I could sleep as comfortably in that bed +as anywhere. So I went in and locked the door and raised the window and +lay down." + +"You're sure you locked the door?" Robinson asked. + +"Yes. I remember turning the key in both doors, because I didn't want +anything bothering me from outside." + +They all looked at each other, unable to forecast anything of Blackburn's +experiences; for both doors had been locked when the body had been found. +Granted life, how would it have been possible for Silas Blackburn to have +left the room to commence his period of drowsiness? An explanation of +that should also unveil the criminal's route in and out. + +The tensity of the little group increased, but no one interposed the +obvious questions. Robinson was right. It would be quicker to let the +protagonist of this unbelievable adventure recite its details in his own +fashion. Paredes ran his slender fingers gropingly over the faces of +several of the cards he had picked up. + +"When I got in bed," Silas Blackburn continued, "I thought I'd let the +candle burn for company's sake, but there was a wind, and it came in the +open window, and it made the queerest black shadows dance all over the +walls until I couldn't stand it a minute longer. I blew the candle out +and lay back in the dark." + +He drew harshly on his cold pipe. He looked at it with an air of +surprise, and slipped it in his pocket. + +"It was the funniest darkness. I didn't like it. You put your hand out +and closed your fingers as if you could feel it. But it wasn't all black, +either. Some moonlight came in with the wind between the curtains. It +wasn't exactly yellow, and it wasn't white. After a little it seemed +alive, and I wouldn't look at it any more. The only way I could stop +myself was to shut my eyes, and that was worse, for it made me recollect +my father the way I saw him lying there when I was a boy. God grant none +of you will ever have to see anything like that. Then I seemed to see +Katy's father, too; and I remembered his screams. The room got thick +with, things like that--with those two, and with a lot of others come out +of the pictures and the stories I've heard about my family." + +His experience when he had gone to the room to take the evidence from +Howells's body became active in Bobby's memory. + +"There I lay with my eyes shut," Silas Blackburn went on in his strange, +inquiring voice. "And yet I seemed to see those dead people all around +me, and I thought they were in pain again, and were mad at me because I +didn't do anything. I guess maybe I must 'a' been dozing a little, for I +thought--" + +He broke off. He raised his hand slowly and pointed in the direction of +the overgrown cemetery where they had seen his coffin covered that noon. +His voice was lower and harsher when he continued: + +"I--I thought I heard them say that things were all broken out there, +and--and awful--so awful they couldn't stay." + +His voice became defiant. + +"I ain't going to tell you what I dreamed. It was too horrible, but I +made up my mind I would do what I could if I ever escaped from that room. +I--I was afraid they'd take me back with them underneath those broken +stones. And you--you stand there trying to tell me that they did." + +He paused again, looking around with a more defiant glare in his +bloodshot eyes. He appeared to be surprised not to find them +laughing at him. + +"What's the matter with you all?" he cried. "Why ain't you making me out +a fool? You seen something in that room, too?" + +"Go on," Robinson urged. "What happened then? What did you do?" + +Blackburn's voice resumed its throaty monotone. As he spoke he glanced +about slyly, suspecting, perhaps, the watchfulness of the fancies that +had intimidated him. + +"I realized I had to get out if they would let me. So I left the +bed. I went." + +He ceased, intimating that he had told everything. + +"I know," Robinson said, "but tell us how you got out of the room, for +when you--when the murder was discovered, both doors were locked on the +inside, and you know how impossible the windows are." + +"I tell you," Katherine said hysterically, "it _was_ his body in the +bed." + +Bobby knew her assurance was justified, but he motioned her to silence. + +"Let him answer," Robinson said. + +Silas Blackburn ran his knotted fingers through his hair. He shook his +head doubtfully. + +"That's what I don't understand myself. That's what's been worrying me +while these young ones have been talking as if I was dead and buried. I +recollect telling myself I must go. I seem to remember leaving the bed +all right, but I don't seem to remember walking on the floor or going +through the door. You're sure the doors were locked?" + +"No doubt about that," Rawlins said. + +"Seems to me," Blackburn went on, "that I was in the private staircase, +but did I walk downstairs? First thing I see clearly is the road through +the woods, not far from the station." + +"What did you wear?" Robinson asked. + +"I'd had my trousers and jacket on under my dressing-gown," the old man +answered, "because I knew the bed wasn't made up. That's what I wore +except for the dressing-gown. I reckon I must have left that in the room. +I wouldn't have gone back there for anything. My mind was full of those +angry people. I wanted to get as far away from the Cedars as possible. I +knew the last train from New York would be along about three o'clock, so +I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and in the morning see this detective +I'd been talking to. I went to Robert Waters's house. I've known him for +a long time. I guess you know who he is. He's such a book worm I figured +he might be up, and he wouldn't ask a lot of silly questions, being +selfish like most people that live all the time with books. He came to +the door, and I told him I wanted to spend the night. He offered to shake +hands. That's funny, too. I didn't feel like shaking hands with anybody. +I recollect that, because I'd felt sort of queer ever since going in the +old room, and something told me I'd better not shake hands." + +Paredes looked up, wide-eyed. The cards slipped from his fragile, +pointed fingers. + +"Do you realize, Mr. District Attorney, what this man is saying?" + +But Robinson motioned him to silence. + +"Let him go on. What happened then?" + +"That's all," Blackburn answered, "except this long sleep I can't make +out. Old Waters didn't get mad at my not shaking hands. He was too tied +up in some book, I guess. I told him I was sleepy and didn't want to be +bothered, and he nodded to the spare room off the main hall, and I +tumbled into bed and was off almost before I knew it." + +Paredes sprang to his feet and commenced to walk about the hall. + +"Tell us," he said, "when you first woke up?" + +"I guess it was late the next afternoon," Silas Blackburn quavered, +fumbling with his pipe again. "But it was only for a minute." + +Paredes stopped in front of Robinson. + +"When he turned! You see!" + +"It was Waters knocking on the door," Blackburn went on. "I guess he +wanted to know what was the matter, and he talked about some food, but I +didn't want to be bothered, so I called to him through the door to go +away, and turned over and went to sleep again." + +"He turned over and went to sleep again!" Katherine said breathlessly, +"and it was about that time that I heard the turning in the old bedroom." + +"Katherine!" Graham called. "What are you talking about? What are you +thinking about?" + +"What else is there?" she asked. + +"She's thinking about the truth," Paredes said tensely. "I've always +heard of such things. So have you. You've read of them, if you read at +all. India is full of it. It goes back to ancient Egypt--the same person +simultaneously in two places--the astral body--whatever you choose to +call it. It's the projection of one's self whether consciously or +unconsciously; perhaps the projection of something that retains reason +after an apparent death. You heard him. He didn't seem to walk. He +doesn't remember leaving the room, which was locked on the inside. His +descent of the stairs was without motion as we know it. He had gone some +distance before his mind consciously directed the movement of this +active image of Silas Blackburn, while the double from which it had +sprung lay apparently dead in the old room. You notice he shrank from +shaking hands, and he slept until we hid away the shell. What +disintegration and coming together again has taken place since we buried +that shell in the old graveyard? If his friend had shaken hands with him +would he have grasped emptiness? Did his normal self come back to him +when the shell was put from our sight, and he awakened? These are some of +the questions we must answer." + +"You've a fine imagination, Mr. Paredes," Robinson said dryly. + +His fat face, nevertheless, was bewildered, and in the eyes, surrounded +by puffy flesh, smouldered a profound uncertainty. + +"I wish Groom were here," Paredes was saying. "He would agree with me. He +would know more about it than I." + +Robinson threw back his shoulders. He turned to Rawlins with his old +authority. The unimaginative detective had stood throughout, +releasing no indication of his emotions; but as he raised his hand +now to an unnecessary adjustment of his scarf pin, the fingers were +not quite steady. + +"Telephone this man Waters," Robinson directed. "Then get in +communication with the office and put them on that end." + +Rawlins walked away. Robinson apologized to Silas Blackburn with an +uneasy voice. + +"Got to check up what I can. Can't get anywhere with these things unless +you make sure of your first facts. I daresay Waters's story will tally +with yours." + +Blackburn nodded. Graham cleared his throat. + +"Now perhaps we may ask that very important question. The day Mr. +Blackburn called at your office in Smithtown he told Howells he was +afraid of being murdered. According to Howells, he said: 'My heart's all +right. It won't stop yet awhile unless it's made to. So if I'm found cold +some fine morning you can be sure I was put out of the way.'" + +"I know," Robinson said. + +"And that night," Graham continued, "when he went to the old room, he was +terrified of something which he wouldn't define for Miss Perrine." + +"He warned me not to mention he'd gone there," Katherine put in. "He told +me he was afraid--afraid to sleep in his own room any longer." + +Robinson turned. + +"What about that, Mr. Blackburn?" + +For a moment Bobby's curiosity overcame the confusion aroused by his +grandfather's apparently occult return. All along they had craved the +knowledge he was about to give them, the statement on which Bobby's life +had seemed to depend. Blackburn, however, was unwilling. The question +seemed to have returned to him something of his normal manner. + +"No use," he mumbled, "going into that." + +"A good deal of use," Robinson insisted. + +Blackburn shifted his feet. He gazed at his pipe doubtfully. + +"I don't see why. That didn't come, and seems it wasn't what I ought to +have been afraid of after all. All along I ought to have been afraid only +of the Cedars and the old room. I've been accused of being unjust. I +don't want to do an injustice now." + +"Please answer," Robinson said impatiently. + +"You must answer," Graham urged. + +"I don't see that it makes the slightest difference," Paredes drawled. +"What has it got to do with the case as it stands to-night?" + +Robinson snapped at him. + +"You keep out of it. Don't forget there's a lot you haven't +answered yet." + +Silas Blackburn looked straight at Bobby. Slowly he raised his hand, +pointing an accusing finger at his grandson. + +"If you want to know, I was afraid of that young rascal." + +Katherine started impulsively forward in an effort to stop him. Blackburn +waved her away. + +"You trying to scare me, Katy?" he asked suspiciously. + +"Evidently," Robinson commented to Graham, "Howells wasn't as dull as we +thought him. Go on, Mr. Blackburn. Why were you afraid of your grandson?" + +"Maybe he can tell you better than I can," the old man answered. "Don't +see any use raking up such things, anyway. Maybe I'd been pretty harsh +with him. Anyway, I knew he hated the ground I walked on and would be +glad enough to see me drop in my tracks." + +"That isn't so," Bobby said. + +"You keep quiet now. You always talked too much." + +So the old feeling survived. + +"Go on," Robinson urged. + +"I'd always been a hard worker," Blackburn whined, "and he was a waster. +Naturally we didn't get along. I'd decided to make a new will, leaving my +money to the Bedford Foundation, and I wrote him that, thinking it would +bring him hot foot to make it up with me. I'd been nervous about him +before, because I didn't know what might come into his head when he was +on these wild parties. So I'd spoken to Howells, thinking I'd trip him if +he tried any funny business. When he didn't come that night I got scared. +He knew I wouldn't make the new will until morning, and since I couldn't +see any man throwing all that money away, I figured he'd guessed he +couldn't turn me and wouldn't waste any time talking. + +"When you got a lot of money and a grandson who hates you, you have to +think of such things. Suppose, I thought, he should come out here drunk +when I was sound asleep. I knew he had a latch key, and he might sneak up +to my room before I could even get to the telephone. Or I was afraid he +might hire somebody. You can buy men for that sort of work in New York. I +tell you the more I thought of it the more I was sure he'd do something. +You'd understand if you lived in this lonely place with all that money +and nobody you wanted to will it to. I nearly sent for Howells right +then. But if nothing had happened I'd have looked a fool." + +"I wanted you to send for a man," Katherine cried. + +Bobby leaned against the wall, repeating to himself the words of Maria's +note which accused him of having made the very threat his grandfather +had feared. + +"So," Blackburn rambled on, "I decided I wouldn't sleep in my room that +night, and I picked out the least likely place for anybody to find me. I +was more afraid of him than I was of the old room, but, as I've told you, +the old room made me forget Master Robert." + +Robinson stepped to Bobby's side. + +"All along Howells was right. Tell me what you did with that evidence." + +Bobby turned away. Katherine tried to laugh. Graham beckoned to Robinson. + +"What's the use of bothering with evidence against a suspected murderer +when the murdered man stands talking to you?" + +Robinson frowned helplessly. Paredes sprang to his feet. + +"You're taking too much for granted, Graham. There was a murder. +Blackburn was killed. We've as many witnesses to that fact as we have +that he's come back. This man who talks with us, accusing Bobby, may not +stay. Have you thought of that? I have noticed something that makes me +think it possible. I have been afraid to speak of it. But it makes me +hesitate to say that this man is alive, as we understand life. We have to +learn the nature of the forces we are dealing with, exactly how dangerous +they are." + +They started at a sharp rap on the front door. + +"Now who?" the old man whined. "I wish you wouldn't look at me so. It +makes me feel queer. You're all crazy." + +"It's probably Doctor Groom," Bobby said, and stepped to the door, +opening it. + +It was Groom. The huge man walked in, struggling out of his coat. At +first the others screened Silas Blackburn from him, but he +acknowledged their strained attitudes, the excitement that still +animated Paredes's face. + +"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Found something, Mr. District +Attorney?" + +Robinson moved to one side, jerking his thumb at Silas Blackburn. The +coat and hat slipped from Doctor Groom's hand. His mouth opened. His +great body crept slowly back until the shoulders rested against the wall. +He placed the palms of his hands against the wall as if to push it away +in order to assure further retreat. Always the little, infused eyes +remained fixed on the man who had been his friend. Such terror was +chiefly arresting because of the great figure conquered by it. + +Blackburn thrust his pipe in his mouth. He laughed shakily. + +"That fellow Groom will have a stroke." + +The Doctor's greeting had the difficult quality of a masculine sob. + +"Silas Blackburn!" + +"Who do you think?" the other whined. "You going to try to frighten me +out of my skin, too? These people are trying to say I've been lying dead +in the old room. Hoped you'd have enough sense to set them right and tell +me what it's all about." + +The doctor straightened. + +"You did lie dead in the old room." + +His harsh, amazed tones held an unqualified conviction. + +"I saw you there. I helped the coroner make the examination. You had been +dead for many hours. And I saw you bolted in your coffin. I saw you +buried in the graveyard you'd let go to pieces." + +The others had, as far as possible, recovered from the first shock, had +done their best to fathom the mystery, but Groom's fear increased. His +reddish eyes grew always more alarmed. Silas Blackburn turned with a +quick, frightened gesture, facing the fire. Paredes drew a deep breath. + +"Now you'll see," he said. + +Doctor Groom shrank against the wall again. After a moment, with the +motions of one drawn by an outside will, he approached the figure at the +fireplace. Then Bobby saw, and he heard Katherine's choked scream. For +now that his grandfather's back was turned there was plainly visible on +the white of the collar, near the base of the brain, a scarlet stain. And +the hair above it was matted. + +"That's what I meant," Paredes whispered. + +Graham moved back. + +"Good God!" + +Robinson stared. The fear had found him, too. + +Doctor Groom touched Blackburn's shoulder tentatively. + +"What's the matter with the back of your neck?" + +Blackburn drew fearfully away. He raised his hand and fumbled at the top +of his collar. He held his fingers to the firelight. + +"Why," he said blankly, "I been bleeding back there." + +To an extent the doctor controlled himself. + +"Sit down here, Silas Blackburn," he said. "I want to get the lamplight +on your head." + +"I ain't badly hurt?" Blackburn whined. + +"I don't know," the doctor answered. "Heaven knows." + +Blackburn sat down. The light shone full on the stained collar and the +dark patch of hair at the base of the brain. Doctor Groom examined the +wound minutely. He straightened. He spoke unsteadily: + +"It is a healed wound. It was made by something sharp." + +Robinson thrust his hands in his pockets. + +"You're getting beyond my depths, Doctor. Bring him up to the old +bedroom. I want him to see that pillow." + +But Blackburn cowered in his chair. + +"I won't go to that room again. They don't want me there. I'll have work +started in the cemetery to-morrow." + +"Mr. Blackburn," Robinson said, "the man we buried in the cemetery +to-day, the man these members of your family identify as yourself, died +of just such a wound as the doctor says has healed in your head." + +Blackburn cowered farther in his chair. + +"You're making fun of me," he whimpered. "You're trying to scare +an old man." + +"No," Robinson said. "How was that wound made?" + +The crouched figure wagged its head from side to side. + +"I don't know. Nothing's touched me there. I remember I had a headache +when I woke up. Why doesn't Groom tell me why I slept so long?" + +"I only know," Groom rumbled, "that the wound I examined upstairs must +have caused instant death." + +Paredes whispered to him. The doctor nodded reluctantly. + +"What do you mean?" Blackburn cried. "You trying to tell me I can't stay +with you?" + +He pointed to Paredes. + +"That's what he said--that I might have to go back, but I never heard of +such a thing. I'm all right. My neck doesn't hurt. I'm alive. I tell you +I'm alive. I'll teach you--" + +Rawlins returned from the telephone. + +"His story's straight," he said in his crisp manner. "I've been talking +to Waters himself. Says Mr. Blackburn turned up about three-thirty, +looking queer and acting queer. Wouldn't shake hands, just as he says. He +went to the spare room and slept practically all the time until this +afternoon. No food. Waters couldn't rouse him. Mr. Blackburn wouldn't +answer at all or else seemed half asleep. He'd made up his mind to call +in a doctor this afternoon. Then Mr. Blackburn seemed all right again, +and started home." + +Robinson gazed at the fire. + +"What's to be done now, sir?" Rawlins asked. + +"Find the answer if we can," Robinson said. + +Paredes spoke as softly as he had done the other night while reciting his +sensitive reaction to the Cedars's gloomy atmosphere. Only now his voice +wasn't groping. + +"Call me a dreamer if you want, Mr. District Attorney, but I have given +you the only answer. This man's soul has dwelt in two places." + +Robinson grinned. + +"I'm going slow on calling anybody names, but I haven't forgotten that +there's been another crime in this house. Howells was killed in that +room, too. I would like to believe he could return as Mr. Blackburn has." + +Blackburn looked up. + +"What's that? Who's Howells?" + +And as Robinson told him of the second crime he sank back in his chair +again, whimpering from time to time. His fear was harder to watch. + +"Might I suggest," Graham said, "that Howells isn't out of the case yet? +It would be worth looking into." + +"By all means," Robinson agreed. + +Rawlins coughed apologetically. + +"I asked them about that at the office. Howells was taken to his home in +Boston to-day. The funeral's to be to-morrow." + +"Then," Robinson said, "we're confined for the present to this end of the +case. The facts I have tell me that two murders have been committed in +this house. It is still my first duty to convict the guilty man." + +Graham indicated the huddled, frightened figure in the chair. + +"You are going against the evidence of your own eyes." + +"I shall do what I can," Robinson said sternly. "We buried one of those +men this noon. His grandson, his niece, and those who saw him +frequently, swear it was this living being who has such a wound as the +one that caused the death of that man. There is only one thing to +do--see who we buried." + +"The permits?" Graham suggested. + +"I shall telephone the judge," Robinson answered, "and he can send +them out, but I shan't wait for hours doing nothing. I am going to the +grave at once." + +"A waste of time," Paredes murmured. + +"I don't understand," Silas Blackburn whined, "You say the doors were +locked. Then how could anybody have got in that room to be murdered? How +did I get out?" + +Robinson turned on Paredes angrily. + +"I'm not through with you yet. Before I am I'll get what I want +from you." + +He stormed away to the telephone. No one spoke. The doctor's rumpled head +was still bent over the back of Silas Blackburn's chair. The infused eyes +didn't waver from the crimson stain and the healed wound, and Blackburn +remained huddled among the cushions, his shoulders twitching. Paredes +commenced gathering up his cards. Katherine watched him out of +expressionless eyes. Graham walked to her side. Rawlins, as always +phlegmatic, remained motionless, waiting for his superior. + +Bobby threw off his recent numbness. He realized the disturbing parallel +in the actions of his grandfather and himself. He had come to the Cedars +unconsciously, perhaps directed by an evil, external influence, on the +night of the first murder. Now, it appeared, the man he was accused of +killing had also wandered under an unknown impulse that night. Was the +same subtle control responsible in both cases? Was there at the Cedars a +force that defied physical laws, moving its inhabitants like puppets for +special aims of its own? Yet, he recalled, there was something here +friendly to him. After the movement of Howells's body and the +disappearance of the evidence, the return of Silas Blackburn stripped +Robinson's threats of power and seemed to place the solution beyond the +district attorney's trivial reach. + +The silence and the delay increased their weight upon the little group. +Silas Blackburn, huddled in his chair, was grayer, more haggard than he +had been at first. He appeared attentive to an expected summons. He +seemed fighting the idea of going back. + +The proximity of Graham to Katherine quieted the turmoil of Bobby's +thoughts. If he could only have foreseen this return he would have +listened to the whispered encouragement of the forest. + +Robinson reappeared. Anxiety had replaced the anger in the round face +which, one felt, should always have been no more than good-natured. + +"Jenkins will have to help," he said. + +Silas Blackburn arose unsteadily. + +"I'm coming with you. You're not going to leave me here. I won't stay +here alone." + +"He should come by all means," Paredes said, "in case anything +should happen--" + +The old man put his hands to his ears. + +"You keep quiet. I'm not going back, I tell you." + +Bobby didn't want to hear any more. He went to the kitchen and called +Jenkins. He let the butler go to the hall ahead of him in order that he +might not have to witness this new greeting. But Jenkins's cry came back +to him, and when he reached the hall he saw that the man's terror had not +diminished. + +They went through the court and around the house to the stable where they +found spades and shovels. Their grim purpose holding them silent, they +crossed the clearing and entered the pathway that had been freshly blazed +that day for the passage of the men in black. + +The snow was quite deep. It still drifted down. It filled the woods with +a wan, unnatural radiance. Without really illuminating the sooty masses +of the trees it made the night white. + +Silas Blackburn stumbled in the van with Paredes and Robinson. The doctor +and Rawlins followed. Graham was with Katherine behind them. Bobby walked +last, fighting an instinct to linger, to avoid whatever they might find +beneath the white blanket of the little, intimate burial ground. + +Groom turned and spoke to Graham. Katherine waited for Bobby, and the +white night closed swiftly about them, whispering until the shuffling of +the others became inaudible. + +Was she glad of this solitude? Had she sought it? Her extraordinary +request in that earlier solitude came to him, and he spoke of it while he +tried to control his emotions, while he sought to mould the next few +minutes reasonably and justly. + +"Why did you tell me to make no attempt to find the guilty person?" + +"Because," she answered, "you were too sure it was yourself. Why, Bobby, +did you think I was the--the woman in black? That has hurt me." + +"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, "but there is something I must tell +you now that may hurt you a little." + +And he explained how Graham had awakened him at the head of the stairs. + +"You're right," he said. "I was sure then it was myself, in spite of +Howells's movement. It followed so neatly on the handkerchief and the +footmarks. But now he has come back, and it changes everything. So I can +tell you." + +He couldn't be sure whether it was the cold, white loneliness through +which they paced, or what he had just said that made her tremble. + +"Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that." + +"I am glad," she answered. "You must never close your confidence to me +again. Why have you done it these last few months? I want to know." + +Calculation died. + +"Then you shall know." + +Through the white night his hands reached for her, found her, drew her +close. The moment was too masterful for him to mould. He became, instead, +plastic in its white and stealthy grasp. + +"I couldn't stay," he said, "and see you give yourself to Hartley." + +She raised her hands to his shoulders. He barely caught her whisper +because of the sly communicativeness of the snow. + +"I am glad, but why didn't you say so then?" + +The intoxication faded. The enterprise ahead gave to their joy a fugitive +quality. Moreover, with her very surrender came to him a great misgiving. + +"But you and Hartley? I've watched. It's been forced on me." + +"Then you have misunderstood," she answered. "You put me too completely +out of your life after our quarrel. That was about Hartley. You were too +jealous, but it was my fault." + +"Hartley," he asked, "spoke to you about that time?" + +"Yes, and I told him he was a very dear friend, and he was kind enough to +accept that and not to go away." + +His measure of the widening of the rift between them made her more +precious because of its affectionate human quality. She had been kinder +to Graham, more mysterious about him, to draw Bobby back. Yet ever since +his arrival at the Cedars, Graham had assumed toward Katherine an +attitude scarcely to be limited by friendship. He had done what he had +in Bobby's service clearly enough for her sake. For a long time past, +indeed, in speaking of her Graham always seemed to discuss the woman he +expected to marry. + +"You are quite sure," he asked, puzzled, "that Hartley understood?" + +"Why do you ask? He has shown how good a friend he is." + +"He has always made me think," Bobby said, "that he had your love. You're +sure he guessed that you cared for me?" + +In that place, at that moment, there was a tragic colour to her coquetry. + +"I think every one must have guessed it except you, Bobby." + +He raised her head and touched her lips. Her lips were as cold as the +caresses of the drifting snowflakes. + +"We must go on," she sighed. + +In his memory the chill of her kiss was bitter. In the forest they could +speak no more of love. + +But Bobby, hand in hand with her as they hurried after the others, +received a new strength. He saw as a condition to their happiness the +unveiling of the mystery at the Cedars. He gathered his courage for that +task. He would not give way even before the memory of all that he had +experienced, even before the return of his grandfather, even before the +revelation toward which they walked. And side by side with his +determination grew shame for his former weakness. It was comforting to +realize that the causes for his weakness and his strength were identical. + +The subdued murmur of voices reached them. They saw among the indistinct +masses of the trees restless patches of black. Katherine stumbled against +one of the fallen stones. They stood with the others in the burial +ground, close to the mound that had been made that day. + +"They haven't begun," Bobby whispered. + +She freed her hand. + +A white flame sprang across the mound. The trees from formless masses +took on individual shapes. A row of cypresses on which the light gleamed +were like sombre sentinels, guarding the dead. The snow patches, +clustered on their branches, were like funeral decorations pointing their +morbid function. The light gave the overturned stones an illusion of +striving to struggle from their white imprisonment. Robinson swung his +lamp back to the mound. + +"The snow isn't heavy," he said, "and the ground isn't frozen. It +oughtn't to take long." + +Silas Blackburn commenced to shake. + +"It's a desecration of the dead." + +"We have to know," Robinson said, "who is buried in that grave." + +With a spade Jenkins scraped the snow from the mound. Rawlins joined him. +They commenced to throw to one side, staining the white carpet, spadesful +of moist, yellow earth. Their labour was rapid. Silas Blackburn watched +with an unconquerable fascination. He continued to shake. + +"I'm too cold. I'll never be warm again," he whined. "If anything happens +to me, Bobby, try to forget I've been hard, and don't let them bury me. +Suppose I should be buried alive?" + +"Suppose," Paredes said, "you were buried alive to-day?" + +He turned to Bobby and Katherine. + +"That also is possible. You remember the old theories that have never +been disproved of the disintegration of matter into its atoms, of its +passage through solid substances, of its reforming in a far place? I +wouldn't have to ask an East Indian that." + +Jenkins, standing in the excavation, broke into torrential speech. + +"Mr. Robinson! I can't work with the light. It makes the stones seem to +move. It throws too many shadows. I seem to see people behind you, and +I'm afraid to look." + +Nothing aggressive survived in Rawlins's voice. + +"We can work well enough without it, sir." + +Robinson snapped off the light. The darkness descended eagerly upon +them. Above the noise of the spades in the soft earth Bobby heard +indefinite stirrings. In the graveyard at such an hour the supernatural +legend of the Cedars assumed an inescapable probability. Bobby wished +for some way to stop the task on which they were engaged. He felt +instinctively it would be better not to tamper with the mystery of +Silas Blackburn's return. + +Bobby grew rigid. + +"There it is again," Graham breathed. + +A low keening came from the thicket. It increased in power a trifle, then +drifted into silence. + +It wasn't the wind. It was like the moaning Bobby had heard at the +stagnant lake that afternoon, like the cries Graham and he had suffered +in the old room. Seeming at first to come from a distance, it achieved +a sense of intimacy. It was like an escape of sorrow from the +dismantled tombs. + +Bobby turned to Katherine. He couldn't see her for the darkness. He +reached out. She was not there. + +"Katherine," he called softly. + +Her hand stole into his. He had been afraid that the forest had taken +her. Under the reassurance of her handclasp he tried to make himself +believe there was actually a woman near by, if not Maria, some one who +had a definite purpose there. + +Robinson flashed on his light. Old Blackburn whimpered: + +"The Cedars is at its tricks again, and there's nothing we can do." + +"It was like a lost soul," Katherine sighed. "It seemed to cry from +this place." + +"It must be traced," Bobby said. + +"Then tell me its direction certainly," Robinson challenged. "We'd +flounder in the thicket. A waste of time. Let us get through here. +Hurry, Rawlins!" + +The light showed Bobby that the detective and Jenkins had nearly +finished. He shrank from the first hard sound of metal against metal. + +It came. After a moment the light shone on the dull face of the casket +which was streaked with dirt. + +Jenkins rested on his spade. He groaned. It occurred to Bobby that the +man couldn't have worked hard enough in this cold air to have started the +perspiration that streamed down his wrinkled face. + +"It would be a tough job to lift it out," Rawlins said. + +"No need," Robinson answered. "Get the soil away from the edges." + +He bent over, passing a screw driver to the detective. + +"Take off the top plate. That will let us see all we want." + +Jenkins climbed out. + +"I shan't look. I don't dare look." + +Silas Blackburn touched Bobby's arm timidly. + +"I've been a hard man, Bobby--" + +He broke off, his bearded lips twitching. + +The grating of the screws tore through the silence. Rawlins glanced up. + +"Lend a hand, somebody." + +Groom spoke hoarsely: + +"It isn't too late to let the dead rest." + +Robinson gestured him away. Graham, Paredes, and he knelt in the snow +and helped the detective raise the heavy lid. They placed it at the side +of the grave. + +They all forced themselves to glance downward. + +Katherine screamed. Silas Blackburn leaned on Bobby's arm, shaking with +gross, impossible sobs. Paredes shrugged his shoulders. The light +wavered in Robinson's hand. They continued to stare. There was nothing +else to do. + +The coffin was empty. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BOBBY'S VIGIL IN THE ABANDONED ROOM + + +For a long time the little group gathered in the snow-swept cemetery +remained silent. The lamp, shaking in the district attorney's hand, +illuminated each detail of the casket's interior linings. Bobby tried to +realize that, except for these meaningless embellishments, the box was +empty. That was what held them all--the void, the unoccupied silken couch +in which they had seen Silas Blackburn's body imprisoned. Yet the screws +which the detective had removed, and the mass of earth, packed down and +covered with snow, must have made escape a dreadful impossibility even if +the spark of life had reanimated its occupant. And that occupant stood +there, trembling and haggard, sobbing from time to time in an utter +abandonment to the terror of what he saw. + +To Bobby in that moment the supernatural legend of the Cedars seemed more +triumphantly fulfilled than it would have been through the immaterial +return of his grandfather. For Silas Blackburn was a reincarnation more +difficult to accept than any ghost. Had Paredes, who all along had +offered them a spectacle of veiled activity and thought, grasped the +truth? At first glance, indeed his gossip of oriental theories concerning +the disintegration of matter, its passage through solid substances, its +reassembly in far places, seemed thoroughly justified. Yet, granted that, +who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had they buried to vanish +completely? Who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had drowsed without +food for three days in the house at Smithtown? + +The old man stretched his shaking hands to Bobby and Katherine. + +"Don't let them bury me again. They never buried me. I've not been dead! +I tell you I've not been dead!" He mouthed horribly. "I'm alive! Can't +you see I'm alive?" + +He broke down and covered his face. Jenkins sank on the heap of earth. + +"I saw you, Mr. Silas, in that box. And I saw you on the bed. Miss +Katherine and I found you. We had to break the door. You looked so +peaceful we thought you were asleep. But when we touched you you +were cold." + +"No, no, no," Blackburn grimaced. "I wasn't cold. I couldn't have been." + +"There's no question," Bobby said hoarsely. + +"No question," Robinson repeated. + +Katherine shrank from her uncle as he had shrunk from her in the library +the night of the murder. + +"What do you make of it?" the district attorney asked Rawlins. + +The detective, who had remained crouched at the side of the grave, arose, +brushing the dirt from his hands, shaking his head. + +"What is one to make of it, sir?" + +Paredes spoke softly to Graham. + +"The Cedars wants to be left alone to the dead. We would all be better +away from it." + +"You won't go yet awhile," Robinson said gruffly. "Don't forget you're +still under bond." + +The detail no longer seemed of importance to Bobby. The mystery, +centreing in the empty grave, was apparently inexplicable. He experienced +a great pity for his grandfather; and, recalling that strengthening +moment with Katherine, he made up his mind that there was only one course +for him. It might be dangerous in itself, yet, on the other hand, he +couldn't go to Katherine while his share in the mystery of the Cedars +remained so darkly shadowed. He had no right to withhold anything, and he +wouldn't ask Graham's advice. He had stepped all at once into the mastery +of his own destiny. He would tell Robinson, therefore, everything he +knew, from the party with Maria and Paredes in New York, through his +unconscious wanderings around the house on the night of the first murder, +to the moment when Graham had stopped his somnambulistic excursion down +the stairs. + +Robinson turned his light away from the grave. + +"There's nothing more to do here. Let us go back." + +The little party straggled through the snow to the house. The hall fire +smouldered as pleasantly as it had done before they had set forth, yet an +interminable period seemed to have elapsed. Silas Blackburn went close to +the fire. He sank in a chair, trembling. + +"I'm so cold," he whined. "I've never been so cold. What is the matter +with me? For God's sake tell me what is the matter! Katherine--if--if +nothing happens, we'll close the Cedars. We'll go to the city where there +are lots of lights." + +"If you'd only listened to Bobby and me and gone long ago," she said. + +Robinson stared at the fire. + +"I'm about beaten," he muttered wearily. + +Rawlins, with an air of stealth, walked upstairs. Graham, after a +moment's hesitation, followed him. Bobby wondered why they went. He +caught Robinson's eye. He indicated he would like to speak to him in the +library. As he left the hall he saw Paredes, who had not removed his hat +or coat, start for the front door. + +"Where are you going?" he heard Robinson demand. + +Paredes's reply came glibly. + +"Only to walk up and down in the court. The house oppresses me more than +ever to-night. I feel with Mr. Blackburn that it is no place to stay." + +And while he talked with Robinson in the library Bobby caught at times +the crunching of Paredes's feet in the court. + +"Why does that court draw him?" Robinson asked. "Why does he keep +repeating that it is full of ghosts? He can't be trying to scare us with +that now." + +But Bobby didn't answer. + +"I've come to tell you the truth," he burst out, "everything I know. You +may lock me up. Even that would be better than this uncertainty. I must +have an answer, if it condemns me; and how could I have had anything to +do with what has happened to-night?" + +He withheld nothing. Robinson listened with an intent interest. At the +end he said not unkindly: + +"If the evidence and Howells's report hadn't disappeared I'd have +arrested you and considered the case closed before this miracle was +thrown at me. You've involved yourself so frankly that I don't believe +you're lying about what went on in the old room when you entered to steal +those exhibits. Can't say I blame you for trying that, either. You were +in a pretty bad position--an unheard-of position. You still are, for that +matter. But the case is put on such an extraordinary basis by what has +happened to-night that I'd be a fool to lock you up on such a confession. +I believe there's a good deal more in what has gone on in that room and +in the return of your grandfather than you can account for." + +"Thanks," Bobby said. "I hoped you'd take it this way, for, if you will +let me help, I have a plan." + +He turned restlessly to the door of the private staircase. In his memory +Howells's bold figure was outlined there, but now the face with its slow +smile seemed sympathetic rather than challenging. + +"What's your plan?" Robinson asked. + +Bobby forced himself to speak deliberately, steadily: + +"To go for the night alone to the old room as Howells did." + +Robinson whistled. + +"Didn't believe you had that much nerve. Two men have tried that. What +good would it do?" + +"If the answer's anywhere," Bobby said, "it must be hidden in that room. +Howells felt it. I was sure of it when I was prevented from taking the +evidence. You've believed it, I think." + +"There is something strange and unhealthy about the room," Robinson +agreed. "Certainly the secret of the locked doors lies there. But we've +had sufficient warning. I'm not ashamed to say I wouldn't take such a +chance. I don't know that I ought to let you." + +Bobby smiled. + +"I've been enough of a coward," he said, "and, Robinson, I've got to +know. I shan't go near the bed. I'll watch the bed from a corner. If +the danger's at the bed, as we suspect, it probably won't be able to +reach me, but just the same it may expose itself. And Rawlins or you +can be outside the broken door in the corridor, waiting to enter at +the first alarm." + +"Howells had no chance to give an alarm," Robinson muttered. "We'll +see later." + +But Bobby understood that he would agree, and he forced his new courage +to face the prospect. + +"Maybe something will turn up," Robinson mused. "The case can't grow more +mysterious indefinitely." + +But his tone held no assurance. He seemed to foresee new and difficult +complications. + +When they returned to the hall Bobby shrank from the picture of his +grandfather still crouched by the fire, his shoulders twitching, his +fingers about the black briar pipe shaking. Groom alone had remained with +him. Bobby opened the front door. There was no one in the court. + +"Paredes," he said, closing the door, "has gone out of the court. Where's +Katherine, Doctor?" + +"She went to the kitchen," the doctor rumbled. "I'm sure I don't know +what for this time of night." + +After a little Graham and Rawlins came down the stairs. Graham's face was +scarred by fresh trouble. Rawlins drew the district attorney to one side. + +"What have you two been doing up there?" Bobby asked Graham. + +"Rawlins is hard-headed," Graham answered in a low, worried tone. + +He wouldn't meet Bobby's eyes. He seemed to seek an escape. + +"Where's Katherine?" he asked. + +"Doctor Groom says she went to the back part of the house. Why won't you +tell me what you were doing?" + +"Only keeping Rawlins from trying to make more mischief," Graham +answered. + +He wouldn't explain. + +"Aren't there enough riddles in this house?" Doctor Groom asked with +frank disapproval. + +Rawlins and Robinson joined them, sparing Graham a further defence. The +district attorney had an air of fresh resolution. He was about to speak +when the front door opened quietly, framing the blackness of the court. +They started forward, seeing no one. + +Silas Blackburn made a slow, shrinking movement, crying out: + +"They've opened the door! Don't let them in. Don't let them come near +me again." + +Although they knew Paredes had been in the court the spell of the Cedars +was so heavy upon them that for a moment they didn't know what to expect. +They hesitated with a little of the abnormal apprehension Silas Blackburn +exposed. Then Rawlins sprang forward, and Bobby called: + +"Carlos!" + +Paredes stepped from one side. He lingered against the black +background of the doorway. It was plain enough something was wrong +with him. In the first place, although he had opened the door, he had +been unwilling to enter. + +"Shut the door," Silas Blackburn moaned. + +Paredes, with a quick gesture of surrender, stepped in and obeyed. His +face was white. He had lost his immaculate appearance. His clothing +showed stains of snow and mould. He held his left hand behind his back. + +"What's the matter with you?" Robinson demanded. + +The Panamanian's laugh lacked its usual indifference. + +"When I said the Cedars was full of ghosts I should have heeded my own +warning. I might better have stayed comfortably locked up in Smithtown." + +Silas Blackburn spoke in a hoarse whisper: + +"What did you see out there? Are they coming?" + +"I saw very little," Paredes answered. "It was too dark." + +"You saw something," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +Paredes nodded. He looked at the floor. + +"A--a woman in black." + +"By the lake!" Bobby cried. + +"Not as far as the lake. It was near the empty grave." + +Silas Blackburn commenced to shake again. The doctor's little eyes +were wider. + +"It was a woman--a flesh-and-blood woman?" Robinson asked. + +"If it was a ghost," Paredes answered, "it had the power of attack; but +that, as you'll recall, is by no means unusual here. That's why I've come +in rather against my will. It seems strange, but I, too, have been +struck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctor +had better look at the result." + +With a motion of repugnance he moved his left hand from behind his back +and stretched it to the light. The coat below the elbow was torn. The +slender hand was crimson. He tried to smile. + +"Luckily it wasn't at the back of my head." + +"Sit down," Doctor Groom said, waving Robinson and Rawlins away. "Let me +see how badly he's hurt. There'll be plenty of time for questions +afterward." + +Paredes lay back in one of the chairs and extended his arm. He kept his +eyes closed while the doctor stooped, examining the wound. All at once +his nearly perpetual sleeplessness since coming to the Cedars had +recorded itself in his face. His nerves at last confessed their +vulnerability as he fumbled for a cigarette with his good hand, as he +placed it awkwardly between his lips. + +"Would you mind giving me a light, Bobby?" + +Bobby struck a match and held it to the cigarette. + +"Thanks," Paredes said. "Are you nearly through, doctor? I daresay +it's nothing." + +Doctor Groom glanced up. + +"Nothing serious with a little luck. It's only torn through a muscle. It +might have pierced the large vein." + +His forehead beneath the shaggy black hair was deeply lined. He turned to +Robinson doubtfully. + +"Maybe you'll tell us," Robinson said, "what made the wound." + +"No use shirking facts," the doctor rumbled. "Mr. Paredes has been +wounded just as he said, by something sharp and slender." + +"You mean," Robinson said, "by an instrument that could have caused death +in the case of Howells and--and--" + +"I won't have you looking at me that way," Silas Blackburn whined. + +"Yes," the doctor answered. "Before we go any farther I want to bind this +arm. There must be an antiseptic in the house. Where is Katherine? See if +you can find her, Bobby." + +As Bobby started to cross the dining room he heard the slight scraping of +the door leading to the kitchen. He knew there was someone in the room +with him. He touched a cold hand. + +"Bobby!" Katherine breathed in his ear. + +He understood why the little light from the hall had failed to disclose +her when she had come from the kitchen. She wore the black cloak. Against +the darkness at the end of the room she had made no silhouette. When he +put his arms around her and touched her cheek, he noticed that that, too, +was cold; and the shoulders of the cloak were damp as if she had just +come in from the falling snow. + +"Where have you been?" he asked. + +"Looking outside," she answered frankly. "I couldn't sit still. I +wondered if the woman in black would be around the house to-night. Then +I was afraid, so I came in." + +Doctor Groom's voice reached them. + +"Have you found her? Is she in the dining room?" + +Without any thought of disloyalty Bobby recognized the menace of +coincidence. + +"Take your cloak off," he whispered. "Leave it here." + +"Why?" + +While he drew the cloak from her shoulders he raised his voice. + +"Carlos has been hurt. The doctor asked me to find you." + +His simple strategy was destroyed by the appearance of Rawlins. The +detective came directly to them; nor was the coincidence lost on him, and +it was his business to advertise rather than to conceal it. Without +ceremony he took the cloak from Bobby. He draped it over his arm. + +"The doctor," he said to Katherine, "wants a basin of warm water, some +old linen, carbolic acid, if you have it." + +She nodded and went back to the kitchen while Bobby returned with the +detective to the hall. Paredes's eyes remained closed. + +"Where did you get the cloak, Rawlins?" Robinson asked. + +"The young lady," Rawlins answered with soft satisfaction, "just wore it +in. At least it's still wet from the snow." + +Paredes opened his eyes. He looked for a moment at the black cloak. He +closed his eyes again. + +"You could recognize the woman who attacked you?" Rawlins said. + +Paredes shook his head. + +"You've forgotten how dark it is. Please don't ask me even to swear that +it was a woman." + +"You're trying to say it wasn't flesh and blood," Blackburn quavered. + +Paredes smiled weakly. + +"I'm trying to say nothing at all." + +"Tell us each detail of the attack," Robinson said. + +But Katherine's footsteps reached them from the dining room and Paredes +wouldn't answer. Under those conditions Robinson's failure to press the +question was as disturbing as the detective's matter-of-fact capture of +the cloak. + +Paredes glanced at Katherine once. There was no softness in her attitude +as she knelt beside his chair. Neither, Bobby felt, was there the +slightest uneasiness. With a facile grace she helped the doctor bathe and +bandage the slight wound. + +"A silk handkerchief for a sling--" the doctor suggested. + +"I won't have a sling," Paredes said. "I wouldn't know what to do without +the use of both my hands." + +"You ought to congratulate yourself that you still keep it," the +doctor grumbled. + +Bobby took the pan and the bottles from Katherine and rang for Jenkins. +It was clear that Robinson had hoped the girl would go out with them +herself and so give Paredes an opportunity to speak. This new development +made him wonder about Graham's theories as to Paredes. If it was Maria +who had struck the man there had either been a quarrel among thieves or +else no criminal connection had ever existed between the two. Paredes, +however, aping the gestures of an invalid, was less to Bobby's taste than +his satanic appearance when he had come from the private staircase. + +Rawlins still held the cloak. After Jenkins had removed the doctor's +paraphernalia, everyone seemed to wait. It was Silas Blackburn who +finally released the strain. + +"Katy, where you been with that cloak? What's he doing with it?" + +Without answering she took the cloak from Rawlins, and gave the detective +and the district attorney the opportunity they craved. She walked up the +stairs, turning at the landing. Her farewell seemed pointed at the +Panamanian who looked languidly up at her. + +"If I'm wanted I shall be in my room." + +"Who would want you, Katherine?" Graham blurted out. But it was clear he +had caught the coincidence, too, and the trouble he had confessed a +little earlier was radically increased. + +"That remains to be seen," Robinson sneered as soon as she had gone. +"Now, Mr. Paredes." + +"I've really told you everything," he said. "I walked toward the +graveyard. At a point very close to it I felt the presence of this +creature in black. I spoke. I took my courage in my hands. I reached +out. I touched nothing." He raised his injured hand. "I got this for +my pains." + +"What made you go to the graveyard?" Robinson asked suspiciously. + +There was no mockery in the Panamanian's answer. + +"I have told you the court for me has always been full of ghosts." He +pointed to Silas Blackburn. "It frightened me that this man should come +back through the court from his grave with all the evidence pointing to +an astral magic. I wanted to retrace his journey. I thought at the grave, +if I were alone, something might expose itself that had naturally +remained hidden in the presence of so many materialistic human beings." + +A smile spread over Rawlins's cold, unimaginative features. + +"That sounds well, Mr. Paredes, and there is a lot about this case that +looks like ghosts, but leave us a few flesh-and-blood clues. This woman +in black is one of them, although she's been slippery as an eel. It looks +to me as if you went to the grave to meet her alone exactly as you went +to the deserted house to talk quietly with her night before last. Maybe +she mistook you for one of us snooping in the dark, and let you have it." + +"If that is so," Paredes said easily, "the nature of my wound would +suggest that she is guilty of the crimes in the old room. Why not go out +and arrest her then? She might explain everything except the return to +life of Mr. Blackburn. I'm afraid that's rather beyond you in any case. +But at least find her." + +Robinson joined in Rawlins's laugh. + +"Why go outside for that?" + +Paredes started. + +"You never mean--" + +"You bet we do," Rawlins said. "If what I've doped out hadn't been so +we'd have caught her long before. We're not blind, and we haven't missed +the nerve with which she helped the doctor fix you up. We haven't caught +her before because her headquarters have been right in this house all the +time. You remember the other night, Mr. Robinson. You'd just questioned +her in the court and had threatened to question him, too, when she came +in here ahead of us and slipped out the back way. She must have told him +to follow because they had to talk, undisturbed by us. They went by +different roads to the deserted house where a light had been seen before. +We happened to hit his trail first and followed it. I'll guarantee you +didn't see her when you first came in." + +Robinson shook his head. + +"Mr. Graham kept me busy, and I rather waited for your report before +pushing things. I didn't see her or question her until after Mr. Graham +and Mr. Blackburn had started for New York." + +"And she could have sneaked in the back way any time before that," +Rawlins said. + +"It's utter nonsense!" Graham cried. + +Rawlins turned on him. + +"See here, Mr. Graham, you've been trying to fight me off this way all +afternoon. It won't do." + +"Katy's a good girl," Silas Blackburn quavered. + +With a growing discomfort Bobby realized that when the woman had cried +near the graveyard he had reached out for Katherine and had failed to +find her. Moreover, the night Graham and he had heard the crying in the +old room she had stood alone in the corridor. It was easily conceivable +that the turn of events after Robinson's arrival should have made it +necessary for conspirators to consult free from any danger of +disturbance. But Katherine, he told himself, was assuredly the victim of +coincidence. He couldn't picture her entangled in any of Paredes's +purposes. Her dislike of the man was complete and open. But he saw that +Rawlins out of the mass of apparently inexplicable clues had extracted +this material one and would follow it desperately no matter who was hurt; +and Robinson was behind him. That accounted for their frequent excursions +upstairs during the afternoon, for Rawlins's ascent as soon as they had +returned from the grave. They had evidently found something to sharpen +their suspicions, and Graham probably knew what it was. + +Robinson took out his watch. + +"We can't put this off too late," he mused. + +The detective at his heels, he walked to the library. Bobby started +after them. Graham caught him and they crossed the dining room together. + +"What do they mean to do?" Bobby asked. + +"I have been afraid of it since this afternoon," Graham answered. "I +haven't cared to talk about it. I had hoped to hold them off. They intend +to search Katherine's room. I think they believe she has something +important hidden there. I've been wondering if they've got track of +Howells's report which we told Jenkins to hide." + +"Why," Bobby asked, "should that involve Katherine?" + +"Howells may have written something damaging to her. He knew she was +devoted to your interests." + +Robinson called to them from the library. + +"Won't you please come in, Mr. Blackburn?" + +Bobby and Graham continued to the library. They found Rawlins gazing +through the door of the private staircase. + +"We could go up this way," he was saying, "and across the old room so +that she needn't suspect." + +"What is he talking about?" Bobby asked Robinson angrily. + +"You wanted to help," Robinson answered, "so Rawlins and I are going to +give you a chance. We are about to search your cousin's room. We hope to +find there an explanation of a part of the mystery--the motive, at least, +for Howells's death; perhaps your own exoneration. You'd do anything to +have that, wouldn't you? You've said so." + +"At her expense!" Bobby cried. "You've no right to go to her room. +She's incapable of a share in such crimes. Do you seriously think she +could plan an escape from the grave and bring back to life a man three +days dead?" + +"Give me a human being that caused death," Robinson answered, "and I'll +tackle the ghosts later. You're wrong if you think I'm going to quit cold +because your grandfather looks like a dead thing that moves about and +talks. I shan't give up to that madness until I've done everything in my +power. I would be a criminal myself if I failed to do as Rawlins wishes. +If your cousin's skirts are clear no harm will be done. I'm acting on the +assumption that your confession was honest. I want you to get Miss +Perrine out of her room. I want you to see that she stays downstairs +while we search." + +"You've already searched her room." + +"Not since Rawlins--" + +Robinson caught himself. + +"Never mind that. It is necessary it should be searched to-night. Even +you'll acknowledge it's significant that all day when she has been +downstairs her door has been locked." + +"It's only significant," Bobby flashed, "in view of your treatment of her +yesterday." + +Robinson grinned. + +"That will hardly go down. Rawlins has hesitated to break in. I've +instructed him to do it now, if necessary. For the last time, will you +bring your cousin down? Will you go through and unlock the door leading +from the old bedroom to the private hall so we can get up?" + +"No," Bobby cried, "I wouldn't do it if I believed you were right. And I +know you're wrong." + +"Prove that we're wrong. Clear your cousin by helping us," +Robinson urged. + +"Since you're so determined," Graham said quietly, "I'll do it." + +"Hartley! What are you thinking of?" + +"Of showing them how wrong they are," Graham said. "I'll tell her +Doctor Groom wishes to speak to her about Mr. Blackburn. I'll warn him +to keep her downstairs for a quarter of an hour. That should give you +plenty of time." + +Robinson nodded. + +"She'll never forgive you," Bobby said. "It's spying." + +He wondered that Graham should choose such a course so soon after it had +become clear that Katherine had never really loved him. + +"It's the best way to satisfy them," Graham said. "I have, perhaps, more +faith than you in Katherine." + +He left them to carry out Robinson's instructions. They waited at the +entrance of the private staircase. + +"I may witness this outrage?" Bobby asked. + +"I'd rather you didn't speak of it in such harsh terms," Robinson +smiled. + +Bobby didn't know what to expect. The whole thing might be a trick of +Paredes, in line with his hints the night of Howells's death, to involve +Katharine. The quiet confidence of the two officials was disturbing. What +had Rawlins seen? + +After a long time Graham descended the private staircase, carrying a +lighted candle. He beckoned and they followed him back through the +private hall into the wide and mournful bedroom. It encouraged Bobby to +see the district attorney and the detective hurry across it. After all, +they were really without confidence of solving its ghostly riddle. What +they were about to do, he argued, was a last chance. They would find +nothing. They would acknowledge themselves beaten. + +When they entered the farther wing he noticed that Katherine's door +stood wide. + +"You see," he said. + +"When I called her," Graham explained, "she thought something had +happened to her grandfather. She ran out." + +"And forgot all about the door," Robinson grinned. "That's lucky. +Now, Rawlins." + +Bobby couldn't bring himself to cross the threshold, but from the +corridor he could see the interior of the room and all that went on there +during the next few moments. A candle burned on the bureau, exposing the +feminine neatness and delicacy of the furnishings. The presence of the +three men was a desecration; what they were about to do, an unforgivable +act of vandalism. + +Rawlins went to a work table while Robinson rummaged in the closet. +Graham, meantime, bent against the footboard of the bed, watching with +anxious eyes. Bobby's anger was increased by this picture. He resisted an +impulse to run to the stairs and call Katherine up. That would simply +increase Robinson's suspicions. There was nothing she could do, nothing +he could do. + +Rawlins had clearly been unsuccessful at the work table. He glided to the +bureau. One after the other he opened the drawers, fumbling within, +lifting the contents out, replacing them with a rough haste while Bobby's +futile rage increased. + +Suddenly he saw Graham's attitude alter. Rawlins's back stiffened. He +pulled the bottom drawer altogether from the bureau and thrust it to one +side. He gazed in the opening. + +"Come here, Mr. Robinson," he said softly. + +Robinson left the closet and stooped beside the detective. He exclaimed. +Graham went closer looking over their backs. + +"You'd better see, Bobby," he said without turning. + +"Yes," Robinson said. "Let me show you how wrong you were, Mr. Blackburn. +Let me ask if you knew you were wrong." + +Bobby entered with a quicker pulse. He, too, stooped and looked in the +opening. Abruptly everything altered for him. He wondered that his +physical surroundings should remain the same, that the eager faces beside +him should retain their familiar lines. + +Against the back-board of the bureau, where it would fit neatly when the +drawer was in place, lay a plaster cast of a footmark. Near by was a +rumpled handkerchief that Bobby recognized as his own, and the envelope, +containing Howells's report which they had told Jenkins to hide. + +"Well?" Robinson grinned. + +"I swear I didn't know they were there," Bobby answered. "You'll never +make me believe that Katherine knows it." + +"I've guessed," Rawlins said, "that the stuff was hidden here ever since +this afternoon when I saw a small bundle sneaked in." + +"Who brought it?" Bobby took him up. + +Robinson's grin expanded. + +"Leave us one or two surprises to spring in court." + +"Then," Bobby said, "my cousin wasn't in the room when this evidence was +brought here." + +"I'll admit that," Rawlins answered, "but she wasn't far away, and she +got here before I could investigate, and she's kept the door locked ever +since until just now." + +He lifted the exhibits out. The shape of the cast, the monogram on the +handkerchief cried out their testimony. + +Robinson grasped Howells's report and glanced over the fine handwriting. +After a time he looked up. + +"There's the case against you, Mr. Blackburn, and at the least your +cousin's an accessory. But why the devil did you come to me and make a +clean breast of it?" + +"Because," Bobby cried, "I didn't know anything about these things being +here. Can't you see that?" + +"That's the trouble," Robinson answered uncertainly, "I think I do see +it." + +"Besides," Graham said, "you're still without the instrument that +caused death." + +"I expect to land it in this room," Rawlins answered grimly. + +He replaced the drawer and continued to fumble among the clothing it +contained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On the +forefinger a tiny red stain showed. + +"How did you do that?" Robinson asked. + +"Something pricked me," the detective answered. "Maybe it was only a pin, +but it might have been--" + +Excitedly he resumed his search. He took the clothing from the drawer and +threw it to one side. Nothing remained in the drawer. + +"I guess it must have been a pin," Robinson said, disappointed. + +But Rawlins took up each article of clothing and examined it minutely. +His face brightened. + +"Here's something stiff. By gad, I believe I've got it!" + +Concealed in a woollen sack, with the slender shaft thrust through and +through the folds, was a peculiarly long, stout, and sharp hat pin. +Rawlins drew it out. He held it up triumphantly. + +"Now maybe we're not getting somewheres! That's the boy that did the +trick in both cases, and it's what scratched Mr. Paredes. Maybe you +noticed how quickly she came upstairs to hide this when she got in." + +"Good work, Rawlins," Robinson said. + +He glanced at Bobby and Graham. + +"Have either of you seen this deadly thing before?" + +Bobby wouldn't answer, but after a moment's hesitation Graham spoke: + +"There's no point in lying, Bobby. Katherine knows nothing of this. I +disagree with Rawlins. If she had been working with Paredes, which is +unthinkable, she'd never have made such a mistake. She wouldn't have +struck him. I have seen her wear such a pin." + +"If she didn't cut him with it," Rawlins reasoned, "who else could +have got it out of here and put it back to-night when she kept her +door locked?" + +"There's no getting around it," Robinson said. "Take charge of these +things, Rawlins. Put them in a safe place." + +"What are you going to do?" Bobby asked. + +"I'm afraid there's only one thing to do," Robinson answered. "I'll have +to arrest you both. One of you used this pin in the old room. It doesn't +make much difference which one. You've been working together, and we'll +find out about Paredes later." + +"You're making a terrible mistake," Bobby muttered. "You don't know +Katherine or you couldn't suspect her of any share in such crimes. Give +me until morning to prove how wrong you are." + +"What would be the use?" Robinson asked. + +"If you'll do that, I will get the truth for you--the whole truth, how +the room was entered, everything. I swear it, Robinson. Only a few hours. +Let me carry out my plan. Let me offer myself to the dangers of the old +room as Howells and my grandfather did. Your case is no good unless you +can explain the miracle to-night. Give us this chance. Then in the +morning, if nothing happens and you still think I'm guilty, lock me up, +but for God's sake, Robinson, leave her out of it." + +Graham walked to the window and flung it open. A violent gust of wind +swept in, carrying a multitude of icy flakes. + +"The storm is worse," he said. "No one is likely to try to escape from +this house to-night." + +Bobby stretched out his hand. + +"You can't expose her to that." + +Rawlins hadn't forgotten the sense of fellowship sprung from the pursuit +of Paredes through the forest. + +"He's right, Mr. Robinson. You could lock up a dozen people. You might +send them to the chair without uncovering the real mystery of the Cedars. +Maybe he might find something, and he'd be as safe in that room as in any +jail I know of. I mean one of us would be in the library and the other in +the corridor outside the broken door. How could he reasonably get out? If +there was an attempt to repeat the trick we'd be ready. As for the girl, +it's simple enough to safeguard against her getting away before morning. +As Mr. Graham says, no one's likely to run far in this storm, anyway." + +Robinson considered. + +"I don't want to be hard," he said finally, "and I don't want to miss any +chance of cleaning up where poor Howells failed." + +He glanced at the extraordinary array of evidence. The good nature which, +one felt, should always have been in his face, shone at last. + +"I don't believe you're guilty. As far as you're concerned it's likely +enough a put-up job. I don't know about the girl. Go ahead, anyway, and +tell us, if you can, how the locked room was entered. Explain the mystery +of that old man who looks as if he were dead, but who moves around and +talks with us." + +"The answer, if it's anywhere," Bobby said, "is in the old room." + +Robinson nodded. + +"Under the conditions it seems worth while. Go on then and clear your +cousin and yourself if you can. You have until daylight to-morrow." + +Bobby's gratitude was sufficiently eloquent in his eyes, but he said +nothing. He hurried from the room to find Katherine. As soon as he had +stepped in the corridor he saw her figure against the wall. + +"Katherine!" he breathed. + +"I've heard everything," she said. + +He led her to the main hall where the greedy ears in her bedroom couldn't +overhear them. + +"Then you suspected what they were about?" he asked her. + +"Uncle Silas," she answered, "seemed just as he had been when I went +upstairs, so I wondered, and I remembered I had left my door unlocked." + +"Then you knew those things were there?" + +Her face was white. She trembled. Her words came jerkily: + +"Of course I didn't. I only kept my door locked because they had +searched so thoroughly before. It was an humiliation I couldn't bear to +face again." + +"You don't know," he asked, "who took that stuff from Howells; who hid it +in your bureau?" + +The trembling of her slender body became more pronounced. She spoke +through chattering teeth: + +"Bobby! Why do you ask such things? You believe I am guilty as you +thought I was the woman in black. You think now, because those things +were in my bureau--" + +"Stop, Katherine! You won't answer me?" + +"No," she said, backing away from him. "But you are going to answer me. +We have come to that point already. Just an hour or two of trust, and +then this! It's the Cedars forcing us apart as it did when we had our +quarrel. Only this time it is definite. Do you think I'm guilty of these +atrocious crimes, or don't you? Everything for us depends on your answer, +and I'll know whether you are telling me the truth." + +"Then," he said, "why should I answer?" + +And he took her in his arms and held her close. + +She didn't cry, but for a moment she ceased trembling, and her teeth no +longer chattered. + +"My dear," he said, "even if you had hidden that evidence I'd have known +it was to protect me." + +Then she cried a little, and for a moment, even in the unmerciful grasp +of their trouble, they were nearly happy. The footsteps of the others in +the corridor recalled them. Katherine leaned against the table, drying +her eyes. Graham, Robinson, and Rawlins walked into the hall. + +"Hello!" Robinson said, "I suppose that isn't an unfair advantage, Mr. +Blackburn. Still, I'd rather she hadn't been told." + +"He's told me nothing," Katherine answered. "I came back to the corridor; +I heard everything you said." + +"Maybe it's as well," Robinson reflected. "It certainly is if what you +heard has shown you the wisdom of giving up the whole thing." + +She stared at him without replying. + +"Come now," he wheedled. "You might tell us at least why you stole and +secreted the evidence." + +"I'll answer nothing." + +"That's wiser, Katherine," Graham put in. + +She turned on him with a complete and unexpected fury. The colour rushed +back to her face. Her eyes blazed. Bobby had never guessed her capable +of such anger. His wonder grew that her outburst should be directed +against Graham. + +"Keep quiet!" she cried hysterically. "Don't speak to me again. I hate +you! Do you understand?" + +Graham drew back. + +"Why, Katherine--" + +"Don't," she said. "Don't call me that." + +The officers glanced at Graham with frank bewilderment. Rawlins's +materialistic mind didn't hesitate to express its first thought: + +"Must say, I always thought you were sweet on the lady." + +"Hartley!" Bobby said. "You have been fair to us?" + +"I don't know why she attacks me," Graham muttered. + +His face recorded a genuine pain. His words, Bobby felt, overcame a +barrier of emotion. + +They heard Paredes and Doctor Groom on the stairs. + +"What's this?" the doctor rumbled as he came up. + +"I--I'm sorry I forgot myself," Katherine said through her chattering +teeth. She turned to Robinson. "I am going to my room. You needn't be +afraid. I shan't leave it until you come to take me." + +"Truly I hope it won't be necessary," the district attorney answered. + +She hurried away. Rawlins grinned at Paredes. + +"I'm wondering what the devil you know." + +Robinson made no secret of what had happened. In reply to the questions +of Paredes and the doctor he told of the discovery of the evidence and of +the stout hat-pin that had, unquestionably, caused death. The man made it +clear enough, however, that he didn't care to have Paredes know of +Bobby's plan to spend the night in the old room, and Rawlins, Bobby, and +Graham indicated that they understood. + +"It's quite absurd that any one should think Katherine guilty," the +doctor said to Robinson. "This evidence and its presence in her room are +details that don't approach the heart of the mystery. That's to be found +only in the old room, and I don't think any one wants to tempt it again. +In fact, I'm not sure one can learn the truth there and live. You know +what happened to Howells when he tried. Silas Blackburn went there, and +none of us can understand the change that's taken place. I have been +watching him closely. So has Mr. Paredes. We have seen him become grayer. +We have seen his eyes alter. He sits shaking in his chair. Since we came +back from the grave the man--if we can call him a man--seems to +have--shrunk." + +"Yes," Paredes said. "Perhaps we shouldn't have left him alone. Let us go +back. Let us see if he is all right." + +Rawlins laughed skeptically. + +"You're not afraid he'll melt away!" + +"I'm not so sure he won't," Paredes answered. + +They followed him downstairs. Because of the position of Blackburn's +chair they could be sure of nothing until they had reached the lower +floor and approached the fireplace. Then they saw. It was as if Paredes's +far-fetched fear had been realized. Blackburn was not in his chair, nor +was he to be found in the hall. Even then, with the exception of Paredes, +they wouldn't take the thing seriously. Since the old man wasn't in the +hall; since he couldn't have gone upstairs, unobserved by them, he must +be either in the library, the dining room, or the rear part of the house. +There was no one in the library or the dining room; and Jenkins, who sat +in the kitchen, still shaken by the discovery at the grave, said he +hadn't moved for the last half hour, was entirely sure no one had come +through from the front part of the house. + +They returned to the hall and stood in a half circle about the empty +chair, where a little while ago Silas Blackburn had cowered, mouthing +snatches of his fear--"I'm not dead! I tell you I'm not dead! They can't +make me go back--" + +The echoes of that fear still shocked their ears. + +There was a hypnotic power about the vacancy as there had been about the +emptiness in the burial ground. Paredes spoke gropingly. + +"What would we find," he whispered, "if we went to the cemetery and +looked again in the coffin?" + +"Why should he have come back at all?" Groom mused. + +Robinson opened the front door. + +"You know he might have gone this way." + +But already the snow had obliterated the signs of their own passage in +and out. It showed no fresh marks. + +"Silas Blackburn has not gone that way in the body," Doctor Groom +rumbled. + +The storm was more violent. It discouraged the idea of examining the +graveyard again before morning. + +Robinson glanced at his watch. He led Bobby and the detective to +the library. + +"Then try your scheme if you want," he said, "but understand I assume no +responsibility. Honestly, I doubt if it amounts to anything. You'll shout +out if you are attacked, or the moment you suspect any real cause for +fear. Rawlins will be in the corridor, and I'll be in the library or +wandering about the house--always within call. Rawlins will guard the +broken door, but be sure and lock the other one." + +The two officers went upstairs with Bobby. Graham followed. + +"You understand," Robinson said. "I'd rather Paredes and the doctor +didn't suspect what you are going to do. Change your mind before it's too +late, if you want." + +Bobby walked on without replying. + +"You can't dissuade him," Graham said, "because of what will happen +to-morrow unless the truth is discovered to-night." + +In the upper hall they found Katherine waiting. Her endeavours were +hard to face. + +"You shan't go there for me, Bobby," she said. + +"Isn't it clear I must go in my own service?" he said, trying to smile. + +He wouldn't speak to her again. He wouldn't look at her. Her anxiety and +the affection in her eyes weakened him, and he needed all his strength, +for at the entrance of the dark, narrow corridor the fear met him. + +Rawlins brought a candle and guided him down the corridor. Graham came, +too. The detective locked the door leading to the private hall and +slipped the key in his pocket. + +"Nobody will get through there any more than they will through the other +door which I'll watch." + +With Graham's help he made a quick inspection of the room, searching the +closets and glancing beneath the bed and behind the furniture. + +"There's no one," he said, preparing to depart. "I tell you there's no +chance of a physical attack." + +His unimaginative mind cried out. + +"I tell you you'll find nothing, learn nothing, for there's nothing here +to find, nothing to learn." + +"Just the same," Graham urged, "you'll call out, won't you, Bobby, at +the first sign of anything out of the way? For God's sake take no +foolish chances." + +"I don't want the light," Bobby forced himself to say. "My grandfather +and Howells both put their candles out. I want everything as it was when +they were attacked." + +Rawlins nodded and, followed by Graham, carried the candle from the room +and closed the broken door. + +The sudden solitude and the darkness crushed Bobby, taking his breath. +Yellow flames, the response of his eyes to the disappearance of the +candle, tore across the blackness, confusing him. He felt his way to the +wall near the open window. He sat down there, facing the bed. + +At first he couldn't see the bed. He saw only the projections of his +fancy, stimulated by Silas Blackburn's story, against the black screen +of the night. He understood at last what the old man had meant. The +darkness did appear to possess a physical resistance, and as the minutes +lengthened it seemed to encase all the suffering the room had ever +harboured. But he wouldn't close his eyes as his grandfather had done. +It was a defence to keep them on the spot where the bed stood while his +mind, in spite of his will, pictured, lying there, still forms with +bandaged heads. He wouldn't close his eyes even when those fancied +shapes commenced to struggle in grotesque and impotent motion, like ants +whose hill has been demolished. Nor could he drive from his ears the +echoes of delirium that seemed to have lingered in the old room. He +continued to watch the darkness until the outlines of the room and of +its furniture dimly detached themselves from the black pall. The snow +apparently caught what feeble light the moon forced through, reflecting +it with a disconsolate inefficiency. He could see after a time the +pallid frames of the windows, the pillow on the bed, and the wall above +it. He fancied the dark stain, the depression in the mattress where the +two bodies had rested. Those physical objects forced on him the +probability of his guilt. Then he recalled that both men, dead for many +hours, had moved apparently of their own volition; and his grandfather +had come back from the grave and then had disappeared, leaving no trace; +and he comforted himself with the thought that the explanation, if it +came at all, must arise from a force outside himself, whether of the +living or the dead. + +Because of that very assurance his fear of the room was incited. Could +any subtle change overcome him here as it evidently had the others? Could +there be repeated in his case a return and a disappearance like his +grandfather's? There was, as Rawlins had said, no way in or out for an +attack. Therefore the danger must emerge from the dead, and he was +helpless before their incomprehensible campaign. + +The whole illogical, abominable course of events warned him to bring his +vigil to an end before it should be too late; urged him to escape from +the restless revolt of the dead who had dwelt in this room. And he wanted +to respond. He wanted to go to the corridor and confess to Rawlins and +Robinson that he was beaten. Yet he had begged so hard for this chance! +That course, moreover, meant the arrest of Katherine and himself in the +morning. For a few hours he could suffer here for her sake. Daylight, if +he could persist until then, would bring release, and surely it couldn't +be long now. + +He shrank back. Steadily it had grown colder in the old room. He +shivered. He drew his coat closer about him. What temerity to invade the +domain of death, as Paredes had called it, to seek the secrets of +unquiet souls! + +He ceased shivering. He waited, tensely quiet. Without calculation he +realized that the moment for which he had hoped was at hand. The old room +was about to disclose its secret, but would it permit him to depart with +his knowledge? He forgot to call. He waited, helpless and terrified, +against the wall. He heard a moaning cry, faint and distant--the voice +they had heard in the forest and at the grave. But it was more than that +that held him. He knew now what Katherine had heard across the court, +heralding each tragedy and mystery. He caught a formless stirring. Yet on +the bed there was no one. Fortunately he had not gone there. + +He tried to call out, realizing that the danger could find him if it +chose, but his throat was tight and it permitted no response. + +His glance hadn't wavered from the wall above the stained pillow. There +was movement there. Then he saw. A hand protruded from the blackness of +the panelling where they had sounded and measured without success. In the +ashen, unnatural light from the snow the long fingers of the hand were +like the feelers of a gigantic reptile. They wavered feebly, and he +became convinced that the hand was immaterial, that it was unattached to +any body. If that was so it couldn't be the hand of Katherine. At least +he had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had been wrong about her. That +sense of victory stripped him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tight +band about his throat. He called. He could prove the immaterial nature of +the repulsive hand wavering from the wall. + +Crying out, he sprang to his feet. He flung himself across the bed. With +both of his own hands he grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers which +wavered above the stained pillow, and once more his throat tightened. He +couldn't cry out again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS + + +Straightway Bobby repented the alarm he had, perhaps too impulsively, +given. For the hand protruding from the wall was, indeed, flesh and +blood, and with the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine, +conquering his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him. He remembered +the evidence found in Katherine's room, and her refusal to answer +questions. Could Paredes and the officers have been right? Was it +conceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp? + +The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins burst through. Graham +ran after him. From the private stairway arose the sound of the district +attorney's hurrying footsteps. + +"What is it? What have you got?" Rawlins shouted. + +Graham cried out: + +"You're all right, Bobby?" + +The candle which the detective carried gleamed on the slender fingers, +showing Bobby that they had been inserted through an opening in the +wall. He couldn't understand, for time after time each one of the +panels had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could see dimly the +dark clothing of the person who, with a stealth in itself suggestive of +abnormal crime, had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried up he +wondered if it wouldn't be the better course to free his prisoner, to +cry out, urging an escape. + +Already it was too late. The detective and Graham had seen, and clearly +they had no doubt that he held the one responsible for two brutal murders +and for the confusing mysteries that had capped them. + +"Looks like a lady's hand," Rawlins called. "Don't let go, young fellow." + +He unlocked the door to the private hallway. Graham and he dashed out. In +Bobby's uncertain grasp the hand twitched. + +Robinson's voice reached him through the opening. + +"Let go, Mr. Blackburn. You've done your share, the Lord knows. You've +caught the beast with the goods." + +Bobby released the slender fingers. He saw them vanish through the +opening. He left the bed and reluctantly approached the door to the +private hall. Excited phrases roared in his ears. He scarcely dared +listen because of their possible confirmation of his doubt. The fingers, +he repeated to himself, had been too slender. The moment that had freed +him from fear of his own guilt had constructed in its place an +uncertainty harder to face. Yet there was nothing to be gained by +waiting. Sooner or later he must learn whether Katherine had hidden the +evidence, whether she had used the stout and deadly hatpin, whether she +struggled now in the grasp of vindictive men. + +A voice from the corridor arrested him. + +"Bobby!" + +With a glad cry he swung around. Katherine stood in the opposite doorway. +Her presence there, beyond a doubt, was her exculpation. He crossed the +sombre room. He grasped her hands. He smiled happily. After all, the hand +he had held was not as slender as hers. + +"Thank heavens you're here." + +In a word he recited the result of his vigil. + +"It clears you," she said. "Quick! We must see who it is." + +But he lingered, for he wanted that ugly fear done with once for all. + +"You can tell me now how the evidence got in your room." + +"I can't," she said. "I don't know." + +The truth of her reply impressed him. He looked at her and wondered that +she should be fully dressed. + +"Why are you dressed?" he asked. + +She was puzzled. + +"Why not? I don't think any one had gone to bed." + +"But it must be very late. I supposed it was the same +time--half-past two." + +She started to cross the room. She laughed nervously. + +"It isn't eleven." + +He recalled his interminable anticipation among the shadows of the old +room. + +"I've watched there only a little more than an hour!" + +"Not much more than that, Bobby." + +"What a coward! I'd have sworn it was nearly daylight." + +She pressed his hand. + +"No. Very brave," she whispered. "Let us see if it was worth it." + +They stepped through the doorway. Half way down the hall Robinson, +Graham, and Rawlins held a fourth, who had ceased struggling. Bobby +paused, yet, since seeing Katherine step from the corridor, his reason +had taught him to expect just this. + +The fourth man was Paredes, nearly effeminate, slender-fingered. + +"Carlos!" Bobby cried. "You can't have done these unspeakable things!" + +The Panamanian stared without answering. Evidently he had had time to +control his chagrin, to smother his revolt from the future; for the thin +face was bare of emotion. The depths of the eyes as usual turned back +scrutiny. The man disclosed neither guilt nor the outrage of an assumed +innocence; neither confession nor denial. He simply stared, straining a +trifle against the eager hands of his captors. + +Rawlins grinned joyously. + +"You ought to have a medal for getting away with this, young fellow. +Things didn't look so happy for you an hour or so ago." + +"And I had half a mind," Robinson confessed, "to refuse you the chance. +Glad I didn't. Glad as I can be you made good." + +With the egotism any man is likely to draw from his efforts in the +detection of crime he added easily: + +"Of course I've suspected this spigotty all along. I don't have to remind +you of that." + +"Sure," Rawlins said. "And didn't I put it up to him strong enough +to-night?" + +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"All credit where it is due. You also put it up to Miss Perrine." + +"The details will straighten all that out," Robinson said. "I don't +pretend to have them yet." + +"I gather not," Paredes mused, "with old Blackburn's ghost still in +the offing." + +"That talk," Rawlins said, "won't go down from you any more. I daresay +you've got most of the details in your head." + +"I daresay," Paredes answered dryly. + +He fought farther back against the detaining hands. + +"Is there any necessity for this exhibition of brute strength? You must +find it very exhausting. You may think me dangerous, and I thank you; but +I have no gun, and I'm no match for four men and a woman. Besides, you +hurt my arm. Bobby was none too tender with that. I ought to have used my +good arm. You'll get no details from me unless you take your hands off." + +Robinson's hesitation was easily comprehensible. If Paredes were +responsible for the abnormalities they had experienced at the Cedars he +might find it simple enough to trick them now, but the man's mocking +smile brought the anger to Robinson's face. + +"Of course he can't get away. See if there's anything on his clothes, +Rawlins. He ought to have the hatpin. Then let him go." + +The detective, however, failed to find the hatpin or any other weapon. + +"You see," Paredes smiled. "That's something in my favour." + +He stepped back, brushing his clothing with his uninjured hand. He +lighted a cigarette. He drew back the coat sleeve of his left arm and +readjusted the bandage. He glanced up as heavy footsteps heralded +Doctor Groom. + +"Hello, Doctor," he called cheerily. "I was afraid you'd nap through the +show. It seems the bloodhounds of the law left us out of their +confidence." + +"What's all this?" the doctor rumbled. + +Paredes waved his hand. + +"I am a prisoner." + +The doctor gaped. + +"You mean you--" + +"Young Blackburn caught him," Robinson explained. "He was in a position +to finish him just as he did Howells." + +"Except that I had no hatpin," Paredes yawned. + +The doctor's uneasy glance sought the opening in the wall. + +"I thought you had examined all these walls," he grumbled. "How did you +miss this?" + +Robinson ran his fingers through his hair. + +"That's what I've been asking myself," he said. "I went over that +panelling a dozen times myself." + +Bobby and Katherine went closer. Bobby had been from the first puzzled by +Paredes's easy manner. He had a quick hope. He saw the man watch with an +amused tolerance while the district attorney bent over, examining the +face of the panel. + +"An entire section," Robinson said--"the thickness of the wall--has been +shifted to one side. No wonder we didn't see any joints or get a hollow +sound from this panel any more than from the others. But why didn't we +stumble on the mechanism? Maybe you'll tell us that, Paredes." + +The Panamanian blew a wreath of smoke against the ancient wall. + +"Gladly, but you will find it humiliating. I have experienced humility in +this hall myself. The reason you didn't find any mechanism is that there +wasn't any. You looked for something most cautiously concealed, not +realizing that the best concealment is no concealment at all. It's +fundamental. I don't know how it slipped my own mind. No grooves show +because the door is an entire panel. There isn't even a latch. You merely +push hard against its face. Such arrangements are common enough in +colonial houses, and there was more than the nature of the crimes to tell +you there was some such thing here. I mean if you will examine the +farther door closer than you have done you will find that it has fewer +coats of paint than the one leading to the corridor, that its frame is of +newer wood. In other words, it was cut through after the wing was built. +This panel was the original door, designed, with the private stairway and +the hall, for the exclusive use of the master of the house. Try it." + +Robinson braced himself and shoved against the panel. It moved in its +grooves with a vibrant stirring. + +"Rusty," he said. + +Katherine started. + +"That's what I heard each time," she cried. + +Above his heavy black beard the doctor's cheeks whitened. Robinson made a +gesture of revulsion. + +"That gives the nasty game away." + +"Naturally," Paredes said, "and you must admit the game is as beautifully +simple as the panel. The instrument of death wasn't inserted through the +bedding as you thought inevitable, Doctor. Suppose you were lying in that +bed, asleep, or half asleep, and you were aroused by such a sound as +that in the wall behind you? What would you do? What would any man do +first of all?" + +Robinson nodded. + +"I see what you mean. I'd get up on my elbow. I'd look around as quickly +as I could to see what it was. I'd expose myself to a clean thrust. I'd +drop back on the bed, more thoroughly out of it than though I'd been +struck through the heart." + +"Exactly," Paredes said, with the familiar shrug of his shoulders. + +"You're sensible to give up this way," Robinson said. "It's the best plan +for you. What about Mr. Blackburn?" + +Graham interfered. + +"After all," he said thoughtfully. "I'm a lawyer, and it isn't fair, +Robinson. It's only decent to tell him that anything he says may be used +against him." + +"Keep your mouth shut," Robinson shouted. + +But Paredes smiled at Graham. + +"It's very good of you, but I agree with the district attorney. There's +no point in being a clam now." + +"Can you account for Silas Blackburn's return?" the doctor asked eagerly. + +"That's right, Doctor," Paredes said. "Stick to the ghosts. I fancy +there are plenty in this house. I'm afraid we must look on Silas +Blackburn as dead." + +"You don't mean we've been talking to a dead man?" Katherine whispered. + +"Before I answer," Paredes said, "I want to have one or two things +straight. These men, Bobby, I really believe, think me capable of the +crimes in this house. I want to know if you accept such a theory. Do you +think I had any idea of killing you?" + +Bobby studied the reserved face which even now was without emotion. + +"I can't think anything of the kind," he said softly. + +"That's very nice," Paredes said. "If you had answered differently I'd +have let these clever policemen lay their own ghosts." + +He turned to Robinson. + +"Even you must begin to see that I'm not guilty. Your common sense will +tell you so. If I had been planning to kill Bobby, why didn't I bring +the weapon? Why did I put my hand through the opening before I was ready +to strike? Why did I use my left hand--my injured hand? I was like +Howells. I couldn't consider the case finished until I had solved the +mystery of the locked doors. I supposed the room was empty. When I found +the secret to-night, I reached through to see how far my hand would be +from the pillow." + +Bobby's assurance of Paredes's innocence clouded his own situation; made +it, in a sense, more dangerous than it had ever been. His wanderings +about the Cedars remained unexplained, and they knew now it had never +been necessary for the murderer to enter the room, Katherine, too, +evidently realized the menace. + +"Do you think I--" she began. + +Paredes bowed. + +"You dislike me, Miss Katherine, but don't be afraid for yourself or +Bobby. I think I can tell you how the evidence got in your room. I can +answer nearly everything. There's one point--" + +He broke off, glancing at his watch. + +"Extraordinary courage!" he mused enigmatically. "I scarcely +understand it." + +Rawlins looked at him suspiciously. + +"All this explaining may be a trick, Mr. Robinson. The man's slippery." + +"I've had to be slippery to work under your noses," Paredes laughed. +"By the way, Bobby, did you hear a woman crying about the time I opened +this door?" + +"Yes. It sounded like the voice we heard at the grave." + +"I thought I heard it from the library," Robinson put in. "Then the +rumpus up here started, and I forgot about it." + +"The woman in black is very brave," Paredes mused. "We should have had a +visit from her long before this." + +"Do you know who she is?" Robinson asked. "And as Rawlins says, no +tricks. We haven't let you go yet." + +"I thought," Paredes mocked, "that you had identified the woman in black +as Miss Katherine. She hasn't had anything to do with the mystery +directly. Neither has Bobby. Neither have I." + +"Then what the devil have you been doing here?" Robinson snapped. + +"Seeing your job through," Paredes answered, "for Bobby's sake." + +With a warm gratitude Bobby knew that Paredes had told the truth. Then he +had told it in the library yesterday when they had caught him prowling in +the private staircase. All along he had told it while they had tried to +convict him of under-handed and unfriendly intentions. + +"I saw," Paredes was saying, "that Howells wouldn't succeed, and it was +obvious you and Rawlins would do worse, while Graham's blundering from +the start left no hope. Somebody had to rescue Bobby." + +"Then why did you give us the impression," Graham asked, "that you were +not a friend?" + +Paredes held up his hand. + +"That's going rather far, Mr. Graham. Never once have I given such an +impression. I have time after time stated the fact that I was here in +Bobby's service. That has been the trouble with all of you. As most +detectives do, you have denied facts, searching always for something more +subtle. You have asked for impossibilities while you blustered that they +couldn't exist. Still every one is prone to do that when he fancies +himself in the presence of the supernatural. The facts of this case have +been within your reach as well as mine. The motive has been an easy one +to understand. Money! And you have consistently turned your back." + +Robinson spread his hands. + +"All right. Prove that I'm a fool and I'll acknowledge it." + +Doctor Groom interrupted sharply. + +"What was that?" + +They bent forward, listening. Even with Paredes offering them a physical +explanation they shrank from the keening that barely survived the heavy +atmosphere of the old house. + +"You see the woman in black isn't Miss Perrine," Paredes said. + +He ran down the stairs. They followed, responding to an excited sense of +imminence. Even in the private staircase the pounding that had followed +the cry reached them with harsh reverberations. Its echoes filled the +house as they dashed across the library and the dining room. In the hall +they realized that it came from the front door. It had attained a +feverish, a desperate insistence. + +Paredes walked to the fireplace. + +"Open the door," he directed Rawlins. + +Rawlins stepped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it wide. + +"The woman!" Katherine breathed. + +A feminine figure, white with snow, stumbled in, as if she had stood +braced against the door. Rawlins caught her and held her upright. The +flakes whirled from the court in vicious pursuit. Bobby slammed the +door shut. + +"Maria!" he cried. "You were right, Hartley!" + +Yet at first he could scarcely accept this pitiful creature as the +brilliant and exotic dancer with whom he had dined the night of the first +murder. As he stared at her, her features twisted. She burst into +retching sobs. She staggered toward Paredes. As she went the snow melted +from her hat and cloak. She became a black figure again. With an +appearance of having been immersed in water she sank on the hearth, +swaying back and forth, reaching blindly for Paredes's hand. + +"Do what you please with me, Carlos," she whimpered with her slight +accent from which all the music had fled. "I couldn't stand it another +minute. I couldn't get to the station, and I--I wanted to know +which--which--" + +Paredes watched her curiously. + +"Get Jenkins," he said softly to Rawlins. + +He faced Maria again. + +"I could have told you, I think, when you fought me away out there. No +one wants to arrest you. Jenkins will verify my own knowledge." + +"This is dangerous," the doctor rumbled. "This woman shouldn't wait here. +She should have dry clothing at once." + +Maria shrank from him. For the first time her wet skirt exposed her +feet, encased in torn stockings. The dancer wore no shoes, and Bobby +guessed why she had been so elusive, why she had left so few traces. + +"I won't go," she cried, "until he tells me." + +Katherine got a cloak and threw it across the woman's shoulders. Maria +looked up at her with a dumb gratitude. Then Rawlins came back with +Jenkins. The butler was bent and haggard. His surrender to fear was more +pronounced than it had been at the grave or when they had last seen him +in the kitchen. He grasped a chair and, breathing heavily, looked from +one to the other, moistening his lips. + +Paredes faced the man, completely master of the situation. Through the +old butler, it became clear, he would make his revelation and announce +that simple fact they all had missed. + +"It was Mr. Silas, of course, who came back?" + +"Oh my God!" the butler moaned, "What do you mean?" + +"I know everything, Jenkins," Paredes said evenly. + +The butler collapsed against the chair. Paredes grasped his arm. + +"Pull yourself together, man. They won't want you as more than an +accessory." + +Maria started to rise. She shrank back again, shivering close to the +fire. + +"Is your master hiding," Paredes asked, "or has he left the house?" + +Jenkins's answer came through trembling lips. + +"He's gone! Mr. Silas is gone! How did you find out? My God! How did you +find out?" + +"He said nothing to you?" Paredes asked. + +Jenkins shook his head. + +"Tell me how he was dressed." + +The old servant covered his face. + +"Mr. Silas stumbled through the kitchen," he answered hoarsely. "I tried +to stop him, but he pushed me away and ran out." His voice rose. "I tell +you he ran without a coat or a hat into the storm." + +Paredes sighed. + +"The Cedars's final tragedy, yet it was the most graceful exit he could +have made." + +Maria struggled to her feet. Her eyes were the eyes of a person without +reason. That familiar, hysterical quality which they had heard before at +a distance vibrated in her voice. + +"Then he was the one! I wanted to kill him, I couldn't kill him because I +never was sure." + +"Did you see him go out an hour or so ago?" Paredes asked. + +"I saw him," she cried feverishly, "run from the back of the house and +down the path to the lake. I--I tried to catch him, but my feet were +frozen, and the snow was slippery, and I couldn't find my shoes. But I +called and he wouldn't stop. I had to know, because I wanted to kill him +if it was Silas Blackburn. And I saw him run to the lake and splash in +until the water was over his head." + +She flung her clenched hands out. Her voice became a scream, shot with +all her suffering, all her doubt, all her fury. + +"You don't understand. He can't be punished. I tell you he's at the +bottom of the lake with the man he murdered. And I can't pay him. I tried +to go after him, but it--it was too cold." + +She sank in one of the chairs, shaking and sobbing. + +"Unless we want another tragedy," the doctor said, "this woman must be +put to bed and taken care of. She has been terribly exposed. You've heard +her. She's delirious." + +"Not so delirious that she hasn't told the truth," Paredes said. + +The doctor lifted her in his arms and with Rawlins's help carried her +upstairs. Katherine went with them. Almost immediately the doctor and +Rawlins hurried down. + +"I have told Katherine what to do," Doctor Groom said. "The woman may be +all right in the morning. What's she been up to here?" + +"Then," Bobby cried, "there was a connection between the dinner party and +the murders. But what about my coming here unconscious? What about my +handkerchief?" + +"I can see no answer yet," Graham said. + +Paredes smiled. + +"Not when you've had the answer to everything? I have shown you that +Silas Blackburn was the murderer. The fact stared you in the face. +Everything that has happened at the Cedars has pointed to his guilt." + +"Except," the doctor said, "his own apparent murder which made his guilt +seem impossible. And I'm not sure you're right now, for there is no other +Blackburn he could have murdered, and Blackburns look alike. You wouldn't +mistake another man for one of them." + +"This house," Paredes smiled, "has all along been full of the presence of +the other Blackburn. There has been evidence enough for you all to have +known he was here." + +He stretched himself in an easy chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew +the smoke toward the ceiling. + +"I shall tell you the simple facts, if only to save my skin from this +blood-thirsty district attorney." + +"Rub it in," Robinson grinned. "I'll take my medicine." + +They gathered closer about the Panamanian. Jenkins sidled to the back of +his chair. + +"I don't see how you found it out," he muttered. + +"I had only one advantage over you or the police, Graham," Paredes began, +"and you were in a position to overcome that. Maria did telephone me the +afternoon of that ghastly dinner. She asked me to get hold of Bobby. She +was plainly anxious to keep him in New York that night, and, to be frank, +I was glad enough to help her when you turned up, trying to impress us +with your puritan watchfulness. Even you guessed that she had drugged +Bobby. I suspected it when I saw him go to pieces in the cafe. He gave me +the slip, as I told you, in the coat room when I was trying to get him +home, so I went back and asked Maria what her idea was. She laughed in my +face, denying everything. I, too, suspected the stranger, but I've +convinced myself that he simply happened along by chance. + +"Now here's the first significant point: Maria by drugging Bobby defeated +her own purpose. He had been drinking more than the Band of Hope would +approve of, and on top of that he got an overdose of a powerful drug. The +doctor can tell you better than I of the likely effect of such a +combination." + +"What I told you in the court, Bobby," the doctor answered, "much the +same symptoms as genuine aphasia. Your brain was unquestionably dulled by +an overdose on top of all that alcohol, while your mechanical reflexes +were stimulated. Automatically you followed your ruling impulse. +Automatically at the last minute you revolted from exposing yourself in +such a condition to your cousin and your grandfather. Your lucid period +in the woods just before you reached the deserted house and went to sleep +showed that your exercise was overcoming the effect of the drug. That +moment, you'll remember, was coloured by the fanciful ideas such a drug +would induce." + +"So, Bobby," Paredes said, "although you were asleep when the body moved +and when Howells was murdered, you can be sure you weren't anywhere near +the old room." + +"But I walked in my sleep last night," Bobby reminded him. + +The doctor slapped his knee. + +"I understand. It was only when we thought that was your habit that it +frightened us. It's plain. This sleep-walking had been suggested to you +and you had brooded upon the suggestion until you were bound to respond. +Graham's presence in your room, watching for just that reaction, was a +perpetual, an unescapable stimulation. It would have been a miracle in +itself if your brain had failed to carry it out." + +Bobby made a swift gesture of distaste. + +"If you hadn't come, Carlos, where would I have been?" + +"Why did you come?" Graham asked. + +"Bobby was my friend," the Panamanian answered. "He had been very good to +me. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria had +drugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an element +of trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understanding +between her and old Blackburn--perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby away +from the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburn +murdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion on +Bobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me of +his innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for I +had dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get out +here by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was the +key, and I began to speculate about her. + +"She had told me something of her history. You might have had as much +from her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was a +child, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother and +an American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been in +Panama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possible +understanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documents +about Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papers +existed, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searched +there a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to get +upstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowing +something, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I found what I wanted--a +carefully hidden packet of accounts and letters and newspaper clippings. +They're at your service, Mr. District Attorney. They told me that Silas +Blackburn had been in Panama. They proved that Maria, instead of ever +having been his accomplice, was his enemy. They explained the source of +his wealth and the foundation of that enmity. Certainly you remember the +doctor told us Silas Blackburn started life with nothing; and hadn't +you ever wondered why with all his money he buried himself in this +lonely hole?" + +"He returned from South America, rich, more than twenty-five years ago," +the doctor said. "Why should we bother about his money?" + +"I wish you had bothered about several things besides your ghosts," +Paredes said. "You'd have found it significant that Blackburn laid the +foundation of his fortune in Panama during the hideous scandals of the +old French canal company. We knew he was a selfish tyrant. That discovery +showed me how selfish, how merciless he was, for to succeed in Panama +during those days required an utter contempt for all the standards of law +and decency. The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful of +coppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of the +ghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, his +trip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of the +other Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly. Why had it been +forgotten here, Doctor, that Silas Blackburn had a brother--his partner +in those wretched and profitable contract scandals?" + +"You mean," the doctor answered, "Robert Blackburn. He was a year younger +than Silas. This boy was named in memory of him. Why should any one have +remembered? He died in South America more than a quarter of a century +ago, before these children were born." + +"That's what Silas Blackburn told you when he came back," Paredes said. +"He may have believed it at first or he may not have. I daresay he wanted +to, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own--the +cash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handle +in that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, and +when he ran from Panama he knew she was about to become a mother. + +"That brings me to the other feature that made me wander around here like +a restless spirit myself that night. You had just told your story about +the woman crying. If there was a strange woman around here it was almost +certainly Maria. As Rawlins deduced, she must either be hysterical or +signalling some one. Why should she come unless something had gone wrong +the night she drugged Bobby to keep him in New York? She wasn't his +enemy, because that very night she did him a good turn by trampling out +his tracks in the court." + +Bobby took Maria's letter from his pocket and handed it to Paredes. + +"Then how would you account for this?" + +The Panamanian read the letter. + +"Her way of covering herself," he explained, "in case you suspected she +had made you drink too much or had drugged you. She really wanted you to +come to tea that afternoon. It was after writing that that she found out +what had gone wrong. In other words, she read in the paper of Silas +Blackburn's death, and in a panic she put on plain clothes and hurried +out to see what had happened. The fact that she forgot her managers, her +professional reputation, everything, testified to her anxiety, and I +began to sense the truth. She had been born in Panama of a Spanish mother +and an American father. She had some stealthy interest in the Cedars and +the Blackburns. She was about the right age. Ten to one she was Silas +Blackburn's niece. So for me, many hours before Silas Blackburn walked in +here, the presence of the other Blackburn about the Cedars became a +tragic and threatening inevitability. Had Silas Blackburn been murdered +or had his brother? Where was the survivor who had committed that brutal +murder? Maria had come here hysterically to answer those questions. She +might know. The light in the deserted house! She might be hiding him and +taking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which he +never answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. I +thought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I would +trap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we had +seen proved that it had come through the cobwebbed windows of the cellar, +which are set in little wells below the level of the ground. The cellar +explained also how she had turned her flashlight off and slipped through +the hall and out while we searched the rooms. She hadn't gone back. I +couldn't find her. So I went on into Smithtown and sent a costly cable +to my father. His answer came to-night just before Silas Blackburn walked +in. He had talked with several of the survivors of those evil days. He +gave me a confirmation of everything I had gathered from the papers. The +Blackburns had quarrelled over a contract. Robert had been struck over +the head. He wandered about the isthmus, half-witted, forgetting his +name, nursing one idea. Someone had robbed him, and he wanted his money +back or a different kind of payment, but he couldn't remember who, and he +took it out in angry talk. Then he disappeared, and people said he had +gone to Spain. Of course his wife suspected a good deal. In Blackburn's +desk are pitiful and threatening letters from her which he ignored. Then +she died, and Blackburn thought he was safe. But he took no chances. Some +survivor of those days might turn up and try blackmail. It was safer to +bury himself here." + +"Then," Bobby said, "Maria must have brought her father with her when she +came from Spain last summer." + +"Brought him or sent for him," Paredes answered. "She's made most of her +money on this side, you know. And she's as loyal and generous as she is +impulsive. Undoubtedly she had the doctors do what they could for her +father, and when she got track of Silas Blackburn through you, Bobby, she +nursed in the warped brain that dominant idea with her own Latin desire +for justice and payment." + +"Then," Graham said, "that's what Silas Blackburn was afraid of instead +of Bobby, as he tried to convince us to-night to cover himself." + +"One minute, Mr. Paredes," Robinson broke in. "Why did you maintain this +extraordinary secrecy? Nobody would have hurt you if you had put us on +the right track and asked for a little help. Why did you throw sand in +our eyes? Why did you talk all the time about ghosts?" + +"I had to go on tiptoe," Paredes smiled. "I suspected there was at least +one spy in the house. So I gave the doctor's ghost talk all the impetus I +could. I was like Howells, as I've told you, in believing the case +couldn't be complete without the discovery of the secret entrance of the +room of death. My belief in the existence of such a thing made me lean +from the first to Silas Blackburn rather than Robert. It's a tradition in +many families to hand such things down to the head of each generation. +Silas Blackburn was the one most likely to know. Such a secret door had +never been mentioned to you, had it, Bobby?" + +Bobby shook his head. Paredes turned and smiled at the haggard butler. + +"I'm right so far, am I not, Jenkins?" + +Jenkins bobbed his head jerkily. + +"Then," Paredes went on, "you might answer one or two questions. When did +the first letter that frightened your master come?" + +"The day he went to Smithtown and talked to the detective," the +butler quavered. + +"You can understand his reflections," Paredes mused. "Money was his god. +He distrusted and hated his own flesh and blood because he thought they +coveted it. He was prepared to punish them by leaving it to a public +charity. Now arises this apparition from the past with no claim in a +court of law, with an intention simply to ask, and, in case of a refusal, +to punish. The conclusion reached by that selfish and merciless mind was +inevitable. He probably knew nothing whatever about Maria. If all the +world thought his brother dead, his brother's murder now wouldn't alter +anything. I'll wager, Doctor, that at that time he talked over wounds at +the base of the brain with you." + +The doctor moved restlessly. + +"Yes. But he was very superstitious. We talked about it in connection +with his ancestors who had died of such wounds in that room." + +"Everything was ready when he made the rendezvous here," Paredes went on. +"He expected to have Bobby at hand in case his plan failed and he had to +defend himself. But Maria had made sure that there should be no help for +him. When the man came did you take him upstairs, Jenkins?" + +"No, sir. I watched that Miss Katherine didn't leave the library, but I +think she must have caught Mr. Silas in the upper hall after he had +pretended to give up and had persuaded his brother to spend the night." + +Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from his +pocket. They were of young men, after the fashion of Blackburns, +remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating marks of old age. + +"I found these in the family album," he said. + +"We should have known the difference just the same," the doctor grumbled. +"Why didn't we know the difference?" + +"I've complained often enough," Paredes smiled, "of the necessity of +using candles in this house. There was never more than one candle in the +old bedroom. There were only two when we looked at the murdered man in +his coffin. And in death there are no familiar facial expressions, no +eccentricities of speech. So you can imagine my feelings when I tried to +picture the drama that had gone on in that room. You can imagine poor +Maria's. Which one? And Maria didn't know about the panel, or the use of +Miss Katherine's hat-pin, or the handkerchief. All of those details +indicated Silas Blackburn." + +"How could my handkerchief indicate anything of the kind?" Bobby asked, +"How did it come there?" + +"What," Paredes said, "is the commonest form of borrowing in the world, +particularly in a climate where people have frequent colds? I found a +number of your handkerchiefs in your grandfather's bureau. The +handkerchief furnished me with an important clue. It explains, I think, +Jenkins will tell you, the moving of the body. It was obviously the cause +of Howells's death." + +"Yes, sir," Jenkins quavered. "Mr. Silas thought he had dropped his own +handkerchief in the room with the body. I don't know how you've found +these things out." + +"By adding two and two," Paredes laughed. "In the first place, you must +all realize that we might have had no mystery at all if it hadn't been +for Miss Katherine. For I don't know that Maria could have done much in a +legal way. Silas Blackburn had intended to dispose of the body +immediately, but Miss Katherine heard the panel move and ran to the +corridor. She made Jenkins break down the door, and she sent for the +police. Silas Blackburn was helpless. He was beaten at that moment, but +he did the best he could. He went to Waters, hoping, at the worst, to +establish an alibi through the book-worm who probably wouldn't remember +the exact hour of his arrival. Waters's house offered him, too, a +strategic advantage. You heard him say the spare room was on the ground +floor. You heard him add that he refused to open his door, either asking +to be left alone or failing to answer at all. And he had to return to the +Cedars the next day, for he missed his handkerchief, and he pictured +himself, since he thought it was his own, in the electric chair. I'm +right, Jenkins?" + +"Yes, sir. I kept him hidden and gave him his chance along in the +afternoon. He wanted me to try to find the handkerchief, but I didn't +have the courage. He couldn't find it. He searched through the panel all +about the body and the bed." + +"That was when Katherine heard," Bobby said, "when we found the body had +been moved." + +"It put him in a dreadful way," Jenkins mumbled, "for no one had bothered +to tell me it was young Mr. Robert the detective suspected, and when Mr. +Silas heard the detective boast that he knew everything and would make an +arrest in the morning, he thought about the handkerchief and knew he was +done for unless he took Howells up. And the man did ask for trouble, sir. +Well! Mr. Silas gave it to him to save himself." + +"I've never been able to understand," Paredes said, "why he didn't take +the evidence when he killed Howells." + +"Didn't you know you prevented that, sir?" Jenkins asked. "I heard you +come in from the court. I thought you'd been listening. I signalled Mr. +Silas there was danger and to get out of the private stairway before you +could trap him. And I couldn't give him another chance for a long time. +Some of you were in the room after that, or Miss Katherine and Mr. Graham +were sitting in the corridor watching the body until just before Mr. +Robert tried to get the evidence for himself. Mr. Silas had to act then. +It was his last chance, for he thought Mr. Robert would be glad enough to +turn him over to the law." + +"Why did you ever hide that stuff in Miss Katherine's room?" Bobby asked. + +Jenkins flung up his hands. + +"Oh, he was angry, sir, when he knew the truth and learned what a +mistake he'd made. Howells didn't give me that report I showed you. It +was in his pocket with the other things. We got it open without +tearing the envelope and Mr. Silas read it. He wouldn't destroy +anything. He never dreamed of anybody's suspecting Miss Katherine, so +he told me to hide the things in her bureau. I think he figured on +using the evidence to put the blame on Mr. Robert in case it was the +only way to save himself." + +"Why did you show the report to me?" Bobby asked. + +"I--I was afraid to take all that responsibility," the butler quavered. +"I figured if you were partly to blame it might go easier with me." + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"You were a good mate for Silas Blackburn," he sneered. + +"Even now I don't see how that old scoundrel had the courage to show +himself to-night," Rawlins said. + +"That's the beautiful justice of the whole thing," Paredes answered, "for +there was nothing else whatever for him to do. There never had been +anything else for him to do since Miss Katherine had spoiled his scheme, +since you all believed that it was he who had been murdered. He had to +hide the truth or face the electric chair. If he disappeared he was +infinitely worse off than though he had settled with his brother--a man +without a home, without a name, without a penny." + +Jenkins nodded. + +"He had to come back," he said slowly, "and he knew how scared you were +of the old room." + +"The funeral and the snow," Paredes said, "gave him his chance. Jenkins +will doubtless tell you how they uncovered the grave late this afternoon, +took that poor devil's body, and threw it in the lake, then fastened the +coffin and covered it again. Of course the snow effaced every one of +their tracks. He came in, naturally scared to death, and told us that +story based on the legends of the Cedars and the doctor's supernatural +theories. And you must admit that he might, as you call it, have got away +with it. He did create a mystification. The body of the murdered man had +disappeared. There was no murdered Blackburn as far as you could tell. +Heaven knows how long you might have struggled with the case of Howells." + +He glanced up. + +"Here is Miss Katherine." + +She stood at the head of the stairs. + +"I think she's all right," she said to the doctor. "She's asleep. She +went to sleep crying. May I come down?" + +The doctor nodded. She walked down, glancing from one to the other +questioningly. + +"Poor Maria!" Paredes mused. "She's the one I pity most. She's been at +times, I think, what Rawlins suspected--an insane woman, wandering and +crying through the woods. Assuredly she was out of her head to-night, +when I found her finally at the grave. I tried to tell her that her +father was dead. I begged her to come in. I told her we were friends. But +she fought. She wouldn't answer my questions. She struck me finally when +I tried to force her to come out of the storm. Robinson, I want you to +listen to me for a moment. I honestly believe, for everybody's sake, I +did a good thing when I asked Silas Blackburn just before he disappeared +why he had thrown his brother's body in the lake. I'd hoped it would +simply make him run for it. I prayed that we would never hear from him +again, and that Miss Katherine and Bobby could be spared the ugly +scandal. Doesn't this do as well? Can't we get along without much +publicity?" + +"You've about earned the right to dictate," Robinson said gruffly. + +"Thanks." + +"For everybody's sake!" Bobby echoed. "You're right, Carlos. Maria must +be considered now. She shall have what was taken from her father, with +interest. I know Katherine will agree." + +Katherine nodded. + +"I doubt if Maria will want it or take it," Paredes said simply. "She has +plenty of her own. It isn't fair to think it was greed that urged her. +You must understand that it was a bigger impulse than greed. It was a +thing of which we of Spanish blood are rather proud--a desire for +justice, for something that has no softer name than revenge." + +Suddenly Rawlins stooped and took the Panamanian's hand. + +"Say! We've been giving you the raw end of a lot of snap judgments. We've +never got acquainted until to-night." + +"Glad to meet you, too," Robinson grinned. + +Rawlins patted the Panamanian's shoulder. + +"At that, you'd make a first-class detective." + +Paredes yawned. + +"I disagree with you thoroughly. I have no equipment beyond my eyes and +my common sense." + +He yawned again. He arranged the card table in front of the fire. He got +the cards and piled them in neat packs on the green cloth. He placed a +box of cigarettes convenient to his right hand. He smoked. + +"I'm very sleepy, but I've been so stupid over this solitaire since I've +been at the Cedars that I must solve it in the interest of my +self-respect before I go to bed." + +Bobby went to him impulsively. + +"I'm ashamed, Carlos. I don't know what to say. How can I say anything? +How can I begin to thank you?" + +"If you ever tell me I saved your life," Paredes yawned, "I shall have to +disappear because then you'd have a claim on me." + +Katherine touched his hand. There were tears in her eyes. It wasn't +necessary for her to speak. Paredes indicated two chairs. + +"If you aren't too tired, sit here and help me for a while. Perhaps +between us we'll get somewhere. I wonder why I have been so stupid with +the thing." + +After a time, as he manipulated the cards, he laughed lightly. + +"The same thing--the thing I've been scolding you all for. With a +perfectly simple play staring me in the face I nearly made the mistake of +choosing a difficult one. That would have got me in trouble while the +simple one gives me the game. Why are people like that?" + +As he moved the cards with a deft assurance to their desired combination +he smiled drolly at Graham, Rawlins, and Robinson. + +"I guess it must be human nature. Don't you think so, Mr. District +Attorney?" + + * * * * * + +The condition Paredes had more than once foreseen was about to shroud the +Cedars in loneliness and abandonment. After the hasty double burial in +the old graveyard the few things Bobby and Katherine wanted from the +house had been packed and taken to the station. At Katherine's suggestion +they had decided to leave last of all and to walk. Paredes with a tender +solicitude had helped Maria to the waiting automobile. He came back, +trying to colour his good-bye with cheerfulness. + +"After all, you may open the place again and let me visit you." + +"You will visit us perpetually," Bobby said, while Katherine pressed the +Panamanian's hand, "but never here again. We will leave it to its ghosts, +as you have often prophesied." + +"I am not sure," Paredes said thoughtfully, "that the ghosts +aren't here." + +It was evident that Graham wished to speak to Bobby and Katherine alone, +so the Panamanian strolled back to the automobile. Graham's embarrassment +made them all uncomfortable. + +"You have not said much to me, Katherine," he began. "Is it because I +practically lied to Bobby, trying to keep you apart?" + +She tried to smile. + +"I, too, must ask forgiveness. I shouldn't have spoken to you as I did +the other night in the hall, but I thought, because you saw Bobby and +I had come together, that you had spied on me, had deliberately +tricked me, knowing the evidence was in my room. Of course you did try +to help Bobby." + +"Yes," he said, "and I tried to help you that night. I was sure you +were innocent. I believed the best way to prove it to them was to let +them search. The two of you have nothing worse than jealousy to +reproach me with." + +In a sense it pleased Bobby that Graham, who had always made him +feel unworthy in Katherine's presence, should confess himself not +beyond reproach. + +"Come, Hartley," he cried, "I was beginning to think you were perfect. +We'll get along all the better, the three of us, for having had it out." + +Graham murmured his thanks. He joined Paredes and Maria in the +automobile. As they drove off Paredes turned. His face, as he waved a +languid farewell, was quite without expression. + +Bobby and Katherine were left alone to the thicket and the old house. +After a time they walked through the court and from the shadow of the +time-stained, melancholy walls. At the curve of the driveway they paused +and looked back. The shroud of loneliness and abandonment descending upon +the Cedars became for them nearly ponderable. So they turned from that +brooding picture, and hand in hand walked out of the forest into the +friendly and welcoming sunlight. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Room, by Wadsworth Camp + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10869 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c0191b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10869 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10869) diff --git a/old/10869.txt b/old/10869.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..015c973 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10869.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10964 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Room, by Wadsworth Camp + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Abandoned Room + +Author: Wadsworth Camp + +Release Date: January 30, 2004 [EBook #10869] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABANDONED ROOM *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + THE ABANDONED ROOM + + A Mystery Story + + BY WADSWORTH CAMP + + Author of "The House of Fear," "War's Dark Frame," etc. + + 1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. KATHERINE HEARS THE SLY STEP OF DEATH AT THE CEDARS + + II. THE CASE AGAINST BOBBY + +III. HOWELLS DELIVERS HIMSELF TO THE ABANDONED ROOM + + IV. A STRANGE LIGHT APPEARS AT THE DESERTED HOUSE + + V. THE CRYING THROUGH THE WOODS + + VI. THE ONE WHO CREPT IN THE PRIVATE STAIRCASE + +VII. THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD + +VII. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GRAVE + + IX. BOBBY'S VIGIL IN THE ABANDONED ROOM + + X. THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS + + + + +THE ABANDONED ROOM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +KATHERINE HEARS THE SLY STEP OF DEATH AT THE CEDARS + + +The night of his grandfather's mysterious death at the Cedars, Bobby +Blackburn was, at least until midnight, in New York. He was held there by +the unhealthy habits and companionships which recently had angered his +grandfather to the point of threatening a disciplinary change in his +will. As a consequence he drifted into that strange adventure which later +was to surround him with dark shadows and overwhelming doubts. + +Before following Bobby through his black experience, however, it is +better to know what happened at the Cedars where his cousin, Katherine +Perrine was, except for the servants, alone with old Silas Blackburn who +seemed apprehensive of some sly approach of disaster. + +At twenty Katherine was too young, too light-hearted for this care of her +uncle in which she had persisted as an antidote for Bobby's shortcomings. +She was never in harmony with the mouldy house or its surroundings, +bleak, deserted, unfriendly to content. + +Bobby and she had frequently urged the old man to give it up, to move, as +it were, into the light. He had always answered angrily that his +ancestors had lived there since before the Revolution, and that what had +been good enough for them was good enough for him. So that night +Katherine had to hear alone the sly stalking of death in the house. She +told it all to Bobby the next day--what happened, her emotions, the +impression made on her by the people who came when it was too late to +save Silas Blackburn. + +She said, then, that the old man had behaved oddly for several days, as +if he were afraid. That night he ate practically no dinner. He couldn't +keep still. He wandered from room to room, his tired eyes apparently +seeking. Several times she spoke to him. + +"What is the matter, Uncle? What worries you?" + +He grumbled unintelligibly or failed to answer at all. + +She went into the library and tried to read, but the late fall wind +swirled mournfully about the house and beat down the chimney, causing the +fire to cast disturbing shadows across the walls. Her loneliness, and her +nervousness, grew sharper. The restless, shuffling footsteps stimulated +her imagination. Perhaps a mental breakdown was responsible for this +alteration. She was tempted to ring for Jenkins, the butler, to share +her vigil; or for one of the two women servants, now far at the back of +the house. + +"And Bobby," she said to herself, "or somebody will have to come out here +to-morrow to help." + +But Silas Blackburn shuffled in just then, and she was a trifle ashamed +as she studied him standing with his back to the fire, glaring around the +room, fumbling with hands that shook in his pocket for his pipe and some +loose tobacco. It was unjust to be afraid of him. There was no question. +The man himself was afraid--terribly afraid. + +His fingers trembled so much that he had difficulty lighting his pipe. +His heavy brows, gray like his beard, contracted in a frown. His voice +quavered unexpectedly. He spoke of his grandson: + +"Bobby! Damned waster! God knows what he'll do next." + +"He's young, Uncle Silas, and too popular." + +He brushed aside her customary defence. As he continued speaking she +noticed that always his voice shook as his fingers shook, as his stooped +shoulders jerked spasmodically. + +"I ordered Mr. Robert here to-night. Not a word from him. I'd made up my +mind anyway. My lawyer's coming in the morning. My money goes to the +Bedford Foundation--all except a little annuity for you, Katy. It's hard +on you, but I've got no faith left in my flesh and blood." + +His voice choked with a sentiment a little repulsive in view of his +ruthless nature, his unbending egotism. + +"It's sad, Katy, to grow old with nobody caring for you except to covet +your money." + +She arose and went close to him. He drew back, startled. + +"You're not fair, Uncle." + +With an unexpected movement, nearly savage, he pushed her aside and +started for the door. + +"Uncle!" she cried. "Tell me! You must tell me! What makes you afraid?" + +He turned at the door. He didn't answer. She laughed feverishly. + +"It--it's not Bobby you're afraid of?" + +"You and Bobby," he grumbled, "are thicker than thieves." + +She shook her head. + +"Bobby and I," she said wistfully, "aren't very good friends, largely +because of this life he's leading." + +He went on out of the room, mumbling again incoherently. + +She resumed her vigil, unable to read because of her misgivings, staring +at the fire, starting at a harsher gust of wind or any unaccustomed +sound. And for a long time there beat against her brain the shuffling, +searching tread of her uncle. Its cessation about eleven o'clock +increased her uneasiness. He had been so afraid! Suppose already the +thing he had feared had overtaken him? She listened intently. Even then +she seemed to sense the soundless footsteps of disaster straying in the +decayed house, and searching, too. + +A morbid desire to satisfy herself that her uncle's silence meant +nothing evil drove her upstairs. She stood in the square main hall at the +head of the stairs, listening. Her uncle's bedroom door lay straight +ahead. To her right and left narrow corridors led to the wings. Her room +and Bobby's and a spare room were in the right-hand wing. The opposite +corridor was seldom used, for the left-hand wing was the oldest portion +of the house, and in the march of years too many legends had gathered +about it. The large bedroom was there with its private hall beyond, and a +narrow, enclosed staircase, descending to the library. Originally it had +been the custom for the head of the family to use that room. Its ancient +furniture still faded within stained walls. For many years no one had +slept in it, because it had sheltered too much suffering, because it had +witnessed the reluctant spiritual departure of too many Blackburns. + +Katherine shrank a little from the black entrance of the corridor, but +her anxiety centred on the door ahead. She was about to call when a +stirring beyond it momentarily reassured her. + +The door opened and her uncle stepped out. He wore an untidy +dressing-gown. His hair was disordered. His face appeared grayer and more +haggard than it had downstairs. A lighted candle shook in his right hand. + +"What are you doing up here, Katy?" he quavered. + +She broke down before the picture of his increased fear. He shuffled +closer. + +"What you crying for, Katy?" + +She controlled herself. She begged him for an answer to her doubts. + +"You make me afraid." + +He laughed scornfully. + +"You! What you got to be afraid of?" + +"I'm afraid because you are," she urged. "You've got to tell me. I'm all +alone. I can't stand it. What are you afraid of?" + +He didn't answer. He shuffled on toward the disused wing. Her hand +tightened on the banister. + +"Where are you going?" she whispered. + +He turned at the entrance to the corridor. + +"I am going to the old bedroom." + +"Why? Why?" she asked hysterically. "You can't sleep there. The bed isn't +even made." + +He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper: + +"Don't you mention I've gone there. If you want to know, I am afraid. I'm +afraid to sleep in my own room any longer." + +She nodded. + +"And you don't think they'd look for you there. What is it? Tell me what +it is. Why don't you send for some one--a man?" + +"Leave me alone," he mumbled. "Nothing for you to be worried about, +except Bobby." + +"Yes, there is," she cried. "Yes, there is." + +He paid no attention to her fright. He entered the corridor. She heard +him shuffling between its narrow walls. She saw his candle disappear in +its gloomy reaches. + +She ran to her own room and locked the door. She hurried to the window +and leaned out, her body shaking, her teeth chattering as if from a +sudden chill. The quiet, assured tread of disaster came nearer. + +The two wings, stretching at right angles from the main building, formed +a narrow court. Clouds harrying the moon failed quite to destroy its +power, so that she could see, across the court, the facade of the old +wing and the two windows of the large room through whose curtains a +spectral glow was diffused. She heard one of the windows opened with a +grating noise. The court was a sounding board. It carried to her even the +shuffling of the old man's feet as he must have approached the bed. The +glow of his candle vanished. She heard a rustling as if he had stretched +himself on the bed, a sound like a long-drawn sigh. + +She tried to tell herself there was no danger--that these peculiar +actions sprang from the old man's fancy--but the house, her surroundings, +her loneliness, contradicted her. To her over-acute senses the thought of +Blackburn in that room, so often consecrated to the formula of death, +suggested a special and unaccountable menace. Under such a strain the +supernatural assumed vague and singular shapes. + +She slept for only a little while. Then she lay awake, listening with a +growing expectancy for some message to slip across the court. The moon +had ceased struggling. The wind cried. The baying of a dog echoed +mournfully from a great distance. It was like a remote alarm bell which +vibrates too perfectly, whose resonance is too prolonged. + +She sat upright. She sprang from the bed and, her heart beating +insufferably, felt her way to the window. From the wing opposite the +message had come--a soft, shrouded sound, another long-drawn sigh. + +She tried to call across the court. At first no response came from her +tight throat. When it did at last, her voice was unfamiliar in her own +ears, the voice of one who has to know a thing but shrinks from asking. + +"Uncle!" + +The wind mocked her. + +"It is nothing," she told herself, "nothing." + +But her vigil had been too long, her loneliness too complete. Her earlier +impression of the presence of death in the decaying house tightened its +hold. She had to assure herself that Silas Blackburn slept untroubled. +The thing she had heard was peculiar, and he hadn't answered across the +court. The dark, empty corridors at first were an impassable barrier, but +while she put on her slippers and her dressing-gown she strengthened her +courage. There was a bell rope in the upper hall. She might get Jenkins. + +When she stood in the main hall she hesitated. It would probably be a +long time, provided he heard at all, before Jenkins could answer her. Her +candle outlined the entrance to the musty corridor. Just a few running +steps down there, a quick rap at the door, and, perhaps, in an instant +her uncle's voice, and the blessed power to return to her room and sleep! + +While her fear grew she called on her pride to let her accomplish that +brief, abhorrent journey. + +Then for the first time a different doubt came to her. As she waited +alone in this disturbing nocturnal intimacy of an old house, she shrank +from no thought of human intrusion, and she wondered if her uncle had +been afraid of that, too, of the sort of thing that might lurk in the +ancient wing with its recollections of birth and suffering and death. But +he had gone there as an escape. Surely he had been afraid of men. It +shamed her that, in spite of that, her fear defined itself ever more +clearly as something indefinable. With a passionate determination to +strangle such thoughts she held her breath. She tried to close her mind. +She entered the corridor. She ran its length. She knocked at the locked +door of the old bedroom. She shrank as the echoes rattled from the dingy +walls where her candle cast strange reflections. There was no other +answer. A sense of an intolerable companionship made her want to cry out +for brilliant light, for help. She screamed. + +"Uncle Silas! Uncle Silas!" + +Through the silence that crushed her voice she became aware finally of +the accomplishment of its mission by death in this house. And she fled +into the main hall. She jerked at the bell rope. The contact steadied +her, stimulated her to reason. One slender hope remained. The +oppressive bedroom might have driven Silas Blackburn through the +private hall and down the enclosed staircase. Perhaps he slept on the +lounge in the library. + +She stumbled down, hoping to meet Jenkins. She crossed the hall and the +dining room and entered the library. She bent over the lounge. It was +empty. Her candle was reflected in the face of the clock on the mantel. +Its hands pointed to half-past two. + +She pulled at the bell cord by the fireplace. Why didn't the butler come? +Alone she couldn't climb the enclosed staircase to try the other door. It +seemed impossible to her that she should wait another instant alone-- + +The butler, as old and as gray as Silas Blackburn, faltered in. He +started back when he saw her. + +"My God, Miss Katherine! What's the matter? You look like death." + +"There's death," she said. + +She indicated the door of the enclosed staircase. She led the way with +the candle. The panelled, narrow hall was empty. That door, too, was +locked and the key, she knew, must be on the inside. + +"Who--who is it?" Jenkins asked. "Who would be in that room? Has Mr. +Bobby come back?" + +She descended to the library before answering. She put the candle down +and spread her hands. + +"It's happened, Jenkins--whatever he feared." + +"Not Mr. Silas?" + +"We have to break in," she said with a shiver. "Get a hammer, a chisel, +whatever is necessary." + +"But if there's anything wrong," the butler objected, "if anybody's been +there, the other door must be open." + +She shook her head. Those two first of all faced that extraordinary +puzzle. How had the murderer entered and left the room with both doors +locked on the inside, with the windows too high for use? They went to the +upper story. She urged the butler into the sombre corridor. + +"We have to know," she whispered, "what's happened beyond those +locked doors." + +She still vibrated to the feeling of unconformable forces in the old +house. Jenkins, she saw, responded to the same superstitious misgivings. +He inserted the chisel with maladroit hands. He forced the lock back and +opened the door. Dust arose from the long-disused room, flecking the +yellow candle flame. They hesitated on the threshold. They forced +themselves to enter. Then they looked at each other and smiled with +relief, for Silas Blackburn, in his dressing-gown, lay on the bed, his +placid, unmarked face upturned, as if sleeping. + +"Why, miss," Jenkins gasped. "He's all right." + +Almost with confidence Katherine walked to the bed. + +"Uncle Silas--" she began, and touched his hand. + +She drew back until the wall supported her. Jenkins must have read +everything in her face, for he whimpered: + +"But he looks all right. He can't be--" + +"Cold--already! If I hadn't touched--" + +The horror of the thing descended upon her, stifling thought. +Automatically she left the room and told Jenkins what to do. After he had +telephoned police headquarters in the county seat and had summoned Doctor +Groom, a country physician, she sat without words, huddled over the +library fire. + +The detective, a competent man named Howells, and Doctor Groom arrived at +about the same time. The detective made Katherine accompany them upstairs +while he questioned her. In the absence of the coroner he wouldn't let +the doctor touch the body. + +"I must repair this lock," he said, "the first thing, so nothing can be +disturbed." + +Doctor Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent on entering the room. +For a long time he stared at the body in the candle light, making as much +of an examination as he could, evidently, without physical contact. + +"Why did he ever come here to sleep?" he asked in his rumbling bass +voice. "Nasty room! Unhealthy room! Ten to one you're a formality, +policeman. Coroner's a formality." + +He sneered a little. + +"I daresay he died what the hard-headed world will call a natural death. +Wonder what the coroner'll say." + +The detective didn't answer. He shot rapid, uneasy glances about the room +in which a single candle burned. After a time he said with an accent of +complete conviction: + +"That man was murdered." + +Perhaps the doctor's significant words, added to her earlier dread of the +abnormal, made Katherine read in the detective's manner an apprehension +of conditions unfamiliar to the brutal routine of his profession. Her +glances were restless, too. She had a feeling that from the shadowed +corners of the faded, musty room invisible faces mocked the man's +stubbornness. + +All this she recited to Bobby when, under extraordinary circumstances +neither of them could have foreseen, he arrived at the Cedars many +hours later. + +Of the earlier portion of the night of his grandfather's death Bobby +retained a minute recollection. The remainder was like a dim, appalling +nightmare whose impulse remains hidden. + +When he went to his apartment to dress for dinner he found the letter of +which Silas Blackburn had spoken to Katherine. It mentioned the change in +the will as an approaching fact nothing could alter. Bobby fancied that +the old man merely craved the satisfaction of terrorizing him, of +casting him out with all the ugly words at his command. Still a good deal +more than a million isn't to be relinquished lightly as long as a chance +remains. Bobby had an engagement for dinner. He would think the situation +over until after dinner, then he might go. + +It was, perhaps, unfortunate that at his club he met friends who drew him +in a corner and offered him too many cocktails. As he drank his anger +grew, and it wasn't all against his grandfather. He asked himself why +during the last few months he had avoided the Cedars, why he had drifted +into too vivid a life in New York. It increased his anger that he +hesitated to give himself a frank answer. But always at such moments it +was Katherine rather than his grandfather who entered his mind. He had +cared too much for her, and lately, beyond question, the bond of their +affection had weakened. + +He raised his glass and drank. He set the glass down quickly as if he +would have liked to hide it. A big man, clear-eyed and handsome, walked +into the room and came straight to the little group in the corner. Bobby +tried to carry it off. + +"'Lo, Hartley, old preacher. You fellows all know Hartley Graham? Sit +down. We're going to have a little cocktail." + +Graham looked at the glasses, shaking his head. + +"If you've time, Bobby, I'd like a word with you." + +"No preaching," Bobby bargained. "It isn't Sunday." + +Graham laughed pleasantly. + +"It's about money. That talks any day." + +Bobby edged a way out and followed Graham to an unoccupied room. There +the big man turned on him. + +"See here, Bobby! When are you going out to the Cedars?" + +Bobby flushed. + +"You're a dear friend, Hartley, and I've always loved you, but I'm in no +mood for preaching tonight. Besides, I've got my own life to lead"--he +glanced away--"my own reasons for leading it." + +"I'm not going to preach," Graham answered seriously, "although it's +obvious you're raising the devil with your life. I wanted to tell you +that I've had a note from Katherine to-day. She says your grandfather's +threats are taking too much form; that the new will's bound to come +unless you do something. She cares too much for you, Bobby, to see you +throw everything away. She's asked me to persuade you to go out." + +"Why didn't she write to me?" + +"Have you been very friendly with Katherine lately? And that's not +fair. You're both without parents. You owe Katherine something on +that account." + +Bobby didn't answer, because it was clear that while Katherine's +affection for him had weakened, her friendship for Graham had grown too +fast. Looking at the other he didn't wonder. + +"There's another thing," Graham was saying. "The gloomy old Cedars has +got on Katherine's nerves, and she says there's been a change in the old +man the last few days--wanders around as if he were afraid of something." + +Bobby laughed outright. + +"Him afraid of something! It's always been his system to make everybody +and everything afraid of him. But you're right about Katherine. We have +always depended on each other. I think I'll go out after dinner." + +"Then come have a bite with me," Graham urged. "I'll see you off +afterward. If you catch the eight-thirty you ought to be out there before +half-past ten." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"An engagement for dinner, Hartley. I'm expecting Carlos Paredes to pick +me up here any minute." + +Graham's disapproval was belligerent. + +"Why, in the name of heaven, Bobby, do you run around with that damned +Panamanian? Steer him off to-night. I've argued with you before. It's +unpleasant, I know, but the man carries every mark of crookedness." + +"Easy with my friends, Hartley! You don't understand Carlos. He's good +fun when you know him--awfully good fun." + +"So," Graham said, "is this sort of thing. Too many cocktails, too much +wine. Paredes has the same pleasant, dangerous quality." + +A club servant entered. + +"In the reception room, Mr. Blackburn." + +Bobby took the card, tore it into little bits, and dropped them one by +one into the waste-paper basket. + +"Tell him I'll be right out." He turned to Graham. + +"Sorry you don't like my playmates. I'll probably run out after dinner +and let the old man terrorize me as a cure for his own fear. Pleasant +prospect! So long." + +Graham caught at his arm. + +"I'm sorry. Can't we forget to-night that we disagree about Paredes? Let +me dine with you." + +Bobby's laugh was uncomfortable. + +"Come on, if you wish, and be my guardian angel. God knows I need one." + +He walked across the hall and into the reception room. The light was not +brilliant there. One or two men sat reading newspapers about a +green-shaded lamp on the centre table, but Bobby didn't see Paredes at +first. Then from the obscurity of a corner a form, tall and graceful, +emerged with a slow monotony of movement suggestive of stealth. The man's +dark, sombre eyes revealed nothing. His jet-black hair, parted in the +middle, and his carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard gave him an air of +distinction, an air, at the same time, a trifle too reserved. For a +moment, as the green light stained his face unhealthily, Bobby could +understand Graham's aversion. He brushed the idea aside. + +"Glad you've come, Carlos." + +The smile of greeting vanished abruptly from Paredes's face. He looked +with steady eyes beyond Bobby's shoulder. Bobby turned. Graham stood on +the threshold, his face a little too frank. But the two men shook hands. + +"I'd an idea until I saw Bobby," Graham said, "that you'd gone back +to Panama." + +Paredes yawned. + +"Each year I spend more time in New York. Business suggests it. Pleasure +demands it." + +His voice was deep and pleasant, but Bobby had often remarked that it, +like Paredes's eyes, was too reserved. It seemed never to call on its +obvious powers of expression. Its accent was noticeable only in a +pleasant, polished sense. + +"Hartley," Bobby explained, "is dining with us." + +Paredes let no disapproval slip, but Graham hastened to explain. + +"Bobby and I have an engagement immediately after dinner." + +"An engagement after dinner! I didn't understand--" + +"Let's think of dinner first," Bobby said. "We can talk about engagements +afterward. Perhaps you'll have a cocktail here while we decide where +we're going." + +"The aperitif I should like very much," Paredes said. "About dinner there +is nothing to decide. I have arranged everything. There's a table waiting +in the Fountain Room at the C---- and there I have planned a little +surprise for you." + +He wouldn't explain further. While they drank their cocktails Bobby +watched Graham's disapproval grow. The man glanced continually at his +watch. In the restaurant, when Paredes left them to produce, as he called +it, his surprise, Graham appraised with a frown the voluble people who +moved intricately through the hall. + +"I'm afraid Paredes has planned a thorough evening," he said, "for which +he'll want you to pay. Don't be angry, Bobby. The situation is serious +enough to excuse facts. You must go to the Cedars to-night. Do you +understand? You must go, in spite of Paredes, in spite of everything." + +"Peace until train time," Bobby demanded. + +He caught his breath. + +"There they are. Carlos _has_ kept his word. See her, Hartley. She's +glorious." + +A young woman accompanied the Panamanian as he came back through the +hall. She appeared more foreign than her guide--the Spanish of Spain +rather than of South America. Her clothing was as unusual and striking as +her beauty, yet one felt there was more than either to attract all the +glances in this room, to set people whispering as she passed. Clearly she +knew her notoriety was no little thing. Pride filled her eyes. + +Paredes had first introduced her to Bobby a month or more ago. He had +seen her a number of times since in her dressing-room at the theatre +where she was featured, or at crowded luncheons in her apartment. At such +moments she had managed to be exceptionally nice to him. Bobby, however, +had answered merely to the glamour of her fame, to the magnetic response +her beauty always brought in places like this. + +"Paredes," Graham muttered, "will have a powerful ally. You won't fail +me, Bobby? You will go?" + +Bobby scarcely heard. He hurried forward and welcomed the woman. She +tapped his arm with her fan. + +"Leetle Bobby!" she lisped. "I haven't seen very much of you lately. So +when Carlos proposed--you see I don't dance until late. Who is that +behind you? Mr. Graham, is it not? He would, maybe, not remember me. I +danced at a dinner where you were one night, at Mr. Ward's. Even lawyers, +I find, take enjoyment in my dancing." + +"I remember," Graham said. "It is very pleasant we are to dine together." +He continued tactlessly: "But, as I've explained to Mr. Paredes, we must +hurry. Bobby and I have an early engagement." + +Her head went up. + +"An early engagement! I do not often dine in public." + +"An unavoidable thing," Graham explained. "Bobby will tell you." + +Bobby nodded. + +"It's a nuisance, particularly when you're so condescending, Maria." + +She shrugged her shoulders. With Bobby she entered the dining-room at the +heels of Paredes and Graham. + +Paredes had foreseen everything. There were flowers on the table. The +dinner had been ordered. Immediately the waiter brought cocktails. Graham +glanced at Bobby warningly. He wouldn't, as an example Bobby appreciated, +touch his own. Maria held hers up to the light. + +"Pretty yellow things! I never drink them." + +She smiled dreamily at Bobby. + +"But see! I shall place this to my lips in order that you may make +pretty speeches, and maybe tell me it is the most divine aperitif you +have ever drunk." + +She passed the glass to him, and Bobby, avoiding Graham's eyes, wondering +why she was so gracious, emptied it. And afterward frequently she +reminded him of his wine by going through the same elaborate formula. +Probably because of that, as much as anything else, constraint grasped +the little company tighter. Graham couldn't hide his anxiety. Paredes +mocked it with sneering phrases which he turned most carefully. Before +the meal was half finished Graham glanced at his watch. + +"We've just time for the eight-thirty," he whispered to Bobby, "if we +pick up a taxi." + +Maria had heard. She pouted. + +"There is no engagement," she lisped, "as sacred as a dinner, no +entanglement except marriage that cannot be easily broken. Perhaps I have +displeased you, Mr. Graham. Perhaps you fancy I excite unpleasant +comment. It is unjust. I assure you my reputation is above reproach"--her +dark eyes twinkled--"certainly in New York." + +"It isn't that," Graham answered. "We must go. It's not to be evaded." + +She turned tempestuously. + +"Am I to be humiliated so? Carlos! Why did you bring me? Is all the world +to see my companions leave in the midst of a dinner as if I were +plague-touched? Is Bobby not capable of choosing his own company?" + +"You are thoroughly justified, Maria," Paredes said in his expressionless +tones. "Bobby, however, has said very little about this engagement. I did +not know, Mr. Graham, that you were the arbiter of Bobby's actions. In a +way I must resent your implication that he is no longer capable of caring +for himself." + +Graham accepted the challenge. He leaned across the table, speaking +directly to Bobby, ignoring the others: + +"You've not forgotten what I told you. Will you come while there's time? +You must see. I can't remain here any longer." + +Bobby, hating warfare in his present mood, sought to temporize: + +"It's all right, Hartley. Don't worry. I'll catch a later train." + +Maria relaxed. + +"Ah! Bobby still chooses for himself." + +"I'll have enough rumpus," Bobby muttered, "when I get to the Cedars. +Don't grudge me a little peace here." + +Graham arose. His voice was discouraged. + +"I'm sorry. I'll hope, Bobby." + +Without a word to the others he walked out of the room. + +So far, when Bobby tried afterward to recall the details of the evening, +everything was perfectly distinct in his memory. The remainder of the +meal, made uncomfortable by Maria's sullenness and Paredes's sneers, his +attempt to recapture the earlier gayety of the evening by continuing to +drink the wine, his determination to go later to the Cedars in spite of +Graham's doubt--of all these things no particular lacked. He remembered +paying the check, as he usually did when he dined with Paredes. He +recalled studying the time-table and finding that he had just missed +another train. + +Maria's spirits rose then. He was persuaded to accompany her and Paredes +to the music hall. In her dressing-room, while she was on the stage, he +played with the boxes of make-up, splashing the mirror with various +colours while Paredes sat silently watching. + +The alteration, he was sure, came a little later in the cafe at a table +close to the dancing floor. Maria had insisted that Paredes and he should +wait there while she changed. + +"But," he had protested, "I have missed too many trains." + +She had demanded his time-table, scanning the columns of close figures. + +"There is one," she had said, "at twelve-fifteen--time for a little +something in the cafe, and who knows? If you are agreeable I might +forgive everything and dance with you once, Bobby, on the public floor." + +So he sat for some time, expectant, with Paredes, watching the boisterous +dancers, listening to the violent music, sipping absent-mindedly at his +glass. He wondered why Paredes had grown so quiet. + +"I mustn't miss that twelve-fifteen," he said, "You know, Carlos, you +weren't quite fair to Hartley. He's a splendid fellow. Roomed with me at +college, played on same team, and all that. Only wanted me to do the +right thing. Must say it was the right thing. I won't miss that +twelve-fifteen." + +"Graham," Paredes sneered, "is a wonderful type--Apollo in the flesh and +Billy Sunday in the conscience." + +Then, as Bobby started to protest, Maria entered, more dazzling than at +dinner; and the dancers swayed less boisterously, the chatter at the +tables subsided, the orchestra seemed to hesitate as a sort of obeisance. + +A man Bobby had never seen before followed her to the table. His +middle-aged figure was loudly clothed. His face was coarse and clean +shaven. He acknowledged the introductions sullenly. + +"I've only a minute," Bobby said to Maria. + +He continued, however, to raise his glass indifferently to his lips. All +at once his glass shook. Maria's dark and sparkling face became blurred. +He could no longer define the features of the stranger. He had never +before experienced anything of the kind. He tried to account for it, but +his mind became confused. + +"Maria!" he burst out. "Why are you looking at me like that?" + +Her contralto laugh rippled. + +"Bobby looks so funny! Carlos! Leetle Bobby looks so queer! What is the +matter with him?" + +Bobby's anger was lost in the increased confusion of his senses, but +through that mental turmoil tore the thought of Graham and his intention +of going to the Cedars. With shaking fingers he dragged out his watch. He +couldn't read the dial. He braced his hands against the table, thrust +back his chair, and arose. The room tumbled about him. Before his eyes +the dancers made long nebulous bands of colour in which nothing had form +or coherence. Instinctively he felt he hadn't dined recklessly enough to +account for these amazing symptoms. He was suddenly afraid. + +"Carlos!" he whispered. + +He heard Maria's voice dimly: + +"Take him home." + +A hand touched his arm. With a supreme effort of will he walked from the +room, guided by the hand on his arm. And always his brain recorded fewer +and fewer impressions for his memory to struggle with later. + +At the cloak room some one helped him put on his coat. He was walking +down steps. He was in some kind of a conveyance. He didn't know what it +was. An automobile, a carriage, a train? He didn't know. He only +understood that it went swiftly, swaying from side to side through a +sable pit. Whenever his mind moved at all it came back to that sensation +of a black pit in which he remained suspended, swinging from side to +side, trying to struggle up against impossible odds. Once or twice words +flashed like fire through the pit: "Tyrant!--Fool to go." + +From a long immersion deeper in the pit he struggled frantically. He must +get out. Somehow he must find wings. He realized that his eyes were +closed. He tried to open them and failed. So the pit persisted and he +surrendered himself, as one accepts death, to its hateful blackness. + +Abruptly he experienced a momentary release. There was no more swaying, +no more movement of any kind. He heard a strange, melancholy voice, +whispering without words, always whispering with a futile perseverance as +if it wished him to understand something it could not express. + +"What is it trying to tell me?" he asked himself. + +Then he understood. It was the voice of the wind, and it tried to tell +him to open his eyes, and he found that he could. But in spite of his +desire they closed again almost immediately. Yet, from that swift +glimpse, a picture outlined itself later in his memory. + +In the midst of wild, rolling clouds, the moon was a drowning face. +Stunted trees bent before the wind like puny men who strained impotently +to advance. Over there was one more like a real man--a figure, Bobby +thought, with a black thing over its face--a mask. + +"This is the forest near the Cedars," Bobby said to himself. "I've come +to face the old devil after all." + +He heard his own voice, harsh, remote, unnatural, speaking to the dim +figure with a black mask that waited half hidden by the straining trees. + +"Why am I here in the woods near the Cedars?" + +And he thought the thing answered: + +"Because you hate your grandfather." + +Bobby laughed, thinking he understood. The figure in the black mask +that accompanied him was his conscience. He could understand why it +went masked. + +The wind resumed its whispering. The figures, straining like puny men, +fought harder. The drowning face disappeared, wet and helpless. Bobby +felt himself sinking back, back into the sable pit. + +"I don't want to go," he moaned. + +A long time afterward he heard a whisper again, and he wondered if it was +the wind or his conscience. He laughed through the blackness because the +words seemed so absurd. + +"Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It is +the only safe way." + +He laughed again, thinking: + +"What a careful conscience!" + +He retained only one more impression. He was dully aware that some time +had passed. He shivered. He thought the wind had grown angry with him, +for it no longer whispered. It shrieked, and he could make nothing of its +wrath. He struggled frantically to emerge from the pit. The quality of +the blackness deepened. His fright grew. He felt himself slipping, slowly +at first then faster, faster down into impossible depths, and there was +nothing at all he could do to save himself. + + * * * * * + +"Go away! For God's sake, go away!" + +Bobby thought he was speaking to the sombre figure in the mask. His voice +aroused him to one more effort at escape, but he felt that there was no +use. He was too deep. + +Something hurt his eyes. He opened them and for a time was blinded by a +narrow shaft, of sunlight resting on his face. With an effort he moved +his head to one side and closed his eyes again, at first merely thankful +that he had escaped from the black hell, trying to control his +sensations of physical evil. Subtle curiosity forced its way into his +sick brain and stung him wide awake. This time his eyes remained open, +staring about him, dilating with a wilder fright than he had experienced +in the dark mazes of his nightmare adventure. + +He had never seen this place before. He lay on the floor of an empty +room. The shaft of sunlight that had aroused him entered through a crack +in one of the tightly drawn blinds. There were dust and grime on the +wails, and cobwebs clustered in the corners. + +In the silent, deserted room the beating of his heart became audible. He +struggled to a sitting posture. He gasped for breath. He knew it was very +cold in here, but perspiration moistened his face. He could recall no +such suffering as this since, when a boy, he had slipped from the crisis +of a destructive fever. + +Had he been drugged? But he had been with friends. There was no motive. + +What house was this? Was it, like this room, empty and deserted? How had +he come here? For the first time he went through that dreadful process of +trying to draw from the black pit useful memories. + +He started, recalling the strange voice and its warning, for his shoes +lay near by as though he might have dropped them carelessly when he had +entered the room and stretched himself on the floor. Damp earth adhered +to the soles. The leather above was scratched. + +"Then," he thought, "that much is right. I was in the woods. What was I +doing there? That dim figure! My imagination." + +He suffered the agony of a man who realizes that he has wandered +unawares in strange places, and retains no recollection of his actions, +of his intentions. He went back to that last unclouded moment in the +cafe with Maria, Paredes, and the stranger. Where had he gone after he +had left them? He had looked at his watch. He had told himself he must +catch the twelve-fifteen train. He must have gone from the restaurant, +proceeding automatically, and caught the train. That would account for +the sensation of motion in a swift vehicle, and perhaps there had been a +taxicab to the station. Doubtless in the woods near the Cedars he had +decided it was too late to go in, or that it was wiser not to. He had +answered to the necessity of sleeping somewhere. But why had he come +here? Where, indeed, was he? + +At least he could answer that. He drew on his shoes--a pair of patent +leather pumps. He fumbled for his handkerchief, thinking he would brush +the earth from them. He searched each of his pockets. His handkerchief +was gone. No matter. He got to his feet, lurching for a moment dizzily. +He glanced with distaste at his rumpled evening clothing. To hide it as +far as possible he buttoned his overcoat collar about his neck. On +tip-toe he approached the door, and, with the emotions of a thief, +opened it quietly. He sighed. The rest of the house was as empty as this +room. The hall was thick with dust. The rear door by which he must have +entered stood half open. The lock was broken and rusty. + +He commenced to understand. There was a deserted farmhouse less than two +miles from the Cedars. Since he had always known about it, it wasn't +unusual he should have taken shelter there after deciding not to go in to +his grandfather. + +He stepped through the doorway to the unkempt yard about whose tumbled +fences the woods advanced thickly. He recognized the place. For some time +he stood ashamed, yet fair enough to seek the cause of his experience in +some mental unhealth deeper than any reaction from last night's folly. + +He glanced at his watch. It was after two o'clock. The mournful +neighbourhood, the growing chill in the air, the sullen sky, urged him +away. He walked down the road. Of course he couldn't go to the Cedars in +this condition. He would return to his apartment in New York where he +could bathe, change his clothes, recover from this feeling of physical +ill, and remember, perhaps, something more. + +It wasn't far to the little village on the railroad, and at this hour +there were plenty of trains. He hoped no one he knew would see him at the +station. He smiled wearily. What difference did that make? He might as +well face old Blackburn, himself, as he was. By this time the thing was +done. The new will had been made. He was penniless and an outcast. But +his furtive manner clung. He didn't want Katherine to see him like this. + +From the entrance of the village it was only a few steps to the +station. Several carriages stood at the platform, testimony that a +train was nearly due. He prayed that it would be for New York. He +didn't want to wait around. He didn't want to risk Katherine's driving +in on some errand. + +His mind, intent only on escaping prying eyes, was drawn by a man who +stepped from behind a carriage and started across the roadway in his +direction, staring at him incredulously. His quick apprehension vanished. +He couldn't recall that surprised face. There was no harm being seen, +miserable as he was, dressed as he was, by this stranger. He looked at +him closer. The man was plainly clothed. He had small, sharp eyes. His +hairless face was intricately wrinkled. His lips were thin, making a +straight line. + +To avoid him Bobby stepped aside, thinking he must be going past, but the +stranger stopped and placed a firm hand on Bobby's shoulder. He spoke in +a quick, authoritative voice: + +"Certainly you are Mr. Robert Blackburn?" + +For Bobby, in his nervous, bewildered condition, there was an ominous +note in this surprise, this assurance, this peremptory greeting. + +"What's amazing about that?" he jerked out. + +The stranger's lips parted in a straight smile. + +"Amazing! That's the word I was thinking of. Hoped you might come in +from New York. Seemed you were here all the time. That's a good one on +me--a very good one." + +The beating of Bobby's heart was more pronounced than it had been in the +deserted house. He asked himself why he should shrink from this stranger +who had an air of threatening him. The answer lay in that black pit of +last night and this morning. Unquestionably he had been indiscreet. The +man would tell him how. + +"You mean," he asked with dry lips, "that you've been looking for me? Who +are you? Please take your hand off." + +The stranger's grasp tightened. + +"Not so fast, Mr. Robert Blackburn. I daresay you haven't just now come +from the Cedars?" + +"No, no. I'm on my way to New York. There's a train soon, I think." + +His voice trailed away. The stranger's straight smile widened. He +commenced to laugh harshly and uncouthly. + +"Sure there's a train, but you don't want to take it. And why haven't +you been at the Cedars? Grandpa's death grieved you too much to go near +his body?" + +Bobby drew back. The shock robbed him for a moment of the power to +reason. + +"Dead! The old man! How--" + +The stranger's smile faded. + +"Here it is nearly three o'clock in the afternoon, and you're all +dressed up for last night. That's lucky." + +Bobby couldn't meet the narrow eyes. + +"Who are you?" + +The stranger with his free hand threw back his coat lapel. + +"My name's Howells. I'm a county detective. I'm on the case, because your +grandfather died very strangely. He was murdered, very cleverly murdered. +Queerest case I've ever handled. What do you think?" + +In his own ears Bobby's voice sounded as remote and unreal as it had +through the blackness last night. + +"Why do you talk to me like this?" + +"Because I tell you I'm on the case, and I want you to turn about and go +straight to the Cedars." + +"This is--absurd. You mean you suspect--You're placing me under arrest?" + +The detective's straight smile returned. + +"How we jump at conclusions! I'm simply telling you not to bother me +with questions. I'm telling you to go straight to the Cedars where +you'll stay. Understand? You'll stay there until you're wanted--Until +you're wanted." + +The merciless repetition settled it for Bobby. He knew it would be +dangerous to talk or argue. Moreover, he craved an opportunity to +think, to probe farther into the black pit. He turned and walked away. +When he reached the last houses he glanced back. The detective +remained in the middle of the road, staring after him with that +straight and satisfied smile. + +Bobby walked on, his shaking hands tightly clenched, muttering to +himself: + +"I've got to remember. Good God! I've got to remember. It's the only way +I can ever know he's not right, that I'm not a murderer." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CASE AGAINST BOBBY + + +Bobby hurried down the road in the direction of the Cedars. Always he +tried desperately to recall what had occurred during those black hours +last night and this morning before he had awakened in the empty house +near his grandfather's home. All that remained were his sensation of +travel in a swift vehicle, his impression of standing in the forest near +the Cedars, his glimpse of the masked figure which he had called his +conscience, the echo in his brain of a dream-like voice saying: "Take off +your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It's the only +safe way." + +These facts, then, alone were clear to him: He had wandered, unconscious, +in the neighbourhood. His grandfather had been strangely murdered. The +detective who had met him in the village practically accused him of the +murder. And he couldn't remember. + +He turned back to his last clear recollections. When he had experienced +his first symptoms of slipping consciousness he had been in the cafe in +New York with Carlos Paredes, Maria, the dancer, and a strange man whom +Maria had brought to the table. Through them he might, to an extent, +trace his movements, unless they had put him in a cab, thinking he would +catch the train, of which he had talked, for the Cedars. + +Already the forest crowded the narrow, curving road. The Blackburn place +was in the midst of an arid thicket of stunted pines, oaks, and cedars. +Old Blackburn had never done anything to improve the estate or its +surroundings. Steadily during his lifetime it had grown more gloomy, less +habitable. + +With the silent forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no +longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot might +have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. +He saw no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly +it was the detective, Howells, who followed him, hoping, perhaps, that he +would make some mad effort at escape. + +"That," he muttered, "is probably the reason he didn't arrest me at +the station." + +Bobby, however, had no thought of escape. He was impatient to reach the +Cedars where he might learn all that Howells hadn't told him about his +grandfather's death. + +A high wooden fence straggled through the forest. The driveway swung from +the road through a broad gateway. The gate stood open. Bobby remembered +that it had been old Blackburn's habit to keep it closed. He entered and +hurried among the trees to the edge of the lawn in the centre of which +the house stood. + +Feeling as guilty as the detective thought him, he paused there and +examined the house for some sign of life. At first it seemed as dead as +the forest stripped by autumn--almost as gloomy and arid as the +wilderness which straggled close about it. He had no eye for the symmetry +of its wings which formed the court in the centre of which an abandoned +fountain stood. He studied the windows, picturing Katherine alone, +surrounded by the complications of this unexpected tragedy. + +His feeling of an inimical watchfulness persisted. A clicking sound swung +him back to the house. The front door had been opened, and in the black +frame of the doorway, as he looked, Katherine and Graham appeared, and he +knew the resolution of his last doubt was at hand. + +Katherine had thrown a cloak over her graceful figure. Her sunny hair +strayed in the wind, but her face, while it had lost nothing of its +beauty, projected even at this distance a sense of weariness, of anxiety, +of utter fear. + +Bobby was grateful for Graham's presence. It was like the man to assume +his responsibilities, to sacrifice himself in his service. He +straightened. He must meet these two. Through his own wretched appearance +and position he must develop for Katherine more clearly than ever +Graham's superiority. He stepped out, calling softly: + +"Katherine!" + +She started. She turned in his direction and came swiftly toward him. She +spread her hands. + +"Bobby! Bobby! Where have you been?" + +There were tears in her eyes. They were like tears that have been +too long coming. He took her hands. Her fingers were cold. They +twitched in his. + +"Look at me, Katherine," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry." + +Graham came up. He spoke with apparent difficulty. + +"You've not been home. Then what happened last night? Quick! Tell us what +you did--everything." + +"I've seen the detective," he answered. "He's told you, too? Be careful. +I think he's back there, watching and listening." + +Katherine freed her hands. The tears had dried. She shook a little. + +"Then you were at the station," she said. "You must have come from New +York, but I tried so hard to get you there. For hours I telephoned and +telegraphed. Then I got Hartley. Come away from the trees so we can talk +without--without being overheard." + +As they moved to the centre of the open space Graham indicated Bobby's +evening clothes. + +"Why are you dressed like that, Bobby? You _did_ come from town? You +can tell us everything you did last night after I left you, and early +this morning?" + +Bobby shook his head. His answer was reluctant. + +"I didn't come from New York just now. I was evidently here last night, +and I can't remember, Hartley. I remember scarcely anything." + +Graham's face whitened. + +"Tell us," he begged. + +"You've got to remember!" Katherine cried. + +Bobby as minutely as he could recited the few impressions that remained +from last night. + +When he had finished Graham thought for some time. + +"Paredes and the dancer," he said at last, "practically forced me away +from you last night. It's obvious, Bobby, you must have been drugged." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"I thought of that right away, but it won't do. If I had been drugged I +wouldn't have moved around, and I did come out somehow, I managed to +get to the empty house to sleep. It's more as if my mind had simply +closed, as if it had gone on working its own ends without my knowing +anything about it. And that's dreadful, because the detective has +practically accused me of murdering my grandfather. How was it done? +You see I know nothing. Tell me how--how he was killed. I can't believe +I--I'm such a beast. Tell me. If I was in the house, some detail might +start my memory." + +So Katherine told her story while Bobby listened, shrinking from some +disclosure that would convict him. As she went on, however, his sense of +bewilderment increased, and when she had finished he burst out: + +"But where is the proof of murder? Where is there even a suggestion? You +say the doors were locked and he doesn't show a mark." + +"That's what we can't understand," Graham said. "There's no evidence we +know anything about that your grandfather's heart didn't simply give out, +but the detective is absolutely certain, and--there's no use mincing +matters, Bobby--he believes he has the proof to convict you. He won't +tell me what. He simply smiles and refuses to talk." + +"The motive?" Bobby asked. + +Graham looked at him curiously. Katherine turned away. + +"Of course," Bobby cried with a sharpened discomfort. "I'd forgotten. The +money--the new will he had planned to make. The money's mine now, but if +he had lived until this morning it never would have been. I see." + +"It is a powerful motive," Graham said, "for any one who doesn't +know you." + +"But," Bobby answered, "Howells has got to prove first that my +grandfather was murdered. The autopsy?" + +"Coroner's out of the county," Graham replied, "and Howells won't have an +assistant. Dr. Groom's waiting in the house. We're expecting the coroner +almost any time." + +Bobby spoke rapidly. + +"If he calls it murder, Hartley, there's one thing we've got to find out: +what my grandfather was afraid of. Tell me again, Katherine, everything +he said about me. I can't believe he could have been afraid of me." + +"He called you," Katherine answered, "a waster. He said: 'God knows what +he'll do next.' He said he'd ordered you out last night and he hadn't +had a word from you, but that he'd made up his mind anyway. He was going +to have his lawyer this morning and change his will, leaving all his +money to the Bedford Foundation, except a little annuity for me. He grew +sentimental and said he had no faith left in his flesh and blood, and +that it was sad to grow old with nobody caring for him except to covet +his money. I asked him if he were afraid of you, and all he answered +was: 'You and Bobby are thicker than thieves.' Oh, yes. When I saw him +for the last time in the hall he said there was nothing for me to worry +about except you. That's all. I remember perfectly. He said nothing more +about you." + +"I wonder," Bobby muttered, "if a jury wouldn't think it enough." + +Katherine shook her head. + +"There seemed so much more than that behind his fear," she said. "As I've +told you, he gave me a feeling of superstition. I never once was afraid +of a murderer--of a man in the house. I was afraid of something queer and +active, but not human." + +Bobby straightened. + +"Would you," he asked, "call a man going about in an aphasia quite +human? Somnambulists do unaccountable things--such as overcoming locked +doors--" + +"Don't, Bobby! Don't!" Katherine cried. + +"Sh--h! Quiet!" Graham warned. + +A foot scraped on gravel. + +"Maybe the detective," Bobby suggested. + +He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of the +detective emerge from the forest. Instead with a dawning amazement he +watched Carlos Paredes stroll into view. The Panamanian was calm and +immaculate. His Van Dyke beard was neatly trimmed and combed. As he +advanced he puffed in leisurely fashion at a cigarette. + +Graham flushed. + +"After last night he has the nerve--" + +"Be decent to him," Bobby urged. "He might help me--might clear up +last night." + +"I wonder," Graham mused, "to what extent he could clear it up if +he wished." + +Paredes threw his cigarette away as he came closer. Solemnly he shook +hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy. Even then +Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion. +The man turned to Graham. + +"Our little difference of last evening," he said suavely, "will, I hope, +evaporate in this atmosphere of unexpected sorrow. If I was in the wrong +I deeply regret it. My one wish now is to join you in being of use to +Bobby and Miss Katherine in their bereavement. I saw the account in a +paper at luncheon. I came as quickly as possible." + +Graham answered this smooth effrontery with a blunt question. + +"Do you know that Bobby is in very real trouble, that he may be +implicated in Mr. Blackburn's death?" + +Paredes flung up his hands, but Bobby, looking for emotion in the sallow +face then, found none. Paredes's features, it occurred to him, were +exactly like a mask. + +Bobby checked himself. In his unhealthy way Paredes had been a good +friend. The man's voice flowed smoothly, demanding particulars. + +"But this," he said, when they had told him what they could, "changes the +situation. I must stay here. I must watch that detective and learn what +he has up his sleeve." + +Graham turned away. + +"I've tried. Maybe you'll succeed better than I." + +"Then you'll excuse me," Paredes said quickly. "I should like your +permission to telephone to my hotel in New York for some clothing. I want +to see this through." + +The three looked at each other. Katherine and Graham seemed about to +speak. Bobby wouldn't let them. + +"Carlos," he said, "you might help me. I'm almost afraid to ask. What +happened in the cafe last night? The last thing I remember distinctly is +sitting there with you and Maria and a stranger she had introduced. I +didn't get his name. What did I do? Did any one leave the place with me?" + +Paredes smiled a little, shaking his head. + +"You behaved as if Mr. Graham's earlier fears had been accomplished. You +insisted you were going to catch your train. I didn't think it wise, so I +went to the cloak room with you, intending to see you home. Somehow, just +the same you gave me the slip." + +"You oughtn't to have let him get away," Graham said. + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"You weren't there. You don't know how sly Bobby was." + +"I suppose it's useless to ask," Graham said. "You saw nothing put in +his wine?" + +Paredes laughed. + +"Is it likely? Certainly not. I should have mentioned it. I should have +stopped such a thing. What do you think I am, Mr. Graham?" + +"Sorry," Graham said. "You must understand we can't let any lead slip. +This stranger Maria brought up?" + +"I didn't catch his name," Paredes answered. + +"I'd never seen him before. I gathered he was a friend of +hers--connected with the profession. Now I shall telephone with your +permission, Miss Katherine; and don't you worry, Bobby. I will see you +through; but we can't do much until the coroner comes, until the +detective can be made to talk." + +Katherine hesitated for a moment, then she surrendered. + +"Please go with him, Hartley, and--and make him as comfortable as you can +in this unhappy house." + +Katherine detained Bobby with a nod. He saw the others go. He shrank, in +his mental and physical discomfort, from this isolation with her. As soon +as the door was closed she touched his hand. She burst out passionately: + +"I don't believe it, Bobby. I'll never believe it no matter what +happens." + +"It's sweet of you, Katherine," he said huskily. "That helps when you +don't know what to believe yourself." + +"Don't talk that way. Such a crime would never have entered your head +under any conditions. Only, Bobby, it ought never to have happened. You +ought never to have been in this position. Why have you been friendly +with people like--like that Spaniard? What can he want, forcing himself +here? At any rate, you'll never lead that sort of life again?" + +Her fingers sought his. He clasped them firmly. + +"If I get past this," he said, "I'll always look you straight in the +eye, Katherine. It was mad--silly. You don't quite understand--" + +He broke off, glancing at the door through which Graham had disappeared. + +"Then remember," she said softly, "I don't believe it." + +She released his hand, sighing. + +"That's all I can say, all I can do now. You're ill, Bobby. Go in. Rest +for awhile. When you've had sleep you may remember something." + +He shook his head. He walked slowly with her to the house. + +As he climbed the stairs he heard Paredes telephoning. He couldn't +understand the man's insistence on remaining where clearly he was +an intruder. + +He entered his bedroom which he had occupied only once or twice during +the last few months. The place seemed unfamiliar. As he bathed and +dressed his sense of strangeness grew, and he understood why. The last +time he had been here he had stood in no personal danger. There had been +no black parenthesis in his life during the stretch of which he might +have committed an unspeakable crime. For he couldn't believe as firmly as +Katherine did. Since he couldn't remember, he might have done anything. + +"Come!" he called in response to a stealthy rapping at the door. + +Stealth, it occurred to him, had, since last night, become a stern +condition of his life. + +Graham entered and noiselessly closed the door. + +"I had a chance to slip in," he explained. "Paredes is wandering about +the place. I'd give a lot to know what he's after at the Cedars. +Katherine is in her room, trying to rest after last night, I fancy." + +"And," Bobby asked, "the detective--Howells?" + +"If he's back from the station," Graham answered, "he's keeping low. I +wonder if it was he or Paredes who followed you through the woods?" + +"Why should Carlos have followed me?" Bobby asked. "I've been thinking it +over, Hartley. It isn't a bad scheme having him here, since you think he +hasn't told all he knows." + +"I don't say that," Graham answered. "I don't know what to think about +Paredes. I've come to talk about just that. I'm a lawyer, and I've had +some criminal practice. Since this detective will be satisfied with you +for a victim, I'm going to take your case, if you'll have me. I'll be +your detective as well as your lawyer." + +Bobby was a good deal touched. + +"That's kind of you--more than I deserve, for I have resented you +at times." + +Graham, it was clear, didn't guess he referred to his friendship for +Katherine, for he answered quickly: + +"I must have seemed a nuisance, but I was only trying to get you back on +the straight path where you've always belonged. I can't believe you did +this thing, even unconsciously, until I'm shown proof without a single +flaw. Until the autopsy the only thing we have to work on is that party +last night. I've telephoned to New York and put a trustworthy man on the +heels of Maria and the stranger. Meantime I think I'd better watch +developments here." + +"Please," Bobby agreed. "Stay with me, Hartley, until this man takes some +definite action." + +He picked at the fringe of the window curtain. "If the autopsy shows that +my grandfather was murdered," he said, "either I killed him, or else some +one has deliberately tried to throw suspicion on me, for with only a +motive to go on this detective wouldn't be so sure. Why in the name of +heaven should any one kill the old man, place all this money in my hands, +and at the same time send me to the electric chair? Don't you see how +absurd it is that Carlos, Maria, or any one else should have had a hand +in it? There was nothing for them to gain from his death. I've thought +and thought in such circles until I am almost convinced of the logic of +my guilt." + +He drew the curtain farther back and gazed across the court at the room +where his grandfather lay dead. One of the two windows of the room was a +little raised, but the blinds were closely drawn. + +"I did hate him," he mused. "There's that. Ever since I can remember he +did things to make me despise him. Have--have you seen him?" + +Graham nodded. + +"Howells took me in. He looked perfectly normal--not a mark." + +"I don't want to see him," Bobby said. + +He drew back from the window, pointing. The detective, Howells, had +strolled into the court. His hands hung at his sides. They didn't swing +as he walked. His lips were stretched in that thin, straight smile. He +paused by the fountain, glancing for a moment anxiously downward. Then he +came on and entered the house. + +"He'll be restless," Graham said, "until the coroner comes, and proves or +disproves his theory of murder. If he questions you, you'd better say +nothing for the present. From his point of view what you remember of last +night would be only damaging." + +"I want him to leave me alone," Bobby said. "If he doesn't arrest me I +won't have him bullying me." + +Jenkins knocked and entered. The old butler was as white-faced as Bobby, +more tremulous. + +"The policeman, sir! He's asking for you." + +"Tell him I don't wish to see him." + +The detective, himself, stepped from the obscurity of the hall, smiling +his queer smile. + +"Ah! You are here, Mr. Blackburn! I'd like a word with you." + +He turned to Graham and Jenkins. + +"Alone, if you please." + +Bobby mutely agreed, and Graham and the butler went out. The +detective closed the door and leaned against it, studying Bobby with +his narrow eyes. + +"I don't suppose," he began, "that there's any use asking you about your +movements last night?" + +"None," Bobby answered jerkily, "unless you arrest me and take me before +those who ask questions with authority." + +The detective's smile widened. + +"No matter. I didn't come to argue with you about that. I was curious to +know if you'd tried to see your grandfather's body." + +Bobby shook his head. + +"I took it for granted the room was locked." + +"Yes," the detective answered, "but some people, it seems, have skilful +ways of overcoming locks." + +He moved to one side, placing his hand on the door knob. + +"I've come to open doors for you, to give you the opportunity an +affectionate grandson must crave." + +Bobby hesitated, fighting back his feeling of repulsion, his first +instinct to refuse. The detective might take it as an evidence against +him. On the other hand, if he went, the man would unquestionably try to +tear from a meeting between the living and the dead some valuable +confirmation of his theory. + +"Well?" the detective said. "What's the matter? Thought the least I could +do was to give you a chance. Wouldn't do it for everybody. Then everybody +hasn't your affectionate nature." + +Bobby advanced. + +"For God's sake, stop mocking me. I'll go, since you wish." + +The detective opened the door and stood aside to let Bobby pass. + +"Daresay you know the room--the way to it?" + +Bobby didn't answer. He went along the corridor and into the main hall +where Katherine had met Silas Blackburn last night. He fought back his +aversion and entered the corridor of the old wing. He heard the detective +behind him. He was aware of the man's narrow eyes watching him with a +malicious assurance. + +Bobby, with a feeling of discomfort, sprung in part from the gloomy +passageway, paused before the door his grandfather had had the +unaccountable whim of entering last night. The detective took a key from +his pocket and inserted it in the lock. + +"Had some trouble repairing the lock this morning," he said. "That +fellow, Jenkins, entered with a heavy hand--a good deal heavier than +whoever was here before him." + +He opened the door. + +"Queerest case I've ever seen," he mumbled. "Step in, Mr. Blackburn." + +Because of the drawn blinds the room was nearly as dark as the corridor. +Bobby entered slowly, his nerves taut. Against the farther wall the bed +was like an enormous shadow, without form. + +"Stay where you are," the detective warned, "until I give you more light. +You know, I wouldn't want you to touch anything, because the room is +exactly as it was when he was murdered!" + +Bobby experienced a swift impulse to strangle the brutal word in the +detective's throat. But he stood still while the man went to the +bureau, struck a match, and applied it to a candle. The wick burned +reluctantly. It flickered in the wind that slipped past the curtain of +the open window. + +"Come here," the detective commanded roughly. + +Bobby dragged himself forward until he stood at the foot of the +four-poster bed. The detective lifted the candle and held it beneath +the canopy. + +"You look all you want now, Mr. Robert Blackburn," he said grimly. + +Bobby conquered the desire to close his eyes, to refuse to obey. He +stared at his grandfather, and a feeling of wonder grew upon him. For +Silas Blackburn rested peacefully in the great bed. His eyes were closed. +The thick gray brows were no longer gathered in the frown too familiar to +Bobby. The face with its gray beard retained no fear, no record of a +great shock. + +Bobby glanced at the detective who bent over the bed watching him out of +his narrow eyes. + +"Why," he asked simply, "do you say he was murdered?" + +"He was murdered," the detective answered. "Murdered in cold blood, and, +look you here, young fellow, I know who did it. I'm going to strap that +man in the electric chair. He's got just one chance--if he talks out, if +he makes a clean breast of it." + +Across the body he bent closer. He held the candle so that its light +searched Bobby's face instead of the dead man's, and the uncertain flame +was like an ambush for his eyes. + +In response to those intolerable words Bobby's sick nerves stretched too +tight. No masquerade remained before this huntsman who had his victim +trapped, and calmly studied his agony. The horror of the accusation shot +at him across the body of the man he couldn't be sure he hadn't murdered, +robbed him of his last control. He cried out hysterically: + +"Why don't you do something? For God's sake, why don't you arrest me?" + +A chuckle came from the man in ambush behind the yellow flame. + +"Listen to the boy! What's he talking about? Grief for his grandfather. +That's what it is--grief." + +"Stop!" Bobby shouted. "It's what you've been accusing me with ever +since you stopped me at the station." He indicated the silent form of +the old man. "You keep telling me I murdered him. Why don't you arrest +me then? Why don't you lock me up? Why don't you put the case on a +reasonable basis?" + +He waited, trembling. The flame continued to flicker, but the hand +holding the candlestick failed to move, and Bobby knew that the eyes +didn't waver, either. He forced his glance from the searching flame. He +managed to lower and steady his voice. + +"You can't. That's the trouble. He wasn't murdered. The coroner will tell +you so. Anybody who looks at him will tell you so. Since you haven't the +nerve to arrest me. I'm going. I'm glad to have had this out with you. +Understand. I'm my own master. I do what I please. I go where I please." + +At last the candle moved to one side. The detective straightened and +walked to Bobby. The multitude of small lines in his face twitched. His +voice was too cold for the fury of his words. + +"That's just what I want you to do, damn you--anything you please. I'm +accusing nobody, but I'm getting somebody. I've got somebody right now +for this old man's murder. My man's going to writhe and burn in the +chair, confession or no confession. Now get out of this room since you're +so anxious, and don't come near it again." + +Bobby went. At the end of the corridor he heard the closing of the door, +the scraping of the key. He was afraid the detective might follow him to +his room to heckle him further. To avoid that he hurried to the lower +floor. He wanted to be alone. He must have time to accustom himself to +this degrading fate which loomed in the too-close future. Unless they +could demolish the detective's theory he, Bobby Blackburn, would go to +the death house. + +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?" + +"Go away," Bobby groaned. "Leave me in peace." + +And peace for a little time came to him. It was the sound of voices in +the room that aroused him. He lay for a time, scarcely knowing where he +was, but little by little the sickening truth came back, and he realized +that it was Graham and the detective, Howells, who talked close to the +window, and Graham had already fulfilled his promise. + +Bobby didn't want to eavesdrop, but it was patent he would embarrass +Graham by disclosing himself now, and it was likely Graham would be glad +of a witness to anything the detective might say. + +It was still light. A ray from the low sun entered the window and rested +on the door of the enclosed staircase. + +Graham's anxious demand was the first thing Bobby heard distinctly--the +thing that warned him to remain secreted. + +"I think now with the coroner on his way it's time you defined your +suspicions a trifle more clearly. I am a lawyer. In a sense I represent +young Mr. Blackburn. Please tell me why you are so sure his grandfather +was murdered." + +"All right," the detective's level voice came back. "Half an hour ago I +would have said no again, but now I've got the evidence I wanted. I +appreciate, Mr. Graham, that you're a friend of that young rascal, and +what I have to say isn't pleasant for a friend to hear. But first you +want to know why I'm so sure the case is murder, in spite of the doctor +who made his diagnosis without really looking." + +"Go on," Graham said softly. + +Bobby waited--his nerves as tense as they had grown in the presence of +the dead man. + +"Two days ago," the detective went on quietly, "old Mr. Blackburn came to +the court house in Smithtown and asked for the best detective the +district attorney could put his hand on. I don't want to blow my own +trumpet, but I've got away with one or two pretty fair jobs. I've had +good offers from private firms in New York. So they turned him over to +me. It was easy to see the old man was scared, just as his niece says he +was last night. The funny part was he wouldn't say definitely what he was +afraid of. I thought he might be shielding somebody until he was a little +surer of his ground. He told me he was afraid of being murdered, and he +wanted a good man he could call on to come out here to the Cedars if +things got too hot for him. I can hear his voice now as distinctly as if +he was standing where you are. + +"'My heart's all right,' he said. 'It won't stop awhile yet unless it's +made to. So if I'm found cold some fine morning you can be sure I was +put out of the way.' + +"I tried to pump him, naturally, but he wouldn't say another word except +that he'd send for me if there was time. He didn't want any fuss made, +and he gave me a handsome present to keep my mouth shut and not to bother +him with any more questions. I figured--you can't blame me, Mr. +Graham--that the old boy was a little cracked. So I took his money and +let it go at that. I didn't think much more about it until they told me +early this morning he lay dead here under peculiar circumstances." + +"Odd!" Graham commented. "It does make it more like murder, Howells. But +he doesn't look like a murdered man." + +"When you know as much about crime as I do, Mr. Graham, you'll realize +that murders which are a long time planning are likely to take on one of +two appearances--suicide or natural death." + +"All right," Graham said. "For the purpose of argument let us agree it's +murder. Even so, why do you suspect young Blackburn?" + +"Without a scrap of evidence it's plain as the nose on your face," the +detective answered. "If old Blackburn had lived until this morning our +young man would have been a pauper. As it is, he's a millionaire, but I +don't think he'll enjoy his money. The two had been at sword's points for +a long time. Robert hated the old man--never made any bones about it. You +couldn't ask for a more damaging motive." + +"You can't convict a man on motive," Graham said shortly. "You spoke of +evidence." + +"More," the detective replied, "than any jury in the land would ask." + +Bobby held his breath, shrinking from this information, which, however, +he realized it was better he should know. + +"When I got here," the detective said, "I decided on the theory of murder +to make a careful search as soon as day broke. I didn't have to wait for +day, though, to find one crying piece of evidence. For a long time I was +alone in the room with the body. Queer feeling about that room, Mr. +Graham. Don't know how to describe it except to say it's uncomfortable. +Too old, maybe. Maybe it was just being there alone with the dead man +before the dawn, although I thought I was hardened to that sort of thing. +Anyway, I didn't like it. To keep my spirits up, as well as to save time, +I commenced searching the place with a candle. Nothing about the bed. +Nothing in the closets or the bureau." + +He grinned sheepishly. + +"You know I kind of was afraid to open the closet doors. Then I got on my +knees and looked under the bed. The light was bad and I didn't see +anything at first. After a minute, close against the wall, I noticed +something white. I reached in and pulled it out. It was a handkerchief, +and it had a monogram, Mr. Graham--R. B. in purple and green." + +He paused. Graham exclaimed sharply. Bobby felt the net tighten. If that +evidence was conclusive to the others, how much more so was it for him! +He recalled how, after awaking in the empty house, he had searched +unsuccessfully in all his pockets for his handkerchief, intending to +brush the dirt from his shoes. + +"I went to his room," the detective hurried on, "and found a lot of his +clothes and his stationery and his toilet articles marked with the same +cipher. I knew my man had made a big mistake--the sort of mistake every +criminal makes no matter how clever he is--and I had him. But that isn't, +by any means, all. Don't look so distressed, Mr. Graham. There isn't the +slightest chance for him. You see I repaired the lock, and, as soon as it +was day, closed the room and went outside to look for signs. Since +nightfall no one had come legitimately through the court except Doctor +Groom and myself. Our footprints were all right--making a straight line +along the path to the front door. In the soft earth by the fountain I +found another and a smaller print, made by a very neat shoe, sir, and I +said to myself: 'There is almost certainly the footprint of the +murderer.' + +"There were plenty of others coming across the grass. He'd evidently +avoided the path. And there was one directly under the open window where +the body lies. It's still there. Perhaps you can see it. No matter. +That's the last one I found. The prints ceased there. There wasn't a one +going back, and I was fair up a stump. Then I saw a little undefined +sign of pressure on the grass, and I got an idea. 'Suppose,' I says, 'my +man took his shoes off and went around in his stockinged feet!' I +couldn't understand, though, why he hadn't thought of that before. I went +back to Robert Blackburn's room and got one of his shoes, and ran into a +snag again. The sole of the shoe was a trifle larger than the footprints. +Every one of his shoes I tried was the same way. I argued that the +handkerchief was enough, but I wanted this other evidence. I simply had +to clear up these queer footprints. + +"I figured, since the murder had been made to look so much like a natural +death, that he'd come out here some time to-day, expecting to carry it +off. I wanted to go to the station, anyway, to find out if he'd been seen +coming through last night or early this morning. While I was talking to +the station agent I had my one piece of luck. I couldn't believe my eyes. +Mr. Robert walks up from the woods. He'd been hiding around the +neighbourhood all the time. Probably had missed his handkerchief and +decided he'd better not take any chances. Yet it must have seemed a +pretty sure thing that the station wouldn't be watched, and it's those +nervy things, doing the obvious, that skilful criminals get away with all +the time. I needed only one look at him, and I had the answer to the +mystery of the footprints. I gave him plenty of time to come here and +change his clothes, then I manoeuvered him out of his room and went there +and found the pumps he'd worn last night and to-day. You see, they'd be +a little smaller than his ordinary shoes. Not only did they fit the +footprints exactly, but they were stained with soil exactly like that in +the court. There you are, sir. I've made a plaster cast of one of the +prints. I've got it here in my pocket where I intend to keep it until I +clear the whole case up and turn in my report." + +Graham's tone was shocked and discouraged. + +"What more do you want? Why haven't you arrested him?" + +In this room the detective's satisfied chuckle was an offence. + +"No good detective would ask that, Mr. Graham. I want my report clean. +The coroner will tell us how the old man was killed. I want to tell how +young Blackburn got into that room. One of the windows was raised a +trifle, but that's no use. I've figured on the outside of the wing until +I'm dizzy. There's no way up for a normal man. An orangoutang would make +hard work of it. His latch key would have let him into the house, and it +would have been simple enough for him to find out that the old man had +changed his room. I've got to find out how he got past those doors, +locked on the inside." + +He chuckled again. + +"Almost like a sleep-walker's work." + +Bobby shivered. Was that where the evidence pointed? Already the net was +too finely woven. The detective continued earnestly: + +"I'm figuring on some scheme to make him show me the way. I've a sort of +plan for to-night, but it's only a chance." + +"What?" Graham asked. + +"Oh, no, sir," Howells laughed. "You'll learn about that when the +time comes." + +"I don't understand you," Graham said. "You're sure of your man but you +keep no close watch on him. Do you know where he is now?" + +"Haven't the slightest idea, Mr. Graham." + +"What's to prevent his running away?" + +"I'm offering him every opportunity. He wouldn't get far, and I've a +feeling that if he confessed by running he'd break down and give up the +whole thing. You've no idea how it frets me, Mr. Graham. I've got my man +practically in the chair, but from a professional point of view it isn't +a pretty piece of work until I find out how he got in and out of that +room. The thing seems impossible, and yet here we are, knowing that he +did it. Well, maybe I'll find out to-night. Hello!" + +The door opened. Bobby from his hiding place could see Paredes on the +threshold, yawning and holding a cigarette in his fingers. + +"Here you are," he said drowsily. "I've just been in the court. It made +me seek company. That court's too damp, Mr. Detective." + +His laugh was lackadaisical. + +"When the sun leaves it, the court seems full of, unfriendly things--what +the ignorant would call, ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." + +The detective grunted. + +"Funny!" Paredes went on. "Observation doesn't seem to interest you. I'd +rather fancied it might." + +He yawned again and put his cigarette to his lips. Puffing placidly, he +turned and left. + +"What do you suppose he means by that?" the detective said to Graham. + +Without waiting for an answer he followed Paredes from the room. Graham +went after him. Bobby threw back the rug and arose. For a moment he was +as curious as the others as to Paredes's intention. He slipped across the +dining room. The hall was deserted. The front door stood open. From the +court came Paredes's voice, even, languid, wholly without expression: + +"Mean to tell me you don't react to the proximity of unaccountable forces +here, Mr. Howells?" + +The detective's laugh was disagreeable. + +"You trying to make a fool of me? That isn't healthy." + +As Bobby hurried across the hall and up the stairs he heard +Paredes answer: + +"You should speak to Doctor Groom. He says this place is too crowded by +the unpleasant past--" + +Bobby climbed out of hearing. He entered his bedroom and locked the door. +He resented Paredes's words and attitude which he defined as studied to +draw humour out of a tragic and desperate situation. He thought of them +in no other way. His tired mind dismissed them. He threw himself on the +bed, muttering: + +"If I run away I'm done for. If I stay I'm done for." + +He took a fierce twisted joy in one phase of the situation. + +"If I was there last night," he thought, "Howells will never find out +how I got into the room, because, no matter what trap he sets, I can't +tell him." + +His leaden weariness closed his eyes. For a few minutes he slept again. + +Once more it was a voice that awakened him--this time a woman's, raised +in a scream. He sprang up, flung open the door, and stumbled into the +corridor. Katherine stood there, holding her dressing gown about her with +trembling hands. The face she turned to Bobby was white and +panic-stricken. She beckoned, and he followed her to the main hall. The +others came tearing up the stairs--Graham, Paredes, the detective, and +the black and gigantic doctor. + +In answer to their quick questions she whispered breathlessly: + +"I heard. It was just like last night. It came across the court and stole +in at my window." + +She shook. She stretched out her hands in a terrified appeal. + +"Somebody--something moved in that room where he--he's dead." + +"Nonsense," the detective said. "Both doors are locked, and I have the +keys in my pocket." + +Paredes fumbled with a cigarette. + +"You're forgetting what I said about my sensitive apprehension of +strange things--" + +The detective interrupted him loudly, confidently: + +"I tell you the room is empty except for the murdered man--unless +someone's broken down a door." + +Katherine cried out: + +"No. I heard that same stirring. Something moved in there." + +The detective turned brusquely and entered the old corridor. + +"We'll see." + +The others followed. Katherine was close to Bobby. He touched her hand. + +"He's right, Katherine. No one's there. No one could have been there. You +mustn't give way like this. I'm depending on you--on your faith." + +She pressed his hand, but her assurance didn't diminish. + +The key scraped in the lock. They crowded through the doorway after +the detective. He struck a match and lighted the candle. He held it +over the bed. He sprang back with a sharp cry, unlike his level +quality, his confident conceit. He pointed. They all approximated his +helpless gesture, his blank amazement. For on the bed had occurred an +abominable change. + +The body of Silas Blackburn no longer lay peacefully on its back. It had +been turned on its side, and remained in a stark and awkward attitude. +For the first time the back of the head was disclosed. + +Their glances focussed there--on the tiny round hole at the base of the +brain, on the pillow where the head had rested and which they saw now was +stained with an ugly and irregular splotch of blood. + +Bobby saw the candle quiver at last in the detective's hand. The man +strode to the door leading to the private hall and examined the lock. + +"Both doors," he said, "were locked. There was no way in--" + +He turned to the others, spreading his hands in justification. The +candle, which he seemed to have forgotten, cast gross, moving shadows +over his face and over the face of the dead man. + +"At least you'll all grant me now that he was murdered." + +They continued to stare at the body of Silas Blackburn. Cold for many +hours, it was as if he had made this atrocious revealing movement to +assure them that he had, indeed, been murdered; to expose to their +startled eyes the sly and deadly method. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOWELLS DELIVERS HIMSELF TO THE ABANDONED ROOM + + +For a long time no one spoke. The body of Silas Blackburn had been alone +in a locked room, yet before their eyes it lay, turned on its side, as if +to inform them of the fashion of this murder. The tiny hole at the base +of the brain, the blood-stain on the pillow, which the head had +concealed, offered their mute and ghastly testimony. + +Doctor Groom was the first to relax. He raised his great, hairy hand to +the bed-post and grasped it. His rumbling voice lacked its usual +authority. It vibrated with a childish wonder: + +"I'm reminded that it isn't the first time there's been blood from a +man's head on that pillow." + +Katherine nodded. + +"What do you mean?" the detective snarled. "There's only one answer to +this. There must have been a mechanical post-mortem reaction." + +For a moment Doctor Groom's laugh filled the old room. It ceased +abruptly. He shook his head. + +"Don't be a fool, Mr. Policeman. At the most conservative estimate this +man has been dead more than thirteen hours. Even a few instants after +death the human body is incapable of any such reaction." + +"What then?" the detective asked. "Some one of us, or one of the +servants, must have overcome the locks again and deliberately disturbed +the body. That must be so, but I don't get the motive." + +"It isn't so," Doctor Groom answered bluntly. + +Already the detective had to a large extent controlled his bewilderment. + +"I'd like your theory then," he said dryly. "You and Mr. Paredes have +both been gossiping about the supernatural. When you first came you +hinted dark things. You said he'd probably died what the world would call +a natural death." + +"I meant," the doctor answered, "only that Mr. Blackburn's heart might +have failed under the impulse of a sudden fright in this room. I also +said, you remember, that the room was nasty and unhealthy. Plenty of +people have remarked it before me." + +Graham touched the detective's arm. + +"A little while ago you admitted yourself that the room was +uncomfortable." + +Doctor Groom smiled. The detective faced him with a fierce belligerency. + +"You'll agree he was murdered." + +"Certainly, if you wish to call it that. But I ask for the sharp +instrument that caused death. I want to know how, while Blackburn lay on +his back, it was inserted through the bed, the springs, the mattress, +and the pillow." + +"What are you driving at?" + +Doctor Groom pointed to the dead man. + +"I merely repeat that it isn't the first time that pillow's been stained +from unusual wounds in the head. Being, as you call it, a trifle +superstitious, I merely ask if the coincidence is significant." + +Katherine cried out. Bobby, in spite of his knowledge that sooner or +later he would be arrested for his grandfather's murder, stepped +forward, nodding. + +"I know what you mean, doctor." + +"Anybody," the doctor said, "who's ever heard of this house knows what I +mean. We needn't talk of that." + +The detective, however, was insistent. Paredes in his unemotional way +expressed an equal curiosity. Bobby and Katherine had been frightened as +children by the stories clustering about the old wing. They nodded from +time to time while the doctor held them in the desolate room with the +dead man, speaking of the other deaths it had sheltered. + +Silas Blackburn's great grandfather, he told the detective, had been +carried to that bed from a Revolutionary skirmish with a bullet at the +base of his brain. For many hours he had raved deliriously, fighting +unsuccessfully against the final silence. + +"It has been a legend in the family, as these young people will tell you, +that Blackburns die hard, and there are those who believe that people who +die hard leave something behind them--something that clings to the +physical surroundings of their suffering. If it was only that one case! +But it goes on and on. Silas Blackburn's father, for instance, killed +himself here. He had lost his money in silly speculations. He stood where +you stand, detective, and blew his brains out. He fell over and lay where +his son lies, his head on that pillow. Silas Blackburn was a money +grubber. He started with nothing but this property, and he made a +fortune, but even he had enough imagination to lock this room up after +one more death of that kind. It was this girl's father. You were too +young, Katherine, to remember it, but I took care of him. I saw it. He +was carried here after he had been struck at the back of the head in a +polo match. He died, too, fighting hard. God! How the man suffered. He +loosened his bandages toward the end. When I got here the pillow was +redder than it is to-day. It strikes me as curious that the first time +the room has been slept in since then it should harbour a death behind +locked doors--from a wound in the head." + +Paredes's fingers were restless, as if he missed his customary cigarette. +The detective strolled to the window. + +"Very interesting," he said. "Extremely interesting for old women and +young children. You may classify yourself, doctor." + +"Thanks," the doctor rumbled. "I'll wait until you've told me how these +doors were entered, how that wound was made, how this body turned on its +side in an empty room." + +The detective glanced at Bobby. His voice lacked confidence. + +"I'll do my best. I'll even try to tell you why the murderer came back +this afternoon to disturb his victim." + +Bobby went, curiously convinced that the doctor had had the better of +the argument. + +For a moment Katherine, Graham, Paredes, and he were alone in the +main hall. + +"God knows what it was," Graham said, "but it may mean something to you, +Bobby. Tell us carefully, Katherine, about the sounds that came to you +across the court." + +"It was just what I heard last night when he died," she answered. "It was +like something falling softly, then a long-drawn sigh. I tried to pay no +attention. I fought it. I didn't call at first. But I couldn't keep +quiet. I knew we had to go to that room. It never occurred to me that the +detective or the coroner might be there moving around." + +"You were alone up here?" Graham said. + +"I think so." + +"No," Bobby said. "I was in my room." + +"What were you doing?" Graham asked. + +"I was asleep. Katherine's call woke me up." + +"Asleep!" Paredes echoed. "And she didn't call at once--" + +He broke off. Bobby grasped his arm. + +"What are you trying to do?" + +"I'm sorry," Paredes said. "Now, really, you mustn't think of that. I +shouldn't have spoken. I'm more inclined to agree with the doctor's +theory, impossible as it seems." + +"Yesterday," Katherine said, "I would have thought it impossible. After +last night and just now I'm not so sure. I--I wish the doctor were right. +It would clear you, Bobby." + +He smiled. + +"Do you think any jury would listen to such a theory?" + +Katherine put her finger to her lips. Howells and the doctor came +from the corridor of the old wing. At the head of the stairs the +detective turned. + +"You will find it very warm and comfortable by the fire in the lower +hall, Mr. Blackburn." + +He waited until Katherine had slipped to her room until Graham, Paredes, +the doctor, and Bobby were on the stairs. Then he walked slowly into the +new corridor. + +Bobby knew what he was after. The detective had made no effort to +disguise his intention. He wanted Bobby out of the way while he searched +his room again, this time for a sharp, slender instrument capable of +penetrating between the bones at the base of a man's brain. + +Paredes lighted a cigarette and warmed his back at the fire. The doctor +settled himself in his chair. He paid no attention to the others. He +wouldn't answer Paredes's slow remarks. + +"Interesting, doctor! I am a little psychic. Always in this house I have +responded to strange, unfriendly influences. Always, as now, the approach +of night depresses me." + +Bobby couldn't sit still. He nodded at Graham, arose, got his coat and +hat, and stepped into the court. The dusk was already thick there. +Dampness and melancholy seemed to exude from the walls of the old house. +He paused and gazed at one of the foot-prints in the soft earth by the +fountain. Shreds of plaster adhered to the edges, testimony that the +detective had made his cast from this print. He tried to realize that +that mute, familiar impression had the power to send him to his +execution. Graham, who had come silently from the house, startled him. + +"What are you looking at?" + +"No use, Hartley. I was on the library lounge. I heard every word +Howells said." + +"Perhaps it's just as well," Graham said. "You know what you face. But I +hate to see you suffer. We've got to find a way around that evidence." + +Bobby pointed to the windows of the room of death. + +"There's no way around except the doctor's theory." + +He laughed shortly. + +"Much as I've feared that room, I'm afraid the psychic explanation won't +hold water. Paredes put his finger on it. I would have had time to get +back to my room before Katherine called--" + +"Stop, Bobby!" + +"Hartley! I'm afraid to go to sleep. It's dreadful not to know whether +you are active in your sleep, whether you are evil and ingenious to the +point of the miraculous in your sleep. I'm so tired, Hartley." + +"Why should you have gone to that room this afternoon?" Graham asked. +"You must get this idea out of your head. You must have sleep, and, +perhaps, when you're thoroughly rested, you will remember." + +"I'm not so sure," Bobby said, "that I want to remember." + +He pointed to the footprint. + +"There's no question. I was here last night." + +"Unless," Graham said, "your handkerchief and your shoes were stolen." + +"Nonsense!" Bobby cried. "The only motive would be to commit a murder in +order to kill me by sending me to the chair. And who would know his way +around that dark house like me? Who would have found out so easily that +my grandfather had changed his room?" + +"It's logical," Graham admitted slowly, "but we can't give in. By the +way, has Paredes ever borrowed any large sums?" + +Bobby hesitated. After all, Paredes and he had been good friends. + +"A little here and there," he answered reluctantly. + +"Has he ever paid you back?" + +"I don't recall," Bobby answered, flushing. "You know I've never been +exactly calculating about money. Whenever he wanted it I was always glad +to help Carlos out. Why do you ask?" + +"If any one," Graham answered, "looked on you as a certain source of +money, there would be a motive in conserving that source, in increasing +it. Probably lots of people knew Mr. Blackburn was out of patience with +you; would make a new will to-day." + +"Do you think," Bobby asked, "that Carlos is clever enough to have got +through those doors? And what about this afternoon--that ghastly +disturbing of the body?" + +He smiled wanly. + +"It looks like me or the ghosts of my ancestors." + +"If Paredes," Graham insisted, "tries to borrow any money from you now, +tell me about it. Another thing, Bobby. We can't afford to keep your +experiences of last night a secret any longer." + +He stepped to the door and asked Doctor Groom to come out. + +"He won't be likely to pass your confidences on to Howells," he said. +"Those men are natural antagonists." + +After a moment the doctor appeared, a slouch hat drawn low over his +shaggy forehead. + +"What you want?" he grumbled. "This court's a first-class place to catch +cold. Dampest hole in the neighbourhood. Often wondered why." + +"I want to ask you," Graham began, "something about the effects of such +drugs as could be given in wine. Tell him, will you, Bobby, what happened +last night?" + +Bobby vanquished the discomfort with which the gruff, opinionated +physician had always filled him. He recited the story of last night's +dinner, of his experience in the cafe, of his few blurred impressions of +the swaying vehicle and the woods. + +"Hartley thinks something may have been put in my wine." + +"What for?" the doctor asked. "What had these people to gain by drugging +you? Suppose for some far-fetched reason they wanted to have Silas +Blackburn put out of the way. They couldn't make you do it by drugging +you. At any rate, they couldn't have had a hand in this afternoon. Mind, +I'm not saying you had a thing to do with it yourself, but I don't +believe you were drugged. Any drug likely to be used in wine would +probably have sent you into a deep sleep. And your symptoms on waking up +are scarcely sharp enough. Sorry, boy. Sounds more like aphasia. The path +you've been treading sometimes leads to that black country, and it's +there that hates sharpen unknown. I remember a case where a tramp +returned and killed a farmer who had refused him food. Retained no +recollection of the crime--hours dropped out of his life. They executed +him while he still tried to remember." + +"I read something about the case," Bobby muttered. + +"Been better if you hadn't," the doctor grumbled. "Suggestions work in a +man's brain without his knowing it." + +He thought for a moment, his heavy, black brows coming closer together. +He glanced at the windows of the old room. His sunken, infused eyes +nearly closed. + +"I know how you feel, and that's a little punishment maybe you deserve. +I'll say this for your comfort. You probably followed the plan that had +been impressed on your brain by Mr. Graham. You came here, no doubt, and +stood around. With an automatic appreciation of your condition you may +have taken that old precaution of convivial men returning home, and +removed your shoes. Then your automatic judgment may have warned you that +you weren't fit to go in at all, and you probably wandered off to the +empty house." + +"Then," Bobby asked, "you don't think I did it?" + +"God knows who did it. God knows what did it. The longer I live the surer +I become that we scientists can't probe everything. Whenever I go near +Silas Blackburn's body I receive a very powerful impression that his +death in that room from such a wound goes deeper than ordinary murder, +deeper than a case of recurrent aphasia." + +His eyes widened. He turned with Graham and Bobby at the sound of an +automobile coming through the woods. + +"Probably the coroner at last," he said. + +The automobile, a small runabout, drew up at the entrance to the court. A +little wizened man, with yellowish skin stretched across high cheek +bones, stepped out and walked up the path. + +"Well!" he said shrilly. "What you doing, Doctor Groom?" + +"Waiting to witness another reason why coroners should be abolished," the +doctor rumbled. "This is the dead man's grandson, Coroner; and Mr. +Graham, a friend of the family's." + +Bobby accepted the coroner's hand with distaste. + +"Howells," the coroner said in his squeaky voice, "seems to think it's a +queer case. Inconvenient, I call it. Wish people wouldn't die queerly +whenever I go on a little holiday. I had got five ducks, gentlemen, when +they came to me with that damned telegram. Bad business mine, 'cause +people will die when you least expect them to. Let's go see what Howells +has got on his mind. Bright sleuth, Howells! Ought to be in New York." + +He started up the path, side by side with Doctor Groom. + +"Are you coming?" Graham asked Bobby. Bobby shook his head. "I don't want +to. I'd rather stay outside. You'd better be there, Hartley." + +Graham followed the others while Bobby wandered from the court and +started down a path that entered the woods from the rear of the house. + +Immediately the forest closed greedily about him. Here and there, where +the trees were particularly stunted, branches cut against a pallid, +greenish glow in the west--the last light. + +Bobby wanted, if he could, to find that portion of the woods where he had +stood last night, fancying the trees straining in the wind like puny men, +visualizing a dim figure in a black mask which he had called his +conscience. + +The forest was all of a pattern--ugly, unfriendly, melancholy. He went +on, however, hoping to glimpse that particular picture he remembered. He +left the path, walking at haphazard among the undergrowth. Ahead he saw a +placid, flat, and faintly luminous stretch. He pushed through the bushes +and paused on the shore of a lake, small and stagnant. Dead, stripped +trunks of trees protruded from the water. At the end a bird arose with a +sudden flapping of wings; it cried angrily as it soared above the trees +and disappeared to the south. + +The morbid loneliness of the place touched Bobby's spirit with chill +hands. As a child he had never cared to play about the stagnant lake, +nor, he recalled, had the boys of the village fished or bathed there. +Certainly he hadn't glimpsed it last night. He was about to walk away +when a movement on the farther bank held him, made him gaze with eager +eyes across the sleepy water. + +He thought there was something black in the black shadows of the +trees--a thing that stirred through the heavy dusk without sound. He +received, moreover, an impression of anger and haste as distinct as the +bird had projected. But he could see nothing clearly in this bad light. +He couldn't be sure that there was any one over there. + +He started around the end of the lake, and for a moment he thought that +the shape of a woman, clothed in black, detached itself from the +shadow. The image dissolved. He wondered if it had been more +substantial than fancy. + +"Who is that?" he called. + +The woods muffled his voice. There was no answer. Nor was there, he +noticed, any crackling of twigs or rustling of dead leaves. If there +had been a woman there she had fled noiselessly, yet, as he went on +around the lake, his own progress was distinctly audible through the +decay of autumn. + +It was too dark on the other side to detect any traces of a recent human +presence in the thicket. He couldn't quiet, however, the feeling that he +had had a glimpse of a woman clothed in black who had studied him +secretly across the stagnant stretch of the lake. + +On the other hand, there was no logic in a woman's presence here at such +an hour, no logic in a stranger's running away from him. While he +pondered the night invaded the forest completely, making it impossible +for him to search farther. It had grown so dark, indeed, that he found +his way out with difficulty. The branches caught at his clothing. The +underbrush tangled itself about his feet. It was as if the thicket were +trying to hold him away from the house. + +As he entered the court he noticed a discoloured glow diffusing itself +through the curtains of the room of death. + +He opened the front door. Paredes and Graham alone sat by the fire. + +"Then they're not through yet," Bobby said. + +Graham arose. He commenced to pace the length of the hall. + +"They've had Katherine in that room. One would think she'd been through +enough. Now they've sent for the servants." + +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"After this," he said, "I'm afraid, Bobby, you'll need the powers of the +police to keep servants in your house." + +Muttering, frightened voices came from the dining-room. Jenkins entered, +and, shaking his head, went up the stairs. The two women who followed +him, were in tears. They paused, as if seeking an excuse to linger on +the lower floor, to postpone as long as possible their entrance of the +room of death. + +Ella, a pretty girl, whose dark hair and eyes suggested a normal +vivacity, spoke to Bobby. + +"It's outrageous, Mr. Robert. He found out all we knew this morning. +What's he after now? You might think we'd murdered Mr. Blackburn." + +Jane was older. An ugly scar crossed her cheek. It was red and like an +open wound as she demanded that Bobby put a stop to these inquisitions. + +"I can do nothing," he said. "Go on up and answer or they can make +trouble for you." + +Muttering again to each other, they followed Jenkins, and in the lower +hall the three men waited. + +Jenkins came down first. His face was white. It twitched. + +"The body!" he mouthed. "It's moved! I saw it before." + +He stretched out his hands to Bobby. + +"That's why they wanted us, to find out where we were this afternoon, and +everything we've done, as if we might have gone there, and disturbed--" + +Angry voices in the upper hall interrupted him. The two women ran down, +as white as Jenkins. At an impatient nod from Bobby the three servants +went on to the kitchen. Howells, the coroner, and Doctor Groom descended. + +"What ails you, Doctor?" the coroner was squeaking. "I agree it's an +unpleasant room. Lots of old rooms are. I follow you when you say no +post-mortem contraction would have caused such an alteration in the +position of the body. There's no question about the rest of it. The man +was clearly murdered with a sharp tool of some sort, and the murderer was +in the room again this afternoon, and disturbed the corpse. Howells says +he knows who. It's up to him to find out how. He says he has plenty of +evidence and that the guilty person's in this house, so I'm not fretting +myself. I'm cross with you, Howells, for breaking up my holiday. One of +my assistants would have done as well." + +Howells apparently paid no attention to the coroner. His narrow eyes +followed the doctor with a growing curiosity. His level smile seemed +to have drawn his lips into a line, inflexible, a little cruel. The +doctor grunted: + +"Instead of abolishing coroners we ought to double their salaries." + +The coroner made a long squeak as an indication of mirth. + +"You think unfriendly spooks did it. I've always believed you were an old +fogy. Hanged if that doesn't sound modern." + +The doctor ran his fingers through his thick, untidy hair. + +"I merely ask for the implement that caused death. I only ask to know how +it was inserted through the bed while Blackburn lay on his back. And if +you've time you might tell me how the murderer entered the room last +night and to-day." + +The coroner repeated his squeak. He glanced at the little group by the +fire. + +"Out in the kitchen, upstairs, or right here under our noses is almost +certainly the person who could tell us. Interesting case, Howells!" + +Howells, who still watched the doctor, answered dryly: + +"Unusually interesting." + +The coroner struggled into his coat. + +"Permits are all available," he squeaked. "Have your undertakers out when +you like." + +Graham answered him brusquely. + +"Everything's arranged. I've only to telephone." + +The coroner nodded at Doctor Groom. His voice pointed its humour with a +thinner tone. + +"If I were you, Howells, I'd take this hairy old theorist up as a +suspicious character." + +The doctor made a movement in his direction while Howells continued to +stare. The doctor checked himself. He went to the closet and got his +hat and coat. + +"Want me to drop you, old sawbones?" the coroner asked. + +Savagely the doctor shook his head. + +"My buggy's in the stable." + +The coroner's squeak was thinner, more irritating than ever. + +"Then don't let the spooks get you, driving through the woods. Old folks +say there are a-plenty there." + +Bobby arose. He couldn't face the prospect of the man's squeaking again. + +"We find nothing to laugh at in this situation," he said. "You're +quite through?" + +The coroner's eyes blazed. + +"I'm through, if that's the way you feel. Goodnight." He added with a +sharp maliciousness: "I leave my sympathy for whoever Howells has his +eagle eye on." + +Howells, when the doctor and the coroner had gone, excused himself with a +humility that mocked the others: + +"With your permission I shall write in the library until dinner." + +He bowed and left. + +"He wants to work on his report," Graham suggested. + +"An exceptional man!" Paredes murmured. + +"Has he questioned you?" Graham asked. + +"I'd scarcely call it that," Paredes replied. "We've both questioned, and +we've both been clams. I fancy he doesn't think much of me since I +believe in ghosts, yet the doctor seems to interest him." + +"Where were you?" Graham asked, "when Miss Perrine's scream called us?" + +Paredes stifled a yawn. + +"Dozing here by the fire. I am very tired after last night." + +"You don't look particularly tired." + +"Custom, I'm ashamed to say, constructs a certain armour. To-morrow, with +a fresh mind, I hope to be able to dissect all I have seen and heard, all +that has happened here to-day." + +"The thing that counts is what happened to me last night, Carlos," Bobby +said. "It's the only way you can help me." + +As Paredes strolled to the foot of the stairs Bobby waited for a +defensive reply, for a sign, perhaps, that the Panamanian was offended +and proposed to depart. Paredes, however, went upstairs, yawning. He +called back: + +"I must make myself a trifle more presentable for dinner." + +Graham faced Bobby with the old question: + +"What can he want hanging around here unless it's money?" And after a +moment: "He's clever--hard to sound. I have to leave you, Bobby. I must +telephone--the ugly formalities." + +"It's good of you to take them off my mind," Bobby answered. + +He remained in his chair, gazing drowsily at the fire, trying, +always trying to remember, yet finding no new light among the +shadows of his memory. + +Just before dinner Katherine joined him. She wore a sombre gown that +made her face seem too white, that heightened the groping curiosity +of her eyes. + +Without speaking she sat down beside him and stared, too, at the +smouldering fire. From her presence, from her tactful silence he drew +comfort--to an extent, rest. + +"You make me ashamed," he whispered once. "I've been a beast, leaving you +here alone these weeks. You don't understand quite, why that was." She +wouldn't let him go on. She shook her head. They remained silently by the +fire until Graham and Paredes joined them. + +When dinner was announced the detective came from the library, and, +uninvited, sat at the table with them. His report evidently still +filled his mind, for he spoke only when it was unavoidable and then +in monosyllables. Paredes alone ate with a show of enjoyment, alone +attempted to talk. Eventually even he fell silent before the lack +of response. + +Afterward he arranged a small card table by the fire in the hall. He +found cards, and, with a package of cigarettes and a box of matches +convenient to his hand, commenced to play solitaire. The detective, Bobby +gathered, had brought his report up to date, for he lounged near by, +watching the Panamanian's slender fingers as they handled the cards +deftly. Bobby, Graham, and Katherine were glad to withdraw beyond the +range of those narrow, searching eyes. They entered the library and +closed the door. + +Graham, expectant of a report from his man in New York as to the +movements of Maria and the identity of the stranger, was restless. + +"If we could only get one fact," he said, "one reasonable clue that +didn't involve Bobby! I've never felt so at sea. I wonder if, in spite of +Howells's evidence, we're not all a little afraid since this afternoon, +of something such as Katherine felt last night--something we can't +define. Howells alone is satisfied. We must believe in the hand of +another man. Doctor Groom talks about indefinable hands." + +"Uncle Silas was so afraid last night!" Katherine whispered. + +"That," Bobby cried, "is the fact we must have." + +He paused. + +"What's that?" he asked sharply. + +They sat for some time, listening to the sound of wheels on the gravel, +to the banging of the front door, and, later, to the pacing of men in the +room of death overhead. They tried again to thread the mazes of this +problem whose only conceivable exit led to Bobby's guilt. The movements +upstairs persisted. At last they became measured and dragging, like the +footsteps of men who carried some heavy burden. + +They looked at each other then. Katherine hid her eyes. + +"It's like a tomb here," Bobby said. + +He arranged kindling in the fireplace and touched a match to it. It +hadn't occurred to him to ring for Jenkins. None of them wished to be +disturbed. Eventually it was the detective who intruded. He strolled in, +glanced at them curiously for a moment, then walked to the door of the +enclosed staircase. He grasped the knob. + +"To-night," he announced, "I am trying a small experiment on the +chance of clearing up the last details of the mystery. Since it +depends on the courage of whoever murdered Mr. Blackburn I've small +hope of its success." + +He indicated the ceiling. "You've heard, I daresay, what's been going on +up there. Mr. Blackburn's body has been removed to his own room. The room +where he was killed is empty. I mean to go up and enter and lock the +doors as he did last night. I shall leave the window up as it was last +night. I shall blow out the candle as he did." + +He lowered his voice. He looked directly at Bobby. His words carried a +definite challenge. + +"I shall lie on the bed and await the murderer under the precise +conditions Mr. Blackburn did." + +"What do you expect to gain by that?" Graham asked. + +"Probably nothing," Howells answered, "because, as I have said, success +depends upon the courage of a man who kills in the dark while his victim +sleeps. I simply give him the chance to attack me as he did Mr. +Blackburn. Of course he realizes it would be a good deal to his advantage +to have me out of the way. I ask him to come, therefore, as stealthily as +he did last night. I beg him to match his skill with mine. I want him to +play his miracle with the window or one of the locks. But I'll wager he +hasn't the nerve, although I don't see why he should hesitate. He's a +doomed man. I shall make my arrest in the morning. I shall publish all my +evidence." + +Bobby wouldn't meet the narrow, menacing eyes, for he knew that Howells +challenged him to a duel of slyness with the whole truth at stake. The +detective's manner increased the hatred which had blazed in Bobby's mind +when he had stood in the bedroom over his grandfather's body. For a +moment he wished with all his heart that he might accept the challenge. +He did the best he could. + +"I gather," he said, "that you haven't unearthed the motive for +disturbing the body. And have you found the sharp instrument that +caused death?" + +The detective answered tolerantly: + +"I have found a number of sharp instruments. None of them, however, seems +quite slender or round enough. I'll get all that out of my man when I +lock him up. I'll get it to-night if he dares come." + +"Why," Graham said, "do you announce your plans so accurately to us?" + +The detective's level smile widened. + +"You shouldn't ask that, Mr. Graham. I've caused the servants to know my +plans. Mr. Paredes knows them. I wish every one in the house to know +them. That is in order that the murderer, who is in the house, may come +if he wishes." + +Katherine arose abruptly. + +"When you come down to it," she said, "you are accusing one of us. It's +brutal, unfair--absurd." + +"I am a detective, Miss," Howells answered. "I have my own methods." + +Bobby stared at the slight protuberance in the breast pocket of the +detective's coat. The cast of his footprint must be secreted there, and +almost certainly the handkerchief which had been found beneath the bed. +He shrank from his own thoughts. + +If he had consciously committed this murder he could understand a desire +to get that evidence. + +Katherine had gone closer to the detective. + +"In any case," she urged him, "I wish you wouldn't try to spend the night +in that room. It isn't pleasant. After what the doctor has said, +it--well, it isn't safe." + +Howells burst out laughing. + +"Never fear, Miss. I'm content to give Doctor Groom's spirits as much +chance to take a fall out of me as anybody. I'll be going up now." He +bowed. "Good-night to you all, and pleasant dreams." + +He opened the door and slipped into the darkness of the private +staircase. They heard him, after he had closed the door, climbing upward. +Katherine shivered. + +"He has plenty of courage, Hartley! If nothing happens to him to-night +he'll finish Bobby in the morning. That mustn't happen. He mustn't go to +jail. You understand. Things would never be the same for him again." + +Graham spread his hands. + +"What am I to do? I might go to New York and get after these +people myself." + +"Don't leave the Cedars," Bobby begged, "until he does arrest me. +There'll be plenty of time for the New York end then. I've no faith in +it. Watch Carlos if you want, but most important of all, find +out--somehow you've got to find out--what my grandfather was afraid of." + +Graham nodded. + +"And if it does come to an arrest, Bobby, you're not to say a word to +anybody without my advice. You ought to get to bed now. You must have +rest, and Katherine, too. Don't listen to-night, Katherine, for messages +from across the court." + +"I'll try," she said, "but, Hartley, I wish that man wasn't there. I wish +no one was in that room." + +She took Bobby's hand. + +"Good-night, Bobby, and don't give up hope. We'll do something. Somehow +we'll pull you through." + +Bobby waited, hoping that Graham would offer to share his room with him. +For, as he had said earlier, the prospect of going to sleep, of losing +control of his thoughts and actions, appalled him. Yet such an offer, he +realized, must impress Graham as delicate, as an indication that he +really doubted Bobby's innocence, as a sort of spying. He wasn't +surprised, therefore, when Graham only said: + +"I'll be in the next room, Bobby. If you're restless or need me you've +only to knock on the wall." + +Bobby didn't leave the library with them. The warmth with which Katherine +had just filled him faded as he watched her go out side by side with +Graham. Her hand was on Graham's arm. There was, he fancied, in her eyes +an emotion deeper than gratitude or friendship. He sighed as the door +closed behind them. He was himself largely to blame for that situation. +His very revolt against its imminence had hastened its shaping. + +He walked anxiously to the table. He had remembered the medicine Doctor +Groom had prepared for him that afternoon to make him sleep. He hadn't +taken it then. If it remained where he had left it, which was likely +enough in the disordered state of the household, he would drink it now. +Reinforced by his complete weariness, it ought to send him into a sleep +profound enough to drown any possible abnormal impulses of +unconsciousness. + +The glass was there. He drained it, and stood for a time looking at the +pinkish sediment in the bottom. That was all right for to-night, but +afterward--he couldn't shrink perpetually from sleep. He shrugged his +shoulders, remembering it would make little difference what he did in his +sleep when they had him behind prison bars. Perhaps this would be his +last night of freedom. + +He found Paredes still in the hall. The Panamanian, with languid +gestures, continued to play his solitaire. His box of cigarettes was +much reduced. + +"I thought you were tired, Carlos." + +Paredes glanced up. His eyes were neither weary nor alert. As usual his +expression disclosed nothing of his thoughts, yet he must have read in +Bobby's tone a reproach at this indifference. + +"The game intrigues me," he murmured, "and you know," he added dreamily. +"I sometimes think better while I amuse myself." + +Bobby nodded good-night and went on up to his room. Even while he +undressed the effects of the doctor's narcotic were perceptible. His eyes +had grown heavy, his brain a trifle numb. + +Almost apathetically he assured himself that he couldn't accomplish these +mad actions in his sleep. + +"Yet last night--" he murmured. "That finishes me in the eyes of the +law. The doctor will testify to aphasia. According to him I am two +men--two men!" + +He yawned, recalling snatches of books he had read and one or two +scientific reports of such cases. He climbed into bed and blew out his +candle. His drowsiness thickened. In his dulled mind one recollection +remained--the picture of Howells coldly challenging him with his level +smile to make a secret entrance of the old bedroom in a murderous effort +to escape the penalty of the earlier crime. And Howells had been right. +His death would give Bobby a chance. The destruction of the evidence, the +bringing into the case of a broader-minded man, a man without a carefully +constructed theory--all that would help Bobby, might save him. Howells, +moreover, had indicated that he had so far withheld his evidence. But +that was probably a bait. + +In his drowsy way Bobby hated more powerfully than before this detective +who, with a serene malevolence, made him writhe in his net. Thought +ceased. He drifted into a trance-like sleep. He swung in the black pit +again, fighting out against crushing odds. The darkness thundered as +though informing him that graver forces than any he had ever imagined +had definitely grasped him. Then he understood. He was in a black cell, +and the thundering was the steady advance of men along an iron floor to +take him-- + +"Bobby! Bobby!" + +He flung out his hands. He sat upright, opening his eyes. The blackness +assumed the familiar, yielding quality of the night. The thunder, the +footfalls, became a hurried knocking at his door. + +"Bobby! You're there--" It was Katherine. Her tone made the night as +frightening as the blackness of the pit. + +"What's the matter?" + +"You're there. I didn't know. Get up. Hartley's putting some clothes on. +Hurry! The house is so dark--so strange." + +"Tell me what's happened." + +She didn't answer at first. He struck a match, lighted his candle, threw +on a dressing gown, and stepped to the door. Katherine shrank against +the wall, hiding her eyes from the light of his candle. He thought it +odd she should wear the dress in which she had appeared at dinner. But +it seemed indifferently fastened, and her hair was in disorder. Graham +stepped from his room. + +"What is it?" Bobby demanded. + +"You wouldn't wake up, Bobby. You were so hard to wake." The idea seemed +to fill her mind. She repeated it several times. + +"It's nothing," Graham said. "Go back to your room, Katherine. She's +fanciful--" + +She lowered her hands. Her eyes were full of terror. "No. We have to go +to that room as I went last night, as we went to-day." + +Graham tried to quiet her. "We'll go to satisfy you." + +Her voice hardened. "I know. I was asleep. It woke me up, stealing in +across the court again." + +Bobby grasped her arm. "You came out and aroused up at once?" + +She shook her head. "I--I couldn't find my dressing gown. This dress was +by the bed. I put it on, but I couldn't seem to fasten it." + +Bobby stepped back, remembering his last thought before drifting into the +trance-like sleep. She seemed to know what was in his mind. + +"But when I knocked you were sleeping so soundly." + +"Too soundly, perhaps." + +"Come. We're growing imaginative," Graham said. "Howells would take care +of himself. He'll probably give us the deuce for disturbing him, but to +satisfy you, Katherine, we'll wake him up." + +"If you can," she whispered. + +They entered the main hall. Light came through the stair well from the +lower floor. Graham walked to the rail and glanced down. Bobby followed +him. On the table by the fireplace the cards were arranged in neat +piles. A strong draft blew cigarette smoke up to them. + +"Paredes," Graham said, amazed, "is still downstairs. The front door's +open. He's probably in the court." + +"It must be very late," Bobby said. + +Katherine shivered. + +"Half-past two. I looked at my watch. The same time as last night." + +With a gesture of resolution she led the way into the corridor. Bobby +shrank from the damp and musty atmosphere of the narrow passage. + +"Why do you come, Katherine?" he asked. + +"I have to know, as I had to know last night." + +Graham raised his hand and knocked at the door which again was locked on +the inside. The echoes chattered back at them. Graham knocked again. With +a passionate revolt Katherine raised her hands, too, and pounded at the +panels. Suddenly she gave up. She let her hands fall listlessly. + +"It's no use." + +"Howells! Howells!" Graham called. "Why don't you answer?" + +"When he boasted to-night," Katherine whispered, "the murderer +heard him." + +"Suppose he's gone down to the library?" Graham said. + +Bobby gave Katherine the candle. + +"No. He'd have stayed. We've got to break in here. We've got to +find out." + +Graham placed his powerful shoulder against the door. The lock strained. +Bobby added his weight. With a splintering of wood the door flew open, +precipitating them across the threshold. Through the darkness Graham +sprang for the opposite door. + +"It's locked," he called, "and the key's on this side." + +Bobby took the candle from Katherine and forced himself to approach the +bed. The flame flickered a little in the breeze which stole past the +curtain of the open window. It shook across the body of Howells, fully +clothed with his head on the stained pillow. His face, intricately lined, +was as peaceful as Silas Blackburn's had been. Its level smile persisted. + +Bobby caught his breath. + +"Howells--" + +He set the candle on the bureau. + +"It's no use. We must look at the back of his head." + +"The back of his head!" Katherine echoed. + +"It's illegal," Graham said. + +"Look!" Bobby cried. "We've got to look!" + +Graham tiptoed forward. He stretched out his hand. With a motion of +abhorrence he drew it back. Bobby watched him hypnotically, thinking: + +"I wanted this. I hated him. I thought of it just before I went to +sleep." + +Graham reached out again. This time he touched Howells's head. It rolled +over on the pillow. + +"Good God!" he said. + +They stared at the red hole, near the base of the brain, at a fresh +crimson splotch, straying beyond the edges of the darker one they had +seen that afternoon. + +Graham turned away, his hand still outstretched, as if it had touched +some poisonous thing and might retain a contamination. + +"He was prepared against it," he whispered, "expected it, yet it got +him." + +He glanced rapidly around the room whose shadows seemed crowding about +the candle to stifle it. + +"Unless we're all mad," he cried, "the murderer must be hidden in this +room now. Don't you see? He's got to be, or Groom's right, and we're +fighting the dead. Go out, Katherine. Stand by that broken door, Bobby. +I'm going to look." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A STRANGE LIGHT APPEARS AT THE DESERTED HOUSE + + +Graham's intention, logical as it was, impressed Bobby as quite futile. +Silas Blackburn had died in this ancient, melancholy room behind locked +doors. This afternoon, with a repetition of the sounds that had probably +accompanied his death, they had been drawn to find that, behind locked +doors again, the position of the body had changed incredibly, as if to +expose to them the tiny fatal wound at the base of the brain. Now for the +third time those stealthy movements had aroused Katherine, and they had +found, once more behind locked doors, the determined and malicious +detective, murdered precisely as old Blackburn had been. + +Of course Graham was logical. By every rational argument the murderer +must still be in the room. Yet Bobby foresaw that, as always, no one +would be found, that nothing would be unearthed to explain the succession +of tragic mysteries. While Graham commenced his search, indeed, he +continued to stare at the little round hole in Howells's head, at the +fresh, irregular stain on the pillow, and he became absorbed in his own +predicament. Again and again he asked himself if he could be responsible +for these murders which had been committed with an inhuman ingenuity. He +knew only that he had wandered, unconscious, in the vicinity of the +Cedars last night; that he had been asleep when his grandfather's body +had altered its position; that he had gone to sleep a little while ago +too profoundly, brooding over Howells's challenge to the murderer to +invade the room of death and kill him if he could. Howells had been +confident that he could handle a man and so solve the riddle of how the +room had been entered. Certainly Howells's challenge had been accepted, +and Bobby knew that he had fallen into that deep sleep hating the +detective, telling himself that the man's death might save him from +arrest, from conviction, from an intolerable walk to a little room with a +single chair. + +"Recurrent aphasia." The doctor's expression came back to him. In such a +state a man could overcome locked doors, could accomplish apparent +miracles and retain no recollection. And Bobby had hated and feared +Howells more than he had his grandfather. + +Dully he saw Katherine go out at Graham's direction. As one in a dream he +moved toward the door they had had to break down on entering. + +"Stand close to it," Graham said. "We'll cover everything." + +"You'll find no one," Bobby answered with a perfect assurance. + +He saw Graham take the candle and explore the large closets. He watched +him examine the spaces behind the window curtains. He could smile a +little as Graham stooped, peering beneath the bed, as he moved each piece +of furniture large enough to secrete a man. + +"You see, Hartley, it's no use." + +Graham's lack of success, however, stimulated his anger. + +"Then," he said, "there must be some hiding place in the walls. Such +devices are common in houses as old as this." + +Bobby indicated the silent form of the detective. + +"He believed I killed my grandfather. The only reason he didn't arrest me +was his failure to find out how the room had been entered and left. Don't +you suppose he looked for a hiding place or a secret entrance the first +thing? It's obvious." + +But Graham's savage determination increased. He sounded each panel. None +gave the slightest revealing response. He got a tape from Katherine and +measured the dimensions of the room, the private hall, and the corridor. +At last he turned to Bobby, his anger dead, his face white and tired. + +"Everything checks," he admitted. "There's no secret room, no way in or +out. Logically Groom's right. We're fighting the dead who resent the +intrusion of your grandfather and Howells." + +He laughed mirthlessly. + +"After all, we can't surrender to that. There must be another answer." + +"From the first Howells was satisfied with me," Bobby said. + +Graham flung up his hands. + +"Then tell me how you got in without disturbing those locks. I grant you, +Bobby, you had sufficient motive for both murders, but I don't believe +you have two personalities, one decent and lovable, the other cruel and +cunning to the point of magic. I don't believe if a man had two such +personalities the actions of one would be totally closed to the memory of +the other." + +Bobby smiled wanly. + +"It isn't pleasant to confess it, Hartley, but I have read of such +cases." + +"Fiction!" + +"Scientific fact." + +"I wish to the devil I had shared your room with you to-night," Graham +muttered. "I might have furnished you an alibi for this affair at least." + +"Either that," Bobby answered frankly, "or you might have followed me and +learned the whole secret. Honestly, isn't that what you were thinking of, +Hartley? And I did go to sleep, telling myself it would help me if +something of the sort happened to Howells. Now I'm not so sure that it +will. I--I suppose you've got to notify the police." + +Graham held up his hand. + +"What's that? In the corridor!" + +There were quiet footsteps in the corridor. Bobby turned quickly, +Paredes strolled slowly through the passage, a cigarette held in his +slender, listless fingers. Bobby stared at him, remembering his surprise +a few minutes ago that the Panamanian should have sat up so late, should +have been, probably, in the court when they had followed Katherine to the +discovery of this new crime. + +Paredes paused in the doorway. He took in the tragic picture framed by +the sinister room without displaying the slightest interest. He continued +to hold his cigarette until it expired. Then he crossed the threshold. +Graham and Bobby watched the expressionless face. Gracefully Paredes +raised his finger and pointed to the bed. When he spoke his voice was low +and pleasant: + +"Appalling! I feared something of the kind when I heard you come to +this room." + +He glanced at the broken door. + +"The same unbelievable circumstance," he drawled. "I see you had to +break in." + +The colour flashed back to Graham's face. + +"You have taken plenty of time to solve your misgivings." + +"It hasn't been so long. I fancied everything was all right, and I was +immersed in my solitaire. Then I heard a stirring upstairs. As I've told +you, the house frightens me. It is not natural or healthy. So I came up +to investigate this stirring, and there was Miss Katherine in the hall. +She told me." + +Graham faced him with undisguised enmity. + +"Immersed in your solitaire! We were attracted by a light in the lower +hall at such an hour. We looked down. You were not there. The front door +was open." + +Paredes glanced at his cold cigarette. He yawned. + +"When Howells died precisely as Mr. Blackburn did," Graham hurried on, +"you alone were awake about the house. Weren't you at that moment in +the court?" + +Paredes laughed tolerantly. + +"It is clear, in spite of my apologies, that we are not friends, Graham; +but, may I ask, are you accusing me of this strange--accident?" + +"I should like to know what you were doing in the court." + +"Perhaps," Paredes answered, "I was attracted there by the sounds that +aroused Miss Katherine." + +Graham shook his head. + +"From her description I doubt if those sounds would have been audible in +the hall." + +"No matter," Paredes said. "I merely suggest that it's a case for Groom. +His hint of a spiritual enmity may be saner than you think." + +Katherine appeared in the doorway. She had evidently overheard Paredes's +comment, for she nodded. The determination in her eyes suggested that she +had struggled with the situation during these last moments and had +reached a definite conclusions That quality was in her voice. + +"At least, Hartley," she said, "you must send for Doctor Groom before +you notify the police." + +Graham waved his hand. + +"Why?" he asked. "The man is dead." + +With a movement, hidden from Paredes, she indicated Bobby. + +"Last time there was a good deal of delay before the doctor came. If we +get him right away he may be able to do something for this poor fellow. +At least his advice would be useful." + +Bobby realized that she was fighting for time for him. Any delay would be +useful that would give them a chance to plan before the police with +unimaginative efficiency should invade the house and limit their +opportunities. Graham showed that he caught her point. + +"Maybe it's better," he said. "Then, Bobby, telephone Groom to be ready +for you, and take my runabout. It's in the stable. You'll get him here +much faster than he could come in his carriage." + +"While I'm gone," Bobby asked, "what will you do?" + +"Watch this room," Graham jerked out. "See that no one enters or leaves +it, or touches the body. I'll hope for some clue." + +"You've plenty of courage," Paredes drawled. "I shouldn't care to watch +alone in this room." + +He followed Katherine into the corridor. Bobby looked at Graham. + +"You'll take no chances, Hartley?" + +Graham's smile wasn't pleasant. + +"According to you and the dead detective there's no risk while you're out +of the house. Still, I shall be nervous, but don't worry." + +Bobby joined the others before they had reached the hall. + +"Of course Hartley found nothing," Katherine said to him. + +"Nothing," Paredes answered, "except a very bad temper." + +Katherine's distaste for the man was no longer veiled. + +"You don't like Mr. Graham," she said, "but he is our friend, and he is +in this house to help us." + +Paredes bowed. + +"I regret that the amusement Mr. Graham causes me sometimes finds +expression. He is so earnest, so materialistic in his relation to the +world. That is why he will see nothing psychic in the situation." + +Paredes's easy contempt was like a tonic for Katherine. Her fear seemed +to drop from her. She turned purposefully to Bobby, ignoring the +Panamanian. + +"I shall watch with Hartley," she said. + +He was ashamed that jealousy should creep into such a moment, but her +resolve recalled his amorous discontent. The prospect of Graham and her, +watching alone, drawn to each other by their fright and uncertainty, by +their surroundings, by the hour, became unbearable. It placed him, to an +extent, on Paredes's side. It urged him, when Paredes had gone on +downstairs, to spring almost eagerly to his defence. + +"As Hartley says," Katherine began, "he makes you think of a snake. He +must see we dislike and resent him." + +"You and Hartley, perhaps," Bobby said. "Carlos says he is here to help +me. I've no reason to disbelieve him." + +A little colour came into Katherine's face. She half stretched out her +hand as if in an appeal. But the colour faded and her hand dropped. + +"We are wasting time," she said. "You had better go." + +"I am sorry we disagree about Carlos," he commenced. + +She turned deliberately away from him. + +"You must hurry," she said. "Hurry!" + +He saw her enter the corridor to join Graham. The obscurity of the narrow +place seemed to hold for him a new menace. + +He walked downstairs slowly. While he telephoned, instructing a servant +to tell the doctor to be dressed and ready in twenty minutes, he saw +Paredes go to the closet and get his hat and coat. + +"I shall keep you company," the Panamanian announced. + +Bobby was glad enough to have him. He didn't want to be alone. He was +aware by this time that no amount of thought would persuade useful +memories to emerge from the black pit. They walked to the stable, half +gone to ruin like the rest of the estate. Bobby started Graham's car. The +servants' quarters, he saw, were dark. Then Jenkins and the two women +hadn't been aroused, were still ignorant of the new crime. As they drove +smoothly past the gloomy house they glimpsed through the court the dimly +lit windows of the old room that persistently guarded its grim secret. +Bobby pictured the living as well as the dead there, and his mind +revolted, and he shivered. He opened the throttle wider. The car sprang +forward. The divergent glare from the headlights forced back the +reluctant thicket. Paredes drawled unexpectedly: + +"There is nothing as lonely anywhere in the world." + +He stooped behind the windshield and lighted a cigarette. + +"At least. Bobby," he said between puffs, "the Cedars has taken from you +the fear of Howells." + +And after a time, staring at the glow of his cigarette, he went on +softly: + +"Have you noticed anything significant about the discovery of each +mystery at the Cedars?" + +"Many things," Bobby muttered. + +"Think," Paredes urged him. + +Bobby answered angrily: + +"You've suggested that to me once to-day, Carlos. You mean that each time +I have been asleep or unconscious." + +"I mean something quite different," Paredes said. + +He hesitated. When he continued, his drawl was more pronounced. + +"Then you haven't remarked that each time it has been Miss Katherine who +has made the discovery, who has aroused the rest of the house?" + +The car swerved sharply. Bobby's first impulse had been to take his hands +from the wheel, to force Paredes to retract his sly insinuation. + +"That's the rottenest thing I've ever known you to do, Carlos. +Take it back." + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is nothing to take back. I accuse no one. I merely call attention +to a chain of exceptional coincidences." + +"You make me wonder," Bobby said, "if Hartley isn't justified in his +dislike of you. You'll kill such a ridiculous suspicion." + +"Or?" Paredes drawled. "Very well. It seems my fate recently to offend +those I like best. I merely thought that any theory leading away from you +would be welcome." + +"Any theory," Bobby answered, "involving Katherine is unthinkable." + +Paredes smiled. + +"I didn't understand exactly how you felt. I rather took it for granted +that Graham--Never mind. I take it back." + +"Then drop it," Bobby answered sullenly, sorry that there was nothing +else he could say. + +They continued in silence through the deserted forest whose aggressive +loneliness made words seem trivial. Bobby was asking himself again where +he had stood last night when he had glimpsed for a moment the straining +trees and the figure in a mask which he had called his conscience. If he +could only prove that figure substantial! Then Graham would have some +ground for his suspicion of Paredes and the dancer Maria. He glanced at +Paredes. Could there have been a conspiracy against him in the New York +cafe? Did Paredes, in fact, have some devious purpose in remaining at +the Cedars? + +The automobile took a sharp curve in the road. Bobby started, gazing +ahead with an interest nearly hypnotic. The headlights had caught in +their glare the deserted farmhouse in which he had awakened just before +Howells had told him of his grandfather's death and practically placed +him under arrest. In the white light the frame of the house from which +the paint had flaked, appeared ghastly, unreal, like a structure seen in +a nightmare from which one recoils with morbid horror. The light left the +building. As the car tore past, Bobby could barely make out the black +mass in the midst of the thicket. + +Paredes had observed it, too. + +"I daresay," he remarked casually, "the Cedars will become as deserted as +that. It is just that it should, for the entire neighbourhood impresses +one as unfriendly to life, as striving through death to drive life out." + +"Have you ever seen that house before?" Bobby asked quickly. + +"I have never seen it before. I do not care ever to see it again." + +It was a relief when the forest thinned and fields stretched, flat and +pleasant, like barriers against the stunted growth. Bobby stopped the car +in front of one of a group of houses at a crossroads. He climbed the +steps and rang. Doctor Groom opened the door himself. His gigantic, hairy +figure was silhouetted against the light from within. + +"What's the matter now?" he demanded in his gruff voice. "Fortunately I +hadn't gone to bed. I was reading some books on psychic manifestations. +Who's sick? Or--" + +Bobby's face must have told him a good deal, for he broke off. + +"Get your things on," Bobby said, "and I will tell you as we drive +back, for you must come. Howells has been killed precisely as my +grandfather was." + +For a moment Doctor Groom's bulky frame remained motionless in the +doorway. Instead of the surprise and horror Bobby had foreseen, the old +man expressed only a mute wonder. He got his hat and coat and entered the +runabout, Paredes made room for him, sitting on the floor, his feet on +the running board. + +Bobby had told all he knew before they had reached the forest. The doctor +grunted then: + +"The wound at the back of the head was the same as in your +grandfather's case?" + +"Exactly." + +"Then what good am I? Why am I routed out?" + +"A formality," Bobby answered. "Katherine thought if we got you quickly +you might do something. Anyway, she wanted your advice." + +The woods closed about them. Again the lights seemed to push back a +palpable barrier. + +"I can't work miracles," the doctor was murmuring. "I can't bring men +back to life. Such a wound leaves no ground for hope. You'd better have +sent for the police at once. Hello!" + +He strained forward, peering around the windshield. + +"Funny!" Paredes called. + +Bobby's eyes were on the road. + +"What do you see?" + +"The house, Bobby!" Paredes cried. + +"No one, to my certain knowledge," the doctor said, "has lived in that +house for ten years. You say it was empty and falling to pieces when you +woke up there this morning." + +Bobby knew what they meant then, and he reduced the speed of the car and +looked ahead to the right. A pallid glow sifted through the trees from +the direction of the deserted house. + +Bobby guided the car to the side of the road, stopped it, and shut off +the engine. At first no one moved. The three men stared as if in the +presence of an unaccountable phenomenon. Even when Bobby had +extinguished the headlights the glow failed to brighten. Its pallid +quality persisted. It seemed to radiate from a point close to the ground. + +"It comes from the front of the house," Bobby murmured. + +He stepped from the automobile. + +"What are you going to do?" Paredes wanted to know. + +"Find out who is in that house." + +For Bobby had experienced a quick hope. If there was a man or a woman +secreted in the building the truth as to his own remarkable presence +there last night might not be so far to seek after all. There was, +moreover, something lawless about this light escaping from the place at +such an hour. A little while ago, when Paredes and he had driven past, +the house had been black. They had remarked its lonely, abandoned +appearance. It had led Paredes to speak of the neighbourhood as the +domain of death. Yet the strange, pallid quality of the light itself made +him pause by the broken fence. It did come from the lower part of the +front of the house, yet, so faint was it, it failed to outline the +aperture through which it escaped. The doctor and Paredes joined him. + +"When I was here," he said, "all the shutters were closed. This glow is +too white, too diffused. We must see." + +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. + +Suddenly Bobby turned, grasping the doctor's arm. + +"Did you hear anything?" + +The doctor shook his head. + +"Or feel anything?" + +"No." + +"I thought," Bobby said excitedly, "that there was some one in the +hall. I--I simply got that impression, for I saw nothing myself. My +back was turned." + +Paredes strolled silently in. + +"It may have been Mr. Paredes," the doctor said. + +But Bobby wasn't convinced. + +"Did you see or hear anything coming through the hall, Carlos?" + +"No," Paredes said. + +He had brought the light. With its help they explored the tiny cellar and +the upper floor. There was no sign of a recent occupancy. Everything was +as Bobby had found it on awakening. A vagrant wind sighed about the +place. They looked at each other with startled eyes. They filed out with +an incongruous stealth. + +"Then there are ghosts here, too!" Paredes whispered. + +"Who knows?" Doctor Groom mused. "It is as puzzling as anything that has +happened at the Cedars unless the light we saw was some phosphorescent +effect of decaying wood or vegetation." + +"Then why should it go out all at once?" Bobby asked. "Is there any +connection between this light and what has happened at the Cedars?" + +"The house at least," Paredes put in, "is connected with what has +happened at the Cedars through your experience here." + +At Doctor Groom's suggestion they sat in the automobile for some time, +watching the house for a repetition of the pallid light. After several +minutes, when it failed to come, Bobby set his gears. + +"Graham and Katherine will be worried." + +They drove quickly away from the black, uncommunicative mass of the +abandoned building. The woods were lonelier than before. They impressed +Bobby as guarding something. + +He drove straight to the stable. As they walked into the court they saw +the uncertain candlelight diffused from the room of death. In the hall +Bobby responded to a quick alarm. The Cedars was too quiet. What had +happened since he and Paredes had left? + +"Katherine! Hartley!" he called. + +He heard running steps upstairs. Katherine leaned over the banister. Her +quiet voice reassured him. "Is the doctor with you?" + +He nodded. Paredes yawned and lighted a cigarette. He settled himself in +an easy chair. Bobby and Doctor Groom hurried up. Katherine led them down +the old corridor. Two chairs had been placed in the broken doorway. +Graham sat there. He arose and greeted the doctor. + +"Nothing has happened since I left?" Bobby asked. + +Graham shook his head. + +"Katherine and I have watched every minute." + +Doctor Groom walked to the bed and for a long time looked down at +Howells. Once he put out his hand, quickly withdrawing it. + +"It's simply a repetition," he said at last, and his voice was softer +than its custom. "It may be a warning, for all we know, that no one may +sleep in this room without attracting death. Yet why should that be? I +miss this poor fellow's materialistic viewpoint. There's nothing I can do +for him, nothing I can say, except that death must have been +instantaneous. The police must seek again for a man to place in the +electric chair." + +Graham touched his arm with an odd reluctance. + +"Sitting here for so long I've been thinking. I have always been +materialistic, too. Tell me seriously, doctor, do you believe there is +any psychic force capable of killing two men in this incisive fashion?" + +"No one," the doctor answered, "can say what psychic force is capable of +doing. Some scientists have started to explore, but it is still uncharted +country. From certain places--I daresay you've noticed it--one gets an +impression of peace and content; from others a depression, a sense of +suffering. I think we have all experienced psychic force to that extent. +Remember that this room has a history of intense and rebellious +suffering. Some of it I have seen with my own eyes. Your father's fight +for life, Katherine, was horrible for those of us who knew he had no +chance. As I watched beside him I used to wonder if such violent agony +could ever drift wholly into silence, and when we had to tell him finally +that the fight was lost, it was beyond bearing." + +"If these men had been found dead without marks of violence," Graham +said, "I might consider such a possibility, irrational as it seems." + +"Irrational," Doctor Groom answered, "must not be confused with +impossible. The marks of a physical violence, far from proving that the +attack was physical, strengthens the case of the supernatural. Certainly +you have heard and read of pictures being dashed from walls by invisible +hands, of objects moved about empty rooms, of cases where human beings +have been attacked by inanimate things--heavy things--hurtling through +the air. Some scientists recognize such irrational possibilities. +Policemen don't." + +"Very well," Graham said stubbornly. "I'll follow you that far, but you +must show me in this room the sharp object with which these men were +attacked, no matter what the force behind it." + +The doctor spread his hands. His infused eyes nearly closed. + +"That I can't do. At any rate, Robert, this isn't wholly tragic to you. I +don't see how any one could accuse you of aphasia to-night." + +"You've not forgotten," Bobby said slowly, "that you spoke of a +recurrent aphasia." + +"That's the trouble," Graham put in under his breath. "He has no more +alibi now than he had when his grandfather was murdered." + +Bobby told of his heavy sleep, of the delay in Katherine's arousing him. + +The doctor's gruff voice was disapproving. + +"You shouldn't have drunk that medicine. It had stood too long. It would +only have approximated its intended effect." + +"You mean," Bobby asked, "that I wasn't sleeping as soundly as I +thought?" + +"Probably not, but you're by no means a satisfactory victim. Men do +unaccountable things in a somnambulistic state, but asleep they haven't +wings any more than they have awake. You've got to show us how you +entered this room without disturbing the locks. Now, Mr. Graham, we must +comply with the law. Call in the police." + +"There's nothing else to do," Bobby agreed. + +So they went along the dingy corridor and downstairs. From the depths of +the easy chair in which Paredes lounged smoke curled with a lazy +indifference. The Panamanian didn't move. + +While Graham and the doctor walked to the back of the hall to telephone, +Katherine, an anxious figure, a secretive one, beckoned Bobby to the +library. He went with her, wondering what she could want. + +It was quite dark in the library. As Bobby fumbled with the lamp and +prepared to strike a match he was aware of the girl's provocatively near +presence. He resisted a warm impulse to reach out and touch her hand. He +desired to tell her all that was in his heart of the division that had +increased between them the last few months. Yet to follow that impulse +would, he realized, place a portion of his burden on her shoulders; would +also, in a sense, be disloyal to Graham, for he no longer questioned that +the two had reached a definite sentimental understanding. So he sighed +and struck the match. Even before the lamp was lighted Katherine was +speaking with a feverish haste: + +"Before the police come--you've a chance, Bobby--the last chance. You +must do before the police arrive whatever is to be done." + +He replaced the shade and glanced at her, astonished by her intensity, by +the forceful gesture with which she grasped his arm. For the first time +since Silas Blackburn's murder all of her vitality had come back to her. + +"What do you mean?" + +She pointed to the door of the private staircase. + +"Just what Howells told you before he went up there to his death." + +Bobby understood. He reacted excitedly to her attitude of conspirator. + +"He said," she went on, "that the criminal had nothing to lose. That it +would be to his advantage to have him out of the way, to destroy that +evidence." + +"I thought of it," Bobby answered, "just before I went to sleep." + +"Don't you see?" she said. "If you had killed him you would have taken +the cast and the handkerchief and destroyed them? Hartley has told me +everything, and I could see his coat for myself. The cast and the +handkerchief are still in Howells's pocket." + +"Why should I have killed him if not to destroy those?" Bobby took her up +with a quick hope. + +"You didn't," she cried. "Nothing would ever make me believe +that you killed him, but you will be charged with it unless the +evidence--disappears. You'll have no defence." + +Bobby drew back a little. + +"You want me to go there--and--and take from his pocket those things?" + +She nodded. + +"You remember he suggested that he hadn't sent his report. That may be +there, too." + +Bobby shook his head. "He must have said that as a bait." + +"At the worst," she urged, "a report without evidence could only turn +suspicion against you. It wouldn't convict you as those other things may. +You must get them. You must destroy them." + +Graham slipped quietly in and closed the door. + +"The district attorney is coming himself with another detective," he +said. "I can guess what Katherine has been talking about. She's right. +I'm a lawyer, an I know the penalty of tampering with evidence. But I +don't believe you're a murderer, and I tell you as long as that evidence +exists they can convict you. They can send you to the chair. They may +arrest you and try you anyway on his report, but I don't believe they can +convict you on it alone. You're justified in protecting yourself, Bobby, +in the only way you can. No one will see you go in the room. We'll +arrange it so that no one can testify against you." + +Bobby felt himself at a cross roads. During the commission of those +crimes he had been unconscious. If he had, in fact, had anything to do +with them, his personality, his real self, had known nothing, had done no +wrong. His body had merely reacted to hideous promptings whose source +lurked at the bottom of the black pit. To tamper with evidence would be a +conscious crime. All the more, because of his doubt of himself, he shrank +from that. Katherine saw his hesitation. + +"It's a matter of your life or death." + +But although Katherine decided him it wasn't with that. She came closer. +She looked straight at him, and her eyes were full of an affection that +stirred him profoundly: + +"For my sake, Bobby--" + +He studied the dead ashes of the fire which a little while ago had +played on Howells, vital and antagonistic, by the door of the private +staircase. The man had challenged him to do just the thing from which he +shrank. But Howells was no longer vital or antagonistic, and it occurred +to him that a little of his shrinking arose from the thought of +approaching and robbing the still thing upstairs, all that was left of +the man who had not been afraid of the mystery of the locked room. + +"For my sake," Katherine repeated. + +Bobby squared his shoulders. He fought back his momentary cowardice. The +affection in Katherine's eyes was stronger than that. + +"All right," he said. "Howells never gave me a chance while he was alive. +He'll have to now he's dead." + +Katherine relaxed. Graham's face was quite white, but he gave his +instructions in a cold, even tone: + +"We'll go to the hall now. Katherine will go on upstairs. She mustn't see +you enter the room, but she will watch in the corridor while you are +there to be sure you aren't disturbed. You and I will chat for awhile +with the others, Bobby, then you will go up. You understand? Paredes +mustn't even guess what you are doing. I'll keep him and Groom +downstairs. If he spied, if he knew what you were at, he'd have a weapon +in his hands I'd hate to think about. He may be all right, but we can't +risk any more than we have to. We must go on tiptoe." + +He opened the door. Katherine gave Bobby's hand a quick, +encouraging pressure. + +"Take the stuff to my room," Graham whispered. "The first chance, we'll +destroy it so that no trace will be left." + +They went to the hall. Without speaking, Katherine climbed the stairs. +Graham drew a chair between Paredes and the doctor. Bobby lounged against +the mantel, trying to find in the Panamanian's face some clue as to his +real feelings. But Paredes's eyes were closed. His hand drooped across +the chair arm. His slender, pointed fingers held, as if from mere habit, +a lifeless cigarette. + +"Asleep," Graham whispered. + +Without opening his eyes Paredes spoke: "No; I feel curiously awake." +He yawned. + +Doctor Groom glanced at his watch. "The powers of prosecution," he +grumbled, "ought to be here within the next fifteen or twenty minutes." + +Bobby glanced at Graham. Then it wasn't safe to delay too long. More and +more as he waited he shrank from the invasion of the room of death. The +prospect of reaching out and touching the still, cold thing on the bed +revolted him. Was there anything in that room capable of forbidding his +intention? Was there, in short, a surer, more malicious force for evil +than his unconscious self, at work in the house? He was about to make +some formal comment to the others, to embark on his distasteful +adventure, when Paredes, as if he had read Bobby's mind, opened his +eyes, languidly left his chair, and walked to the foot of the stairs. + +"Where you going?" Graham asked sharply. + +Paredes waved his hand indifferently and walked on up. There was +something of stealth in his failure to reply, in his cat-like tread on +the stairs. Graham and Bobby stared after him, unable to meet this new +situation audibly because of Groom. Yet five minutes had gone. There was +no time to be lost. Paredes mustn't rob Bobby of his chance. With a sort +of desperation he started for the stairs. Graham held out his hand as if +to restrain him, then nodded. Bobby had his foot on the first step when +Katherine's cry reached them, shaping the moment to their use. For there +was no fright in her cry. It was, rather, angry. And Bobby and Graham ran +up while Doctor Groom remained in his chair, an expression of blank +amazement on his face. + +A candle burned on the table in the upper hall. Katherine and Paredes +stood near the entrance of the old corridor. Paredes, as usual, was quite +unruffled. Katherine's attitude was defensive. She seemed to hold the +corridor against him. The anger of her cry was active in her eyes. +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"Sorry to have given the household one more shock. Fortunately no +harm done." + +"What is it, Katherine?" Graham demanded. + +"I don't know," she answered. "He startled me. He entered the corridor." + +Paredes nodded. + +"Quite right. She was there. I was on my way to my room. If your house +had electricity, Bobby, this incident would have been avoided. I saw +something dark in the corridor." + +"You may not know," Graham said, "that ever since we found Howells, one +of us has tried, more or less, to keep the entrance of that room under +observation." + +"Yet you were all downstairs a little while ago," Paredes yawned. "It's +too bad. I might have taken my turn then. At any rate, since I was +excluded from your confidence, I overcame my natural fear, and, for +Bobby's sake, slipped in, and, I am afraid, startled Miss Katherine." + +"Yes," she said. + +His explanation was reasonable. There was nothing more to be said, but +Bobby's doubt of his friend, sown by Graham and stimulated by the +incidents of the last hour, was materially strengthened. He felt a +sharp fear of Paredes. Such reserve, such concealment of emotion, was +scarcely human. + +"If," Graham was saying, "you really want to help Bobby, there is +something you can do. Will you come downstairs with me for a moment? I'd +like to suggest one or two things before the police arrive." + +Without hesitation Paredes followed Graham down the stairs. + +Katherine turned immediately to Bobby, her eyes eager, full of the tense +determination that had dictated her plan in the library. + +"Now, Bobby!" she whispered. "And there's no time to waste. They may be +here any minute. I won't see you go, but I'll be back at once to guard +you against Paredes if he slips up again." + +She walked across the hall and disappeared in the newer corridor. Without +witness he faced the old corridor, and with the attempt directly ahead +his repugnance achieved a new power. The black entrance with its scarcely +dared memories reminded him that what he was about to do was directed +against more than human law, was an outrage against the dead man. He had +to remind himself of the steely purpose with which Howells had marked him +as the murderer; and the man's power persisted after death. In such a +contest he was justified. + +He took the candle from the table. Through the stair-well the murmur of +Graham's voice, occasionally interrupted by Groom's heavy tones or the +languid accents of Paredes, drifted encouragingly. Trying to crush his +premonitions, Bobby entered the corridor. Instead of illuminating the +narrow passage the candle seemed half smothered by its blackness. For the +first time in his memory Bobby faced the entrance of the sinister room +alone. He pushed open the broken door. He paused on the threshold. It +impressed him as not unnatural that he should experience such misgivings. +They sprang not alone from the fact that within twenty-four hours two men +had died unaccountably within these faded walls. Nor did the evidence +pointing to his own unconscious guilt wholly account for them. At the +bottom of everything was the fact that from his earliest childhood he had +looked upon the room as consecrated to death; had consequently feared it; +had, he recalled, always hurried past the disused corridor leading in its +direction. + +Through its wide spaces the light of the candle scarcely penetrated. No +more than an indefinite radiance thrust back the obscurity and outlined +the bed. He could barely see the stark, black form outstretched there. + +The dim, vast room, as he advanced, imposed upon him a sense of +isolation. Katherine in the upper hall, the others downstairs, whose +voices no longer reached him, seemed all at once far away. He stood in a +place lonelier and more remote than the piece of woods where he had +momentarily opened his eyes last night; and, instead of the straining +trees and the figure in the black mask which he had called his +conscience, he had for motion and companionship only the swaying of the +curtains in the breeze from the open window and the dark, prostrate thing +whose face as he went closer was like a white mask--a mask with a fixed +and malevolent sneer. + +The wind caught the flame of the candle, making it flicker. Tenuous +shadows commenced to dance across the walls. He paused with a tightening +throat, for the form on the bed seemed moving, too, with sly and scarcely +perceptible gestures. Then he understood. It was the effect of the +shaking candle, and he forced himself to go on, but a sense of a multiple +companionship accompanied him--a sense of a shapeless, soundless +companionship that projected an idea of a steady regard. There swept +through his mind a procession of figures in quaint dress and with faces +not unlike his own, remembered from portraits and family legends, men and +women to whom this room had been familiar, within whose limits they had +suffered, cried out a too-powerful agony, and died. It seemed to him that +he waited for voices to guide him, to urge him on as Katherine had urged +him, or to drive him back, because he was an intruder in a company whose +habit was strange and terrifying. + +He forced his glance from the shadows which seemed more active along the +walls. He raised his candle and stared at the dead man. The cast was +undoubtedly there. The coat, stretched tightly across the breast, +outlined it. He stood at the side of the bed. He had only to bend and +place his hand in the pocket which the cast filled awkwardly. The wind +alone, he saw, wasn't responsible for the shaking of the candle. His hand +shook as the shadows shook, as the thing on the bed shook. The sense of +loneliness grew upon him until it became complete, appalling. For the +first time he understood that loneliness can possess a ponderable +quality. It was, he felt, potent and active in the room--a thing he +couldn't understand, or challenge, or overcome. + +His hand tightened. He thought of Katherine guarding the corridor; of +Paredes and Doctor Groom, held downstairs by Graham; of the county +authorities hurrying to seize this evidence that would convict him; and +he realized that his duty and his excuse were clear. He understood that +just now he had been captured by a force undefinable in terms of the +world he knew. For a moment he eluded the stealthy fleshless hands of its +impalpable skirmishers. He reached impulsively out to the dead man. He +was about to place his fingers in the pocket, which, after all was said +and done, held his life. + +In the light of the candle the face seemed alive and more menacing than +it had ever done in life. About the straight smile was a wider, more +triumphant quality. + +The candle flickered sharply. It expired. The conquering blackness took +his breath. + +He told himself it was the draft from the window which was strong, but +the companionship of the night was closer and more numerous. The darkness +wreathed itself into mocking and tortuous bodies whose faces were hidden. + +In an agony of revolt against these incorporeal, these fanciful horrors, +he reached in the pocket. + +He sprang back with a choked, inaudible cry, for the dead thing beneath +his hand was stirring. The dead, cold thing with a languid and impossible +rebuke, moved beneath his touch. And the pocket he had felt was empty. +The coat, a moment ago bulging and awkward, was flat. There sprang to +his mind the mad thought that the detective, malevolent in life, had long +after death snatched from his hand the evidence, carefully gathered, on +which everything for him depended. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CRYING THROUGH THE WOODS + + +Bobby's inability to cry out alone prevented his alarming the others and +announcing to Paredes and Doctor Groom his unlawful presence in the room. +During the moment that the shock held him, silent, motionless, bent in +the darkness above the bed, he understood there could have been no +ambiguity about his ghastly and loathsome experience. The dead detective +had altered his position as Silas Blackburn had done, and this time +someone had been in the room and suffered the appalling change. Bobby's +fingers still responded to the charnel feeling of cold, inactive flesh +suddenly become alive and potent beneath his touch. And a reason for the +apparent miracle offered itself. Between the extinction of his candle and +the commencement of that movement!--only a second or so--the evidence had +disappeared from the detective's pocket. + +Bobby relaxed. He stumbled across the room and into the corridor. He went +with hands outstretched through the blackness, for no candle burned in +the upper hall, but he knew that Katherine was on guard there. When he +left the passage he saw her, an unnatural figure herself, in the +yellowish, unhealthy twilight which sifted through the stair well from +the lamp in the hall below. + +She must have sensed something out of the way immediately, for she +hurried to meet him and her whisper held no assurance. + +"You got the cast and the handkerchief, Bobby?" + +And when he didn't answer at once she asked with a sharp rush of fear: + +"What's the matter? What's happened?" + +He shuddered. At last he managed to speak. + +"Katherine! I have felt death cease to be death." + +Later he was to recall that phrase with a sicker horror than he +experienced now. + +"You saw something!" she said. "But your candle is out. There is no light +in the room." + +He took her hand. He pressed it. + +"You're real!" he said with a nervous laugh. "Something I can understand. +Everything is unreal. This light--" + +He strode to the table, found a match, and lighted his candle. Katherine, +as she saw his face, drew back. + +"Bobby!" + +"My candle went out," he said dully, "and he moved through the darkness. +I tell you he moved beneath my hand." + +She drew farther away, staring at him. + +"You were frightened--" + +"No. If we go there with a light now," he said with the same dull +conviction, "we will find him as we found my grandfather this afternoon." + +The monotonous voices of the three men in the lower hall weaved a +background for their whispers. The normal, familiar sound was like a +tonic. Bobby straightened. Katherine threw off the spell of his +announcement. + +"But the evidence! You got--" + +She stared at his empty hands. He fancied that he saw contempt in her +eyes. + +"In spite of everything you must go back. You must get that." + +"Even if I had the courage," he said wearily, "it would be no use, for +the evidence is gone." + +"But I saw it. At least I saw his pocket--" + +"It was there," he answered, "when my light went out. I did put my hand +in his pocket. In that second it had gone." + +"There was no one there," she said, "no one but you, because I watched." + +He leaned heavily against the wall. + +"Good God, Katherine! It's too big. Whatever it is, we can't fight it." + +She looked for some time down the corridor at the black entrance of the +sinister room. At last she turned and walked to the banister. She called: + +"Hartley! Will you come up?" + +Bobby wondered at the steadiness of her voice. The murmuring below +ceased. Graham ran up the stairs. Her summons had been warning enough. +Their attitudes, as Graham reached the upper hall, were eloquent of +Bobby's failure. + +"You didn't get the cast and the handkerchief?" he said. + +Bobby told briefly what had happened. + +"What is one to do?" he ended. "Even the dead are against me." + +"It's beyond belief," Graham said roughly. + +He snatched up the candle and entered the corridor. Uncertainly Katherine +and Bobby followed him. He went straight to the bed and thrust the candle +beneath the canopy. The others could see from the door the change that +had taken place. The body of Howells was turned awkwardly on its side. +The coat pocket was, as Bobby had described it, flat and empty. + +Katherine turned and went back to the hall. Graham's hand shook as +Bobby's had shaken. + +"No tricks, Bobby?" + +Bobby couldn't resent the suspicion which appeared to offer the only +explanation of what had happened. The candle flickered in the draft. + +"Look out!" Bobby warned. + +The misshapen shadows danced with a multiple vivacity across the walls. +Graham shaded the candle flame, and the shadows became like morbid +decorations, gargantuan and motionless. + +"It's madness," Graham said. "There's no explanation of this that we can +understand." + +Howells's straight smile mocked them. As if in answer to Graham a voice +sighed through the room. Its quality was one with the shadows, +unsubstantial and shapeless. Bobby grasped one of the bed posts and +braced himself, listening. The candle in Graham's hand commenced to +flicker again, and Bobby knew that it hadn't been his fancy, for Graham +listened, too. + +It shook again through the heavy, oppressive night, merely accentuated +by the candle--a faint ululation barely detaching itself from silence, +straying after a time into the silence again. At first it was like the +grief of a woman heard at a great distance. But the sound, while it +gained no strength, forced on them more and more an abhorrent sense of +intimacy. This crying from an infinite distance filled the room, +seemed finally to have its source in the room itself. After it had +sobbed thinly into nothing, its pulsations continued to sigh in +Bobby's ears. They seemed timed to the renewed and eccentric dancing +of the amorphous shadows. + +Graham straightened and placed the candle on the bureau. He seemed +more startled than he had been at the unbelievable secretiveness of +a dead man. + +"You heard it?" Bobby breathed. + +Graham nodded. + +"What was it? Where did you think it came from?" Bobby demanded. "It was +like someone mourning for this--this poor devil." + +Graham couldn't disguise his effort to elude the sombre spell of the +room, to drive from his brain the illusion of that unearthly moaning. + +"It must have come from outside the house," he answered "There's no use +giving way to fancies where there's a possible explanation. It must have +come from outside--from some woman in great agony of mind." + +Bobby recalled his perception of a woman moving with a curious absence of +sound about the edges of the stagnant lake. He spoke of it to Graham. + +"I couldn't be sure it was a woman, but there's no house within two +miles. What would a woman be doing wandering around the Cedars?" + +"At any rate, there are three women in the house," Graham said, +"Katherine and the two servants, Ella and Jane. The maids are badly +frightened. It may have come from the servants' quarters. It must have +been one of them." + +But Bobby saw that Graham didn't believe either of the maids had released +that poignant suffering. + +"It didn't sound like a living voice," he said simply. + +"Then how are we to take it?" Graham persisted angrily. "I shall question +Katherine and the two maids." + +He took up the candle with a stubborn effort to recapture his old +forcefulness, but as they left the room the shadows thronged thickly +after them in ominous pursuit; and it wasn't necessary to question +Katherine. She stood in the corridor, her lips parted, her face white +and shocked. + +"What was it?" she said. "That nearly silent grief?" + +She put her hands to her ears, lowering them helplessly after a moment. + +"Where did you think it came from?" Graham asked. + +"From a long ways off," she answered. "Then I--I thought it must be in +the room with you, and I wondered if you saw--" + +Graham shook his head. + +"We saw nothing. It was probably Ella or Jane. They've been badly +frightened. Perhaps a nightmare, or they've heard us moving around the +front part of the house. I am going to see." + +Katherine and Bobby followed him downstairs. Doctor Groom and Paredes +stood in front of the fireplace, questioningly looking upward. Paredes +didn't speak at first, but Doctor Groom burst out in his grumbling, +bass voice: + +"What's been going on up there?" + +"Did you hear just now a queer crying?" Graham asked. + +"No." + +"You, Paredes?" + +"I've heard nothing," Paredes answered, "except Doctor Groom's +disquieting theories. It's an uncanny hour for such talk. What kind of a +cry--may I ask?" + +"Like a woman moaning," Bobby said, "and, Doctor, Howells has changed his +position." + +"What are you talking about?" the doctor cried. + +"He has turned on his side as Mr. Blackburn did," Graham told him. + +Paredes glanced at Bobby. + +"And how was this new mystery discovered?" + +Bobby caught the implication. Then the Panamanian clung to his slyly +expressed doubt of Katherine which might, after all, have had its impulse +in an instinct of self-preservation. Bobby knew that Graham and Katherine +would guard the fashion in which the startling discovery had been made. +Before he could speak for himself, indeed, Graham was answering Paredes: + +"This crying seemed after a time to come from the room. We entered." + +"But Miss Katherine called you up," Paredes said. "I supposed she had +heard again movements in the room." + +Bobby managed a smile. + +"You see, Carlos, nothing is consistent in this case." + +Paredes bowed gravely. + +"It is very curious a woman should cry about the house." + +"The servants may make it seem natural enough," Graham said. "Will you +come, Bobby?" + +As they crossed the dining room they heard a stirring in the kitchen. +Graham threw open the door. Jenkins stood at the foot of the servants' +stairs. The old butler had lighted a candle and placed it on the mantel. +The disorder of his clothing suggested the haste with which he had left +his bed and come downstairs. His wrinkled, sunken face had aged +perceptibly. He advanced with an expression of obvious relief. + +"I was just coming to find you, Mr. Robert." + +"What's up?" Bobby asked. "A little while ago I thought you were all +asleep back here." + +"One of the women awakened him," Graham said. "It's just as I thought." + +"Was that it?" the old butler asked with a quick relief. But immediately +he shook his head. "It couldn't have been that, Mr. Graham, for I stopped +at Ella's and Jane's doors, and there was no sound. They seemed to be +asleep. And it wasn't like that." + +"You mean," Bobby said, "that you heard a woman crying?" + +Jenkins nodded. "It woke me up." + +"If you didn't think it was one of the maids," Graham asked, "what did +you make of it?" + +"I thought it came from outside. I thought it was a woman prowling around +the house. Then I said to myself, why should a woman prowl around the +Cedars? And it was too unearthly, sir, and I remembered the way Mr. Silas +was murdered, and the awful thing that happened to his body this +afternoon, and I--you won't think me foolish, sirs?--I doubted if it was +a human voice I had heard." + +"No," Graham said dryly, "we won't think you foolish." + +"So I thought I'd better wake you up and tell you." + +Graham turned to Bobby. + +"Katherine and you and I," he said, "fancied the crying was in the room +with us. Jenkins is sure it came from outside the house. That is +significant." + +"Wherever it came from," Bobby said softly, "it was like some one +mourning for Howells." + +Jenkins started. + +"The policeman!" + +Bobby remembered that Jenkins hadn't been aroused by the discovery of +Howells's murder. + +"You'd know in a few minutes anyway," he said. "Howells has been killed +as my grandfather was." + +Jenkins moved back, a look of unbelief and awe in his wrinkled face. + +"He boasted he was going to sleep in that room," he whispered. + +Bobby studied Jenkins, not knowing what to make of the old man, for into +the awe of the wrinkled face had stolen a positive relief, an emotion +that bordered on the triumphant. + +"It's terrible," Jenkins whispered. + +Graham grasped his shoulder. + +"What's the matter with you, Jenkins? One would say you were glad." + +"No. Oh, no, sir. It is terrible. I was only wondering about the +policeman's report." + +"What do you know about his report?" Bobby cried. + +"Only that--that he gave it to me to mail just before he went up to the +old room." + +"You mailed it?" Graham snapped. + +Jenkins hesitated. When he answered his voice was self-accusing. + +"I'm an old coward, Mr. Robert. The policeman told me the letter was very +important, and if anything happened to it I would get in trouble. He +couldn't afford to leave the house himself, he said. But, as I say, I'm a +coward, and I didn't want to walk through the woods to the box by the +gate. I figured it all out. It wouldn't be taken up until early in the +morning, and if I waited until daylight it would only be delayed one +collection. So I made up my mind I'd sleep on it, because I knew he had +it in for you, Mr. Robert. I supposed I'd mail it in the morning, but I +decided I'd think it over anyway and not harrow myself walking through +the woods." + +"You've done a good job," Graham said excitedly. "Where is the +report now?" + +"In my room. Shall I fetch it, sir?" + +Graham nodded, and Jenkins shuffled up the stairs. + +"What luck!" Graham said. "Howells must have telephoned his suspicions to +the district attorney. He must have mentioned the evidence, but what does +that amount to since it's disappeared along with the duplicate of the +report, if Howells made one?" + +"I can fight with a clear conscience," Bobby cried. "I wasn't asleep +when Howells's body altered its position. Do you realize what that means +to me? For once I was wide awake when the old room was at its tricks." + +"If Howells were alive," Graham answered shortly, "he would look on the +fact that you were awake and alone with the body as the worst possible +evidence against you." + +Bobby's elation died. + +"There is always something to tangle me in the eyes of the law with these +mysteries. But I know, and I'll fight. Can you find any trace of a +conspiracy against me in this last ghastly adventure?" + +"It complicates everything," Graham admitted. + +"It's beyond sounding," Bobby said, "for my grandfather's death last +night and the disturbance of his body this afternoon seemed calculated to +condemn me absolutely, yet Howells's murder and the movement of his body, +with the disappearance of the cast and the handkerchief, seem designed to +save me. Are there two influences at work in this house--one for me, one +against me?" + +"Let's think of the human elements," Graham answered with a frown. "I +have no faith in Paredes. My man has failed to report on Maria. That's +queer. You fancy a woman in black slipping through the woods, and we hear +a woman cry. I want to account for those things before I give in to +Groom's spirits. I confess at times they seem the only logical +explanation. Here's Jenkins." + +"If trouble comes of his withholding the report I'll take the blame," +Bobby said. + +Graham snatched the long envelope from Jenkins' hand. It was addressed in +a firm hand to the district attorney at the county seat. + +"There's no question," Graham said. "That's it. We mustn't open it. We'd +better not destroy it. Put it where it won't be easily found, Jenkins. If +you are questioned you have no recollection of Howells having given it to +you. Mr. Blackburn promises he will see you get in no trouble." + +The old man smiled. + +"Trouble!" he scoffed. "Mr. Blackburn needn't fret himself about me. He's +the last of this family--that is Miss Katherine and he. I'm old and about +done for. I don't mind trouble. Not a bit, sir." + +Bobby pressed his hand. His voice was a little husky: "I didn't think +you'd go that far in my service, Jenkins." + +The old butler smiled slyly: "I'd go a lot further than that, sir." + +"We'd better get back," Graham said. "The blood hounds ought to be +here, and they'll sniff at the case harder than ever because it's done +for Howells." + +They watched Jenkins go upstairs with the report. + +"We're taking long chances," Graham said, "desperately long chances, but +you're in a desperately dangerous position. It's the only way. You'll be +accused of stealing the evidence; but remember, when they question you, +they can prove nothing unless the cast and the handkerchief turn up. If +they've been taken by an enemy in some magical fashion to be produced at +the proper moment, there's no hope. Meantime play the game, and Katherine +and I will help you all we can. The doctor, too, is friendly. There's no +doubt of him. Come, now. Let's face the music." + +Bobby followed Graham to the hall, trying to strengthen his nerves for +the ordeal. Even now he was more appalled by the apparently supernatural +background of the case than he was by the material details which pointed +to his guilt. More than the report and the cast and the handkerchief, +the remembrance of that impossible moment in the blackness of the old +room filled his mind, and the unearthly and remote crying still throbbed +in his ears. + +Katherine, Graham, and the doctor waited by the fireplace. They had heard +nothing from the authorities. + +"But they must be here soon," Doctor Groom said. + +"Did you learn anything back there, Hartley?" Katherine asked. + +"It wasn't the servants," he said. "Jenkins heard the crying. He's +certain it came from outside the house." + +Paredes looked up. + +"Extraordinary!" he said. + +"I wish I had heard it," Doctor Groom grumbled. + +Paredes laughed. + +"Thank the good Lord I didn't. Perpetually, Bobby, your house reminds me +that I've nerves sensitive to the unknown world. I will go further than +the doctor. I will say that this house _is_ crowded with the +supernatural. It shelters things that we cannot understand, that we will +never understand. When I was a child in Panama I had a nurse who, +unfortunately, developed too strongly my native superstition. How she +frightened me with her bedtime stories! They were all of men murdered or +dead of fevers, crossing the trail, or building the railroad, or digging +insufficient ditches for De Lesseps. Some of her best went farther back +than that. They were thick with the ghosts of old Spaniards and the +crimson hands of Morgan's buccaneers. Really that tiny strip across the +isthmus is crowded with souls snatched too quickly from torn and tortured +bodies. If you are sensitive you feel they are still there." + +"What has all this to do with the Cedars?" Doctor Groom grumbled. + +"It explains my ability to sense strange elements in this old house. +There are in Panama--if you don't mind, doctor--improvised graveyards, +tangled by the jungle, that give you a feeling of an active, unseen +population precisely as this house does." + +He arose and strolled with a cat-like lack of sound about the hall. When +he spoke again his voice was scarcely audible. It was the voice of a man +who thinks aloud, and the doctor failed to interrupt him again. + +"I have felt less spiritually alarmed in those places of grinning +skulls, which always seem trying to recite agonies beyond expression, +than I feel in this house. For here the woods are more desolate than the +jungle, and the walls of houses as old as this make a prison for +suffering." + +A vague discomfort stole through Bobby's surprise. He had never heard +Paredes speak so seriously. In spite of the man's unruffled manner there +was nothing of mockery about his words. What, then, was their intention? + +Paredes said no more, but for several minutes he paced up and down the +hall, glancing often with languid eyes toward the stairs. He had the +appearance of one who expects and waits. + +Katherine, Graham, and the doctor, Bobby could see, had been made as +uneasy as himself by the change in the Panamanian. The doctor cleared his +throat. His voice broke the silence tentatively: + +"If this house makes you so unhappy, young man, why do you stay?" + +Paredes paused in his walk. His thin lips twitched. He indicated Bobby. + +"For the sake of my very good friend. What are a man's personal fears and +desires if he can help his friends?" + +Graham's distaste was evident. Paredes recognized it with a smile. Bobby +watched him curiously, realizing more and more that Graham was right to +this extent: they must somehow learn the real purpose of the +Panamanian's continued presence here. + +Paredes resumed his walk. He still had that air of expectancy. He seemed +to listen. This feeling of imminence reached Bobby; increased his +restlessness. He thought he heard an automobile horn outside. He sprang +up, went to the door, opened it, and stood gazing through the damp and +narrow court. Yet, he confessed, he listened for a repetition of that +unearthly crying through the thicket rather than for the approach of +those who would try to condemn him for two murders. Paredes was right. +The place was unhealthy. Its dark walls seemed to draw closer. They had a +desolate and unfriendly secretiveness. They might hide anything. + +The whirring of a motor reached him. Headlights flung gigantic, +distorted shadows of trees across the walls of the old wing. Bobby faced +the others. + +"They're coming," he said, and his voice was sufficiently +apprehensive now. + +Graham joined him at the door. "Yes," he said. "There will be another +inquisition. You all know that Howells for some absurd reason suspected +Bobby. Bobby, it goes without saying, knows no more about the crimes than +any of us. I dare say you'll keep that in mind if they try to confuse +you. After all, there's very little any of us can tell them." + +"Except," Paredes said with a yawn, "what went on upstairs when the woman +cried and Howells's body moved. Of course I know nothing about that." + +Graham glanced at him sharply. + +"I don't know what you mean, but you have told us all that you are +Bobby's friend." + +"Quite so. And I am not a spy." + +He moved his head in his grave and dignified bow. + +The automobile stopped at the entrance to the court. Three men stepped +out and hurried up the path. As they entered the hall Bobby recognized +the sallow, wizened features of the coroner. One of the others was short +and thick set. His round and florid face, one felt, should have expressed +friendliness and good-humour rather than the intolerant anger that marked +it now. The third was a lank, bald-headed man, whose sharp face released +more determination than intelligence. + +"I am Robinson, the district attorney," the stout one announced, "and +this is Jack Rawlins, the best detective I've got now that Howells is +gone. Jack was a close friend of Howells, so he'll make a good job of it, +but I thought it was time I came myself to see what the devil's going on +in this house." + +The lank man nodded. + +"You're right, Mr. Robinson. There'll be no more nonsense about the case. +If Howells had made an arrest he might be alive this minute." + +Bobby's heart sank. These men would act from a primary instinct of +revenge. They wanted the man who had killed Silas Blackburn principally +because it was certain he had also killed their friend. Rawlins's words, +moreover, suggested that Howells must have telephoned a pretty clear +outline of the case. Robinson stared at them insolently. + +"This is Doctor Groom, I know. Which is young Mr. Blackburn?" + +Bobby stepped forward. The sharp eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, +studied him aggressively. Bobby forced himself to meet that unfriendly +gaze. Would Robinson accuse him now, before he had gone into the case +for himself? At least he could prove nothing. After a moment the man +turned away. + +"Who is this?" he asked, indicating Graham. + +"A very good friend--my lawyer, Mr. Graham," Bobby answered. + +Robinson walked over to Paredes. + +"Another lawyer?" he sneered. + +"Another friend," Paredes answered easily. + +Robinson glanced at Katherine. + +"Of course you are Miss Perrine. Good. Coroner, these are all that were +in the front part of the house when you were here before?" + +"The same lot," the coroner squeaked. + +"There are three servants, a man and two women," Robinson went on. +"Account for them, Rawlins, and see what they have to say. Come upstairs +when you're through. All right, Coroner." + +But he paused at the foot of the steps. + +"For the present no one will leave the house without my permission. If +you care to come upstairs with me, Mr. Blackburn, you might be useful." + +Bobby shrank from the thought of returning to the old room even with this +determined company. He didn't hesitate, however, for Robinson's purpose +was clear. He wanted Bobby where he could watch him. Graham prepared to +accompany them. + +"If you need me," the doctor said. "I looked at the body--" + +"Oh, yes," Robinson sneered. "I'd like to know exactly what time you +found the body." + +Graham flushed, but Katherine answered easily: + +"About half-past two--the hour at which Mr. Blackburn was killed." + +"And I," Robinson sneered, "was aroused at three-thirty. An hour during +which the police were left out of the case!" + +"We thought it wise to get a physician first of all," Graham said. + +"You knew Howells never had a chance. You knew he had been murdered the +moment you looked at him," Robinson burst out. + +"We acted for the best," Graham answered. + +His manner impressed silence on Katherine and Bobby. + +"We'll see about that later," Robinson said with a clear threat. "If it +doesn't inconvenience you too much we'll go up now." + +In the upper hall he snatched the candle from the table. + +"Which way?" + +Katherine nodded to the old corridor and slipped to her room. Robinson +stepped forward with the coroner at his heels. Bobby, Graham, and the +doctor followed. Inside the narrow, choking passage Bobby saw the +district attorney hesitate. + +"What's the matter?" the doctor rumbled. + +The district attorney went on without answering. He glanced at the +broken lock. + +"So you had to smash your way in?" + +He walked to the bed and looked down at Howells. + +"Poor devil!" he murmured. "Howells wasn't the man to get caught +unawares. It's beyond me how any one could have come close enough to make +that wound without putting him on his guard." + +"It's beyond us, as it was beyond him," Graham answered, "how any one got +into the room at all." + +In response to Robinson's questions he told in detail about the discovery +of both murders. Robinson pondered for some time. + +"Then you and Mr. Blackburn were asleep," he said. "Miss Perrine aroused +you. This foreigner Paredes was awake and dressed and in the lower hall." + +"I think he was in the court as we went by the stair-well," Graham +corrected him. + +"I shall want to talk to your foreigner," Robinson said. He shivered. +"This room is like a charnel house. Why did Howells want to sleep here?" + +"I don't think he intended to sleep," Graham said. "From the start +Howells was bound to solve the mystery of the entrance of the room. He +came here, hoping that the criminal would make just such an attempt as he +did. He was confident he could take care of himself, get his man, and +clear up the last details of the case." + +Robinson looked straight at Bobby. + +"Then Howells knew the criminal was in the house." + +"Howells, I daresay," Graham said, "telephoned you something of his +suspicions." Robinson nodded. + +"He was on the wrong line," Graham argued, "or he wouldn't have been so +easily overcome. You can see for yourself. Locked doors, a wound that +suggests the assailant was close to him, yet he must have been awake and +watchful; and if there had been a physical attack before the sharp +instrument was driven into his brain he would have cried out, yet Miss +Perrine was aroused by nothing of the sort, and the coroner, I daresay, +will find no marks of a struggle about the body." + +The coroner who had been busy at the bed glanced up. + +"No mark at all. If Howells wasn't asleep, his murderer must have been +invisible as well as noiseless." + +Doctor Groom smiled. The coroner glared at him. + +"I suggest, Mr. District Attorney," he squeaked, "that the ordinary +layman wouldn't know that this type of wound would cause immediate +death." + +"Nor would any man," the doctor answered angrily, "be able to make such a +wound with his victim lying on his back." + +"On his back!" Robinson echoed. "But he isn't on his back." + +The doctor told of the amazing alteration in the positions of both +victims. Bobby regretted with all his heart that he had made the attempt +to get the evidence. Already complete frankness was impossible for him. +Already a feeling of guilt sprang from the necessity of withholding the +first-hand testimony which he alone could give. + +"And a woman cried!" Robinson said, bewildered. "All this sounds like a +ghost story." + +"You've more sense than I thought," Doctor Groom said dryly. "I never +could get Howells to see it that way." + +"What are you driving at?" Robinson snapped. + +"These crimes," the doctor answered, "have all the elements of a +ghostly impulse." + +Robinson's laugh was a little uncomfortable. + +"The Cedars is a nice place for spooks, but it won't do. I'll be frank. +Howells telephoned me. He had found plenty of evidence of human +interference. It's evident in both cases that the murderer came back and +disturbed the bodies for some special purpose. I don't know what it was +the first time, but it's simple to understand the last. The murderer +came for evidence Howells had on his person." + +Bobby couldn't meet the sharp, puffy eyes. He alone was capable of +testifying that the evidence had been removed as if to secrete it from +his unlawful hand. Yet if he spoke he would prove the district attorney's +point. He would condemn himself. + +"Curious," Graham said slowly, "that the murderer didn't take the +evidence when he killed his man." + +"I don't know about that," Robinson said, "but I know Howells had +evidence on his person. You through, Coroner? Then we'll have a look, +although it's little use." + +He walked to the bed and searched Howells's pockets. + +"Just as I thought. Nothing. He told me he was preparing a report. If he +didn't mail it, that was stolen with the rest of the stuff. Rawlins's +right. He waited too long to make his arrest." + +Again Bobby wondered if the man would bring matters to a head now. He +could appreciate, however, that Robinson, with nothing to go on but +Howells's telephoned suspicions, might spoil his chances of a solution by +acting too hastily. Rawlins strolled in. + +"The two women were asleep," he said. "The old man knows nothing beyond +the fact that he heard a woman crying outside a little while ago." + +"I don't think we need bother about the back part of the house for the +present," Robinson said. "Howells's evidence has been stolen. It's your +job to find it unless it's been destroyed. Your other job is to discover +the instrument that caused death in both cases. Then maybe our worthy +doctor will desert his ghosts. Mr. Blackburn, if you will come with me +there's a slight possibility of checking up some of the evidence of which +Howells spoke. Our fine fellow may have made a slip in the court." + +Bobby understood and was afraid--more afraid than he had been at any time +since he had overheard Howells catalogue his case to Graham in the +library. Why, even in so much confusion, had Graham and he failed to +think of those tell-tale marks in the court? They had been intact when he +had stood there just before dark. It was unlikely any one had walked +across the grass since. He saw Graham's elaborate precautions demolished, +the case against him stronger than it had been before Howells's murder. +Graham's face revealed the same helpless comprehension. They followed +Robinson downstairs. Graham made a gesture of surrender. Bobby glanced at +Paredes who alone had remained below. The Panamanian smoked and lounged +in the easy chair. His eyes seemed restless. + +"I shall wish to ask you some questions in a few minutes, Mr. Paredes," +the district attorney said. + +"At your service, I'm sure," Paredes drawled. + +He watched them until they had entered the court and closed the door. +The chill dampness of the court infected Bobby as it had always done. +It was a proper setting for his accusation and arrest. For Robinson, he +knew, wouldn't wait as Howells had done to solve the mystery of the +locked doors. + +Robinson, while the others grouped themselves about him, took a +flashlight from his pocket and pressed the control. The brilliant +cylinder of light illuminated the grass, making it seem unnaturally +green. Bobby braced himself for the inevitable denouement. Then, while +Robinson exclaimed angrily, his eyes widened, his heart beat rapidly +with a vast and wondering relief. For the marks he remembered so +clearly had been obliterated with painstaking thoroughness, and at +first the slate seemed perfectly clean. He was sure his unknown friend +had avoided leaving any trace of his own. Each step in the grass had +been carefully scraped out. In the confusion of the path there was +nothing to be learned. + +The genuine surprise of Bobby's exclamation turned Robinson to him with a +look of doubt. + +"You acknowledge these footmarks were here, Mr. Blackburn?" + +"Certainly," Bobby answered. "I saw them myself just before dark. I knew +Howells ridiculously connected them with the murderer." + +"You made a good job of it when you trampled, them out," Robinson +hazarded. + +But it was clear Bobby's amazement had not been lost on him. + +"Or," he went on, "this foreigner who advertises himself as your friend! +He was in the court tonight. We know that." + +Suddenly he stooped, and Bobby got on his knees beside him. The cylinder +of light held in its centre one mark, clear and distinct in the trampled +grass, and with a warm gratitude, a swift apprehension, Bobby thought of +Katherine. For the mark in the grass had been made by the heel of a +woman's shoe. + +"Not the foreigner then," Robinson mused, "not yourself, Blackburn, but a +woman, a devoted woman. That's something to get after." + +"And if she lies, the impression of the heel will give her away," the +coroner suggested. + +Robinson grinned. + +"You'd make a rotten detective, Coroner. Women's heels are cut to a +pattern. There are thousands of shoes whose heels would fit this +impression. We need the sole for identification, and that she hasn't left +us. But she's done one favour. She's advertised herself as a woman, and +there are just three women in the house. One of those committed this +serious offence, and the inference is obvious." + +Before Bobby could protest, the doctor broke in with his throaty rumble: +"One of those, or the woman who cried about the house." + +Bobby started. The memory of that eerie grief was still uncomfortable in +his brain. Could there have been actually a woman at the stagnant lake +that afternoon and close to the house to-night--some mysterious friend +who assumed grave risks in his service? He recognized Robinson's logic. +Unless there were something in that far-fetched theory, Katherine faced a +situation nearly as serious as his own. Robinson straightened. At the +same moment the scraping of a window reached them. Bobby glanced at the +newer wing. Katherine leaned from her window. The coincidence disturbed +him. In Robinson's mind, he knew, her anxiety would assume a colour of +guilt. Her voice, moreover, was too uncertain, too full of misgivings: + +"What is going on down there? There have been no--no more tragedies?" + +"Would you mind joining us for a moment?" Robinson asked. + +She drew back. The curtain fell over her lighted window. The darkness of +the court was disturbed again only by the limited radiance of the +flashlight. She came hurriedly from the front door. + +"I saw you gathered here. I heard you talking. I wondered." + +"You knew there were footprints in this court," Robinson said harshly, +"that Howells connected them with the murderer of your uncle." + +"Yes," she answered simply. + +"Why then," he asked, "did you attempt to obliterate them?" + +She laughed. + +"What do you mean? I didn't. I haven't been out of the house since just +after luncheon." + +"Can you prove that?" + +"It needs no proof. I tell you so." + +The flashlight exposed the ugly confidence of Robinson's smile. + +"I am sorry to suggest the need of corroboration." + +"You doubt my word?" she flashed. + +"A woman," he answered, "has obliterated valuable testimony, I shall make +it my business to punish her." + +She laughed again. Without another word she turned and reentered the +house. Robinson's oath was audible to the others. + +"We can't put up with that sort of thing, sir," Rawlins said. + +"I ought to place this entire household under arrest," Robinson muttered. + +"As a lawyer," Graham said easily, "I should think with your lack of +evidence it might be asking for trouble. There is Paredes who +acknowledges he was in the court." + +"All right. I'll see what he's got to say." + +He started for the house. Bobby lingered for a moment with Graham. + +"Do you know anything about this, Hartley?" + +"Nothing," Graham whispered. + +"Then you don't think Katherine--" + +"If she'd done it she'd have taken good care not to be so curious. I +doubt if it was Katherine." + +They followed the others into the hall. Bobby, scarcely appreciating why +at first, realized there had been a change there. Then he understood: +Robinson faced an empty chair. The hall was pungent with cigarette smoke, +but Paredes had gone. + +Robinson pointed to the stairs. + +"Get him down," he said to Rawlins. + +"He wouldn't have gone to bed," Graham suggested. "Suppose he's in the +old room where Howells lies?" + +But Rawlins found him nowhere upstairs. With an increasing excitement +Robinson joined the search. They went through the entire house. Paredes +was no longer there. He had, to all appearances, put a period to his +unwelcome visit. He had definitely disappeared from the Cedars. + +His most likely exit was through the kitchen door which was unlocked, but +Jenkins who had returned to his room had heard no one. With their +electric lamps Robinson and Rawlins ferreted about the rear entrance for +traces. The path there was as trampled and useless as the one in front. +Rawlins, who had gone some distance from the house, straightened with a +satisfied exclamation. The others joined him. + +"Here's where he left the path right enough," he said. "And our foreigner +wasn't making any more noise than he had to." + +He flashed his lamp on a fresh footprint in the soft soil at the side of +the path. The mark of the toe was deep and firm. The impression of the +heel was very light. Paredes, it was clear, had walked from the house +on tiptoe. + +"Follow on," Robinson commanded. "I told this fellow I wanted to question +him. I've scared him off." + +Keeping his light on the ground, Rawlins led the way across the clearing. +The trail was simple enough to follow. Each of the Panamanian's +footprints was distinct. Each had that peculiarity that suggested the +stealth of his progress. + +As they continued Bobby responded to an excited premonition. He sensed +the destination of the chase. He could picture Paredes now in the +loneliest portion of the woods, for the trail unquestionably pointed to +the path he had taken that afternoon toward the stagnant lake. + +"Hartley!" he said. "Paredes left the house to go to the stagnant lake +where I fancied I saw a woman in black. Do you see? And he didn't hear +the crying of a woman a little while ago, and when we told him he became +restless. He wandered about the hall talking of ghosts." + +"A rendezvous!" Graham answered. "He may have been waiting for just that. +The crying may have been a signal. Perhaps you'll believe now, Bobby, +that the man has had an underhanded purpose in staying here." + +"I've made too many hasty judgments in my life, Hartley. I'll go slow on +this. I'll wait until we see what we find at the lake." + +Rawlins snapped off his light. The little party paused at the black +entrance of the path into the thicket. + +"He's buried himself in the woods," Rawlins said. + +They crowded instinctively closer in the sudden darkness. A brisk wind +had sprung up. It rattled among the trees, and set the dead leaves in +gentle, rustling motion. It suggested to Bobby the picture which had been +forced into his brain the night of his grandfather's death. The moon now +possessed less light, but it reminded him again of a drowning face, and +through the darkness he could fancy the trees straining in the wind like +puny men. Abruptly the thought of penetrating the forest became +frightening. The silent loneliness of the stagnant lake seemed as +unfriendly and threatening as the melancholy of the old room. + +"There are too many of us," Robinson was saying. "You'd better go on +alone, Rawlins, and don't take any chances. I've got to have this man. +You understand? I think he knows things worth while." + +The rising wind laughed at his whisper. The detective flashed his +lamp once, shut it off again, and stepped into the close embrace of +the thicket. + +Suddenly Bobby grasped Graham's arm. The little group became +tense, breathless. For across the wind with a diffused quality, a +lack of direction, vibrated to them again the faint and mournful +grief of a woman. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ONE WHO CREPT IN THE PRIVATE STAIRCASE + + +The odd, mournful crying lost itself in the restless lament of the wind. +The thicket from which it had seemed to issue assumed in the pallid +moonlight a new unfriendliness. Instinctively the six men moved closer +together. The coroner's thin tones expressed his alarm: + +"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." + +"Graham and I had thought of that," Bobby said. + +"Howells was a sharp one," Robinson mused, "but he must have gone wrong +on this fellow. He 'phoned me the man knew nothing. Spoke of him as a +foreigner who lolled around smoking cigarettes and trying to make a fool +of him with a lot of talk about ghosts." + +"Howells," Graham said, "misjudged the case from the start. He wasn't to +blame, but his mistake cost him his life." + +Robinson didn't answer. Bobby saw that the man had discarded his +intolerant temper. From that change he drew a new hope. He accepted it as +the beginning of fulfilment of his prophecy last night that an accident +to Howells and the entrance of a new man into the case would give him a +fighting chance. It was clearly Paredes at the moment who filled the +district attorney's mind. + +"Go after him," he said shortly to Rawlins. "If you can get away with it +bring him back and whoever you find with him." + +Rawlins hesitated. + +"I'm no coward, but I know what's happened to Howells. This isn't an +ordinary case. I don't want to walk into an ambush. It would be safer not +to run him down alone." + +"All right," Robinson agreed, "I don't care to leave the Cedars for the +present. Perhaps Mr. Graham--" + +But Graham wasn't enthusiastic. It never occurred to Bobby that he was +afraid. Graham, he guessed, desired to remain near Katherine. + +"I'll go, if you like," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +It was probable that Graham's instinct to stay had sprung from service +rather than sentiment. The man, it was reasonable, sought to protect +Katherine from the Cedars itself and from Robinson's too direct methods +of examination. As an antidote for his unwelcome jealousy Bobby offered +himself to Rawlins. + +"Would you mind if I came, too? I've known Paredes a long time." + +Robinson sneered. + +"What do you think of that, Rawlins?" + +But the detective stepped close and whispered in the district +attorney's ear. + +"All right," Robinson said. "Go with 'em, if you want, Mr. Blackburn." + +And Bobby knew that he would go, not to help, but to be watched. + +The others strayed toward the house. The three men faced the entrance of +the path alone. + +"No more loud talk now," the detective warned. "If he went on tiptoe +so can we." + +Even with this company Bobby shrank from the dark and restless forest. +With a smooth skill the detective followed the unfamiliar path. From time +to time he stooped close to the ground, shaded his lamp with his hand, +and pressed the control. Always the light verified the presence of +Paredes ahead of them. Bobby knew they were near the stagnant lake. The +underbrush was thicker. They went with more care to limit the sound of +their passage among the trees. And each moment the physical surroundings +of the pursuit increased Bobby's doubt of Paredes. No ordinary impulse +would bring a man to such a place in this black hour before the +dawn--particularly Paredes, who spoke constantly of his superstitious +nature, who advertised a thorough-paced fear of the Cedars. The +Panamanian's decision to remain, his lack of emotion before the tragic +succession of events at the house, his attempt to enter the corridor just +before Bobby had gone himself to the old room for the evidence, his +desire to direct suspicion against Katherine, finally this excursion in +response to the eerie crying, all suggested a definite, perhaps a +dangerous, purpose in the brain of the serene and inscrutable man. + +They slipped to the open space about the lake. The moon barely +distinguished for them the flat, melancholy stretch of water. They +listened breathlessly. There was no sound beyond the normal stirrings of +the forest. Bobby had a feeling, similar to the afternoon's, that he was +watched. He tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness across the +lake where he had fancied the woman skulking. The detective's keen senses +were satisfied. + +"Dollars to doughnuts they're not here. They've probably gone on. I'll +have to take a chance and show the light again." + +Fresh footprints were revealed in the narrow circle of illumination. +Testifying to Paredes's continued stealth, they made a straight line to +the water's edge. Rawlins exclaimed: + +"He stepped into the lake. How deep is it?" + +The black surface of the water seemed to Bobby like an opaque glass, +hiding sinister things. Suppose Paredes, instead of coming to a +rendezvous, had been led? + +"It's deep enough in the centre," he answered. + +"Shallow around the edges?" + +"Quite." + +"Then he knew we were after him," Groom said. + +Rawlins nodded and ran his light along the shore. A few yards to the +right a ledge of smooth rock stretched from the water to a grove of pine +trees. The detective arose and turned off his light. + +"He's blocked us," he said. "He knew he wouldn't leave his marks on the +rocks or the pine needles. No way to guess his direction now." + +Doctor Groom cleared his throat. With a hesitant manner he recited the +discovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountable +disappearances their failure to find its source. + +"I was thinking," he explained, "that Paredes alone saw the light give +out. It was his suggestion that he go to the front of the house to +investigate. This path might be used as a short cut to the deserted +house. The rendezvous may have been there." + +Rawlins was interested again. + +"How far is it?" + +"Not much more than a mile," Groom answered. + +"Then we'll go," the detective decided. "Show the way." + +Groom in the lead, they struck off through the woods. Bobby, who walked +last, noticed the faint messengers of dawn behind the trees in the east. +He was glad. The night cloaked too much in this neighbourhood. By +daylight the empty house would guard its secret less easily. Suddenly he +paused and stood quite still. He wanted to call to the others, to point +out what he had seen. There was no question. By chance he had +accomplished the task that had seemed so hopeless yesterday. He had found +the spot where his consciousness had come back momentarily to record a +wet moon, trees straining in the wind like puny men, and a figure in a +mask which he had called his conscience. He gazed, his hope retreating +before an unforeseen disappointment, for with the paling moon and the +bent trees survived that very figure on the discovery of whose nature he +had built so vital a hope; and in this bad light it conveyed to him an +appearance nearly human. Through the underbrush the trunk of a tree +shattered by some violent storm mocked him with its illusion. The dead +leaves at the top were like cloth across a face. Therefore, he argued, +there had been no conspiracy against him. Paredes was clean as far as +that was concerned. He had wandered about the Cedars alone. He had opened +his eyes at a point between the court and the deserted house. + +Rawlins turned back suspiciously, asking why he loitered. He continued +almost indifferently. He still wanted to know Paredes's goal, but his +disappointment and its meaning obsessed him. + +When they crept up the growing light exposed the scars of the deserted +house. Everything was as Bobby remembered it. At the front there was no +decayed wood or vegetation to strengthen the doctor's half-hearted theory +of a phosphorescent emanation. + +The tangle of footsteps near the rear door was confusing and it was some +time before the three men straightened and glanced at each other, knowing +that the doctor's wisdom was proved. For Paredes had been there recently; +for that matter, might still be in the house. Moreover, he hadn't hidden +his tracks, as he could have done, in the thick grass. Instead he had +come in a straight line from the woods across a piece of sandy ground +which contained the record of his direction and his continued stealth. +But inside they found nothing except burnt-out matches strewn across the +floor, testimony of their earlier search. The fugitive had evidently +left more carefully than he had come. The chill emptiness of the deserted +house had drawn and released him ahead of the chase. + +"I guess he knew what the light meant," the detective said, "as well as +he did that queer calling. It complicates matters that I can't find a +woman's footprints around here. She may have kept to the grass and this +marked-up path, for, since I don't believe in banshees, I'll swear +there's been a woman around, either a crazy woman, wandering at large, +who might be connected with the murders, or else a sane one who +signalled the foreigner. Let's get back and see what the district +attorney makes of it." + +"It might be wiser not to dismiss the banshees, as you call them, too +hurriedly," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +As they returned along the road in the growing light Bobby lost the +feeling he had had of being spied upon. The memory of such an adventure +was bound to breed something like confidence among its actors. Rawlins, +Bobby hoped, would be less unfriendly. The detective, in fact, talked as +much to him as to the doctor. He assured them that Robinson would get the +Panamanian unless he proved miraculously clever. + +"He's shown us that he knows something," he went on. "I don't say how +much, because I can't get a motive to make it worth his while to commit +such crimes." + +The man smiled blandly at Bobby. + +"While in your case there's a motive at least--the money." + +He chuckled. + +"That's the easiest motive to understand in the world. It's stronger +than love." + +Bobby wondered. Love had been the impulse for the last few months' folly +that had led him into his present situation. Graham, over his stern +principles of right, had already stepped outside the law in backing +Katherine's efforts to save Bobby. So he wondered how much Graham would +risk, how far he was capable of going himself, at the inspiration of +such a motive. + +The sun was up when they reached the Cedars. Katherine had gone to her +room. The coroner had left. Robinson and Graham had built a fresh fire in +the hall. They sat there, talking. + +"Where you been?" Robinson demanded. "We'd about decided the spooks had +done for you." + +The detective outlined their failure. The district attorney listened with +a frown. At the end he arose and, without saying anything, walked to the +telephone. When he returned he appeared better satisfied. + +"Mr. Paredes," he said, "will have to be a slick article to make a clean +getaway. And I'm bringing another man to keep reporters out. They'll know +from Howells's murder that Mr. Blackburn didn't die a natural death. If +reporters get in don't talk to them. I don't want that damned foreigner +reading in the papers what's going on here. I'd give my job to have him +in that chair for five minutes now." + +Graham cleared his throat. + +"I scarcely know how to suggest this, since it is sufficiently clear, +because of Howells's suspicions, that you have Mr. Blackburn under close +observation. But he has a fair idea of Paredes's habits, his haunts, and +his friends in New York. He might be able to learn things the police +couldn't. I've one or two matters to take me to town. I would make myself +personally responsible for his return--" + +The district attorney interrupted. + +"I see what you mean. Wait a minute." + +He clasped his hands and rolled his fat thumbs one around the other. The +little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, became enigmatic. All at once he +glanced up with a genial smile. + +"Why not? I haven't said anything about holding Mr. Blackburn as more +than a witness." + +His tone chilled Bobby as thoroughly as a direct accusation would +have done. + +"And," Robinson went on, "the sooner you go the better. The sooner you +get back the better." + +Graham was visibly puzzled by this prompt acquiescence. He started for +the stairs, but the district attorney waved him aside. + +"Coats and hats are downstairs. No need wasting time." + +Graham turned to Doctor Groom. + +"You'll tell Miss Perrine, Doctor?" + +The doctor showed that he understood the warning Graham wished to convey. + +The district attorney made a point of walking to the stable to see them +off. Graham gestured angrily as they drove away. + +"It's plain as the nose on your face. I was too anxious to test their +attitude toward you, Bobby. He jumped at the chance to run us out of the +house. He'll have several hours during which to turn the place upside +down, to give Katherine the third degree. And we can't go back. We'll +have to see it through." + +"Why should he give me a chance to slip away?" Bobby asked. + +But before long he realized that Robinson was taking no chances. At the +junction of the road from Smithtown a car picked them up and clung to +their heels all the way to the city. + +"Rawlins must have telephoned," Graham said, "while we went to the +stable. They're still playing Howells's game. They'll give you +plenty of rope." + +He drove straight to Bobby's apartment. The elevator man verified their +suspicions. Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search. A +familiar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outside +Bobby's door. + +"I'm through, gentlemen," he greeted them impudently. + +Graham faced him in a burst of temper. + +"The city may have to pay for this outrage." + +The man grinned. + +"I should get gray hairs about that." + +He went on downstairs. They entered the apartment to find confusion in +each room. Bureau drawers had been turned upside down. The desk had been +examined with a reckless thoroughness. Graham was frankly worried. + +"I wonder if he found anything. If he did you won't get out of town." + +"What could he find?" Bobby asked. + +"If the court was planted," Graham answered, "why shouldn't these rooms +have been?" + +"After last night I don't believe the court was planted," Bobby said. + +In the lower hall the elevator man handed Bobby the mail that had come +since the night of his grandfather's murder. In the car again he glanced +over the envelopes. He tore one open with a surprised haste. + +"This is Maria's handwriting," he told Graham. + +He read the hastily scrawled note aloud with a tone that failed +toward the end. + +"DEAR BOBBY; + +"You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport. You were very wicked +last night. Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty little +cocktails. Why should you threaten poor Maria? And you boasted you were +going out to the Cedars to kill your grandfather because you didn't like +him any more. So I told Carlos to take you home. I was afraid of a scene +in public. Come around. Have tea with me. Tell me you forgive me. Tell me +what was the matter with you." + +"She must have written that yesterday morning," Bobby muttered. "Good +Lord, Hartley! Then it was in my mind!" + +"Unless that letter's a plant, too," Graham said. "Yet how could she know +there'd be a search? Why shouldn't she have addressed it to the Cedars +where there was a fair chance of its being opened and read by the police? +Why hasn't my man made any report on her? We've a number of questions to +ask Maria." + +But word came down from the dancer's apartment that Maria wasn't at home. + +"When did she go out?" Graham asked the hall man. + +"Not since I came on duty at six o'clock." + +Graham slipped a bill in the man's hand. + +"We've an important message for her. We'd better leave it with the maid." + +When they were alone in the upper hall he explained his purpose to Bobby. + +"We must know whether she's actually here. If she isn't, if she hasn't +been back for the last twenty-four hours--don't you see? It was +yesterday afternoon you thought you saw a woman at the lake, and last +night a woman cried about the Cedars--" + +"That's going pretty far, Hartley." + +"It's a chance. A physical one." + +A pretty maid opened the door. Her face was troubled. She studied them +with frank disappointment. + +"I thought--" she began. + +"That your mistress was coming back?" Graham flashed. + +There was no concealment in the girl's manner. It was certain that Maria +was not in the apartment. + +"You remember me?" Bobby asked. + +"Yes. You have been here. You are a friend of mademoiselle's. You can, +perhaps, tell me where she is." + +Bobby shook his head. The girl spread her hands. She burst out excitedly: + +"What is one to do? I have telephoned the theatre. There was no one there +who knew anything at all, except that mademoiselle had not appeared at +the performance last night." + +Graham glanced at Bobby. + +"When," he asked, "did you see her last?" + +"It was before luncheon yesterday." + +"Did she leave no instructions? Didn't she say when she would be back?" + +The girl nodded. + +"That's what worries me, for she said she would be back after the +performance last night." + +"She left no instructions?" Graham repeated. + +"Only that if any one called or telephoned I was to make no appointments. +What am I to do? Perhaps I shouldn't be talking to you. She would never +forgive me for an indiscretion." + +"For the present I advise you to do nothing," Graham said. "You can +safely leave all that to her managers. I am going to see them now. I +will tell them what you have said." + +The girl's eyes moistened. + +"Thank you, sir. I have been at my wits' end." + +Apparently she withheld nothing. She played no part to confuse the +dancer's friends. + +On the way to the managers' office, with the trailing car behind them, +Graham reasoned excitedly: + +"For the first time we seem to be actually on the track. Here's a +tangible clue that may lead to the heart of the case. Maria pulled the +wool over the maid's eyes, too. She didn't want her to know her plans, +but her instructions show that she had no intention of returning last +night. She probably made a bee line for the Cedars. It was probably she +that you saw at the lake, probably she who cried last night. If only she +hadn't written that note! I can't get the meaning of it. It's up to her +managers now. If they haven't heard from her it's a safe guess she's +playing a deep game, connected with the crying, and the light at the +deserted house, and the disappearance of Paredes before dawn. You must +realize the connection between that and your condition the other evening +after you had left them." + +Bobby nodded. He began to hope that at the managers' office they would +receive no explanation of Maria's absence destructive to Graham's theory. +Early as it was they found a bald-headed man in his shirt sleeves pacing +with an air of panic a blantantly furnished office. + +"Well!" he burst out as they entered. "My secretary tells me you've come +about this temperamental Carmen of mine. Tell me where she is. Quick!" + +Graham smiled at Bobby. The manager ran his fingers across his bald and +shining forehead. + +"It's no laughing matter." + +"Then she has definitely disappeared?" Graham said. + +"Disappeared! Why did I come down at this ungodly hour except on the +chance of getting some word? She didn't even telephone last night. I had +to show myself in front of the curtain and give them a spiel about a +sudden indisposition. And believe me, gentlemen, audiences ain't what +they used to be. Did these ginks sit back and take the show for what it +was worth? Not by a darn sight. Flocked to the box office and howled for +their money back. If she doesn't appear to-night I might as well close +the house. I'll be ruined." + +"Unless," Graham suggested, "you get your press agent to make capital out +of her absence. The papers would publish her picture and thousands of +people would look her up for you." + +The manager ceased his perplexed massage of his forehead. He shook +hands genially. + +"I'd thought of that with some frills. 'Has beautiful dancer met foul +play? Millions in jewels on her person when last seen.' Old stuff, but +they rise to it." + +"That will help," Graham said to Bobby when they were in the car again. +"The reporters will find Maria quicker than any detective I can put my +hand on. My man evidently fell down because she had gone before I got him +on the case." At his office they learned that was the fact. The private +detective had been able to get no slightest clue as to Maria's +whereabouts. Moreover, Bobby's description of the stranger who had +entered the cafe with her merely suggested a type familiar to the +Tenderloin. For purposes of identification it was worthless. Always +followed by the car from Smithtown, they went to the hotel where Paredes +had lived, to a number of his haunts. Bobby talked with men who knew him, +but he learned nothing. Paredes's friends had had no word since the man's +departure for the Cedars the day before. So they turned their backs on +the city, elated by the significance of Maria's absence, yet worried by +the search and the watchful car which never lost sight of them. When they +were in the country Graham sighed his relief. "You haven't been stopped. +Therefore, nothing was found at your apartment, but if that wasn't +planted why should Maria have sent an incriminating note there?" +"Unless," Bobby answered, "she told the truth. Unless she was sincere +when she mailed it. Unless she learned something important between the +time she wrote it and her disappearance from her home." + +"Frankly, Bobby," Graham said, "the note and the circumstances under +which it came to you are as damaging as the footprints and the +handkerchief, but it doesn't tell us how any human being could have +entered that room to commit the murders and disturb the bodies. At least +we've got one physical fact, and I'm going to work on that." + +"If it is Maria prowling around the Cedars," Bobby said, "she's amazingly +slippery, and with Paredes gone what are you going to do with your +physical fact? And how does it explain the friendly influence that wiped +out my footprints? Is it a friendly or an evil influence that snatched +away the evidence and that keeps it secreted?" + +"We'll see," Graham said. "I'm going after a flesh-and-blood criminal who +isn't you. I'm going to try to find out what your grandfather was afraid +of the night of his murder." + +After a time he glanced up. + +"You've known Paredes for a long time, Bobby, but I don't think you've +ever told me how you met him." + +"A couple of years ago I should think," Bobby answered. "Somebody brought +him to the club. I've forgotten who. Carlos was working for a big Panama +importing firm. He was trying to interest this chap in the New York end. +I saw him off and on after that and got to like him for his quiet manner +and a queer, dry wit he had in those days. Two or three months ago he--he +seemed to fit into my humour, and we became pretty chummy as you know. +Even after last night I hate to believe he's my enemy." + +"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." + +"Yet," Graham said harshly, "you have had practically no sleep since you +came here." + +Paredes nodded. + +"Very distressing, isn't it?" + +"Maybe," Rawlins sneered, "you'll tell us why you went on tiptoe, and I +suppose you didn't hear a woman crying in the woods?" + +"That's just it," Paredes answered. "I did hear something like that, and +it occurred to me to follow such a curious sound. So I went on tiptoe, as +you call it." + +"Why," Robinson exclaimed angrily, "you walked in the lake to hide +your tracks!" + +Paredes smiled. + +"It was very dark. That was chance. Quite silly of me. My feet got wet." + +"I gather," Rawlins said, "it was chance that took you to the +deserted house." + +Paredes shook his head. + +"Don't you think I was as much puzzled as the rest by that strange, +disappearing light? It was as good a place to walk as any." + +"Where have you been since?" Graham asked. + +"When I had got there I was tired," Paredes answered. "Since it wasn't +far to the station I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and have a bath and +rest. But I assure you I've trudged back from the station just now." + +Suddenly he repeated the apparently absurd formula he had used +with Howells. + +"You know the court seems full of unfriendly things--what the ignorant +would call ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." After a moment he added: "The +woods, too. I shouldn't care to wander through them too much after dark." + +Robinson stared, but Rawlins brushed the question aside. + +"What hotel did you go to in Smithtown?" + +"It's called the 'New.' Nothing could be farther from the fact." + +"Shall I see if that's straight, sir?" + +The district attorney agreed, and Rawlins left the room. Paredes laughed. + +"How interesting! I'm under suspicion. It would be something, wouldn't +it, to commit crimes with the devilish ingenuity of these? No, no, Mr. +District Attorney, look to the ghosts. They alone are sufficiently +clever. But I might say, since you take this attitude, that I don't care +to answer any more questions until you discover something that might give +you the right to ask them." + +He lay back on the divan, languidly lighting another cigarette. Graham +beckoned Robinson. Bobby followed them out, suspecting Graham's purpose, +unwilling that action should be taken too hastily against the Panamanian; +for even now guilty knowledge seemed incompatible with Paredes's polished +reserve. When he joined the others, indeed, Graham with an aggressive air +was demanding the district attorney's intentions. + +"If he could elude you so easily last night, it's common sense to put him +where you can find him in case of need. He's given you excuse enough." + +"The man's got me guessing," Robinson mused, "but there are other +elements." + +"What's happened since we left?" Graham asked quickly. "Have you got any +trace of Howells's evidence?" + +Robinson smiled enigmatically, but his failure was apparent. + +"I'm like Howells," he said. "I'd risk nearly anything myself to learn +how the room was entered, how the crimes were committed, how those poor +devils were made to alter their positions." + +"So," Bobby said, "you had my rooms in New York searched. You had me +followed to-day. It's ridiculous." + +Robinson ignored him. He stepped to the front door, opened it, and looked +around the court. + +"What did the sphinx mean about ghosts in the court?" + +They walked out, gazing helplessly at the trampled grass about the +fountain, at the melancholy walls, at the partly opened window of the +room of mystery. + +"He knows something," Robinson mused. "Maybe you're right, Mr. Graham, +but I wonder if I oughtn't to go farther and take you all." + +Graham smiled uncomfortably, but Bobby knew why the official failed to +follow that radical course. Like Howells, he hesitated to remove from the +Cedars the person most likely to solve its mystery. As long as a chance +remained that Howells had been right about Bobby he would give Silas +Blackburn's grandson his head, merely making sure, as he had done this +morning, that there should be no escape. He glanced up. + +"I wonder if our foreigner's laughing at me now." + +Graham made a movement toward the door. + +"We might," he said significantly, "find that out without disturbing +him." + +Robinson nodded and led the way silently back to the house. Such a method +was repugnant to Bobby, and he followed at a distance. Then he saw from +the movements of the two men ahead that the library had again offered the +unexpected, and he entered. Paredes was no longer in the room. Bobby was +about to speak, but Robinson shook his head angrily, raising his hand in +a gesture of warning. All three strained forward, listening, and Bobby +caught the sound that had arrested the others--a stealthy scraping that +would have been inaudible except through such a brooding silence as +pervaded the old house. + +Bobby's interest quickened at this confirmation of Graham's theory. +There was a projection of cold fear, moreover, in its sly allusion. It +gave to his memory of Paredes, with his tall, graceful figure, his lack +of emotion, his inscrutable eyes, and his pointed beard, a suggestion +nearly satanic. For the stealthy scraping had come from behind the closed +door of the private staircase. Howells had gone up that staircase. None +of them could forget for a moment that it led to the private hall outside +the room in which the murders had been committed. + +It occurred to Bobby that the triumph Graham's face expressed was out of +keeping with the man. It disturbed him nearly as thoroughly as Paredes's +stealthy presence in that place. + +"We've got him," Graham whispered. + +Robinson's bulky figure moved cautiously toward the door. He grasped the +knob, swung the door open, and stepped back, smiling his satisfaction. + +Half way down the staircase Paredes leaned against the wall, one foot +raised and outstretched, as though an infinitely quiet descent had been +interrupted. The exposure had been too quick for his habit. His face +failed to hide its discomfiture. His laugh rang false. + +"Hello!" + +"I'm afraid we've caught you, Paredes," Graham said, and the triumph +blazed now in his voice. + +What Paredes did then was more startling, more out of key than any of his +recent actions. He came precipitately down. His eyes were dangerous. As +Bobby watched the face whose quiet had at last been tempestuously +destroyed, he felt that the man was capable of anything under sufficient +provocation. + +"Got me for what?" he snarled. + +"Tell us why you were sneaking up there. In connection with your little +excursion before dawn it suggests a guilty knowledge." + +Paredes straightened. He shrugged his shoulders. With an admirable effort +of the will he smoothed the rage from his face, but for Bobby the satanic +suggestion lingered. + +"Why do you suppose I'm here?" he said in a restrained voice that +scarcely rose above a whisper. "To help Bobby. I was simply looking +around for Bobby's sake." + +That angered Bobby. He wanted to cry out against the supposed friend who +had at last shown his teeth. + +"That," Graham laughed, "is why you sneaked, why you didn't make any +noise, why you lost your temper when we caught you at it? What about it, +Mr. District Attorney?" + +Robinson stepped forward. + +"Nothing else to do, Mr. Graham. He's too slippery. I'll put him in a +safe place." + +"You mean," Paredes cried, "that you'll arrest me?" + +"You've guessed it. I'll lock you up as a material witness." + +Paredes swung on Bobby. + +"You'll permit this, Bobby? You'll forget that I am a guest in your +house?" + +Bobby flushed. + +"Why have you stayed? What were you doing up there? Answer those +questions. Tell me what you want." + +Paredes turned away. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it. +His fingers were not steady. For the first time, it became evident to +Bobby, Paredes was afraid. Rawlins came back from the telephone. He took +in the tableau. + +"What's the rumpus?" + +"Run this man to Smithtown," Robinson directed. "Lock him up, and tell +the judge, when he's arraigned in the morning, that I want him held as a +material witness." + +"He was at the hotel in Smithtown all right," Rawlins said. + +He tapped Paredes's arm. + +"You coming on this little joy ride like a lamb or a lion? Say, you'll +find the jail about as comfortable as the New Hotel." + +Paredes smiled. The evil and dangerous light died in his eyes. He became +all at once easy and impervious again. + +"Like a lamb. How else?" + +"I'm sorry, Carlos," Bobby muttered. "If you'd only say something! If +you'd only explain your movements! If you'd only really help!" + +Again Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"Handcuffs?" he asked Rawlins. + +Rawlins ran his hands deftly over the Panamanian's clothing. + +"No armed neutrality for me," he grinned. "All right. We'll forget the +bracelets since you haven't a gun." + +Puffing at his cigarette, Paredes got his coat and hat and followed the +detective from the house. + +Robinson and Graham climbed the private staircase to commence another +systematic search of the hall, to discover, if they could, the motive for +Paredes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily this +opportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what had +happened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of her +despairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her door +and stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been an +expression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face of +Robinson's harsh determination. + +"He questioned me for an hour," she said, "principally about the heel +mark in the court. They cling to that, because I don't think they've +found anything new at the lake." + +"You don't know anything about it, do you, Katherine? You weren't there? +You didn't do that for me?" + +"I wasn't there, Bobby. I honestly don't know any more about it +than you do." + +"Carlos was in the court," he mused. "Did you know they'd taken him? We +found him creeping down the private stairway." + +There was a hard quality about her gratitude. + +"I am glad, Bobby. The man makes me shudder, and all morning they +seemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged every +room--even mine." + +She laughed feverishly. + +"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed--" She broke off. She picked +at her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyes +and continued: "They seemed almost as doubtful of me as of you." + +He recalled Paredes's suspicion of the girl. + +"It's nonsense, Katherine. And I'm to blame for that, too." + +She put her finger to her lips. Her smile was wistful. + +"Hush! You mustn't blame yourself. You mustn't think of that." + +Again her solicitude, their isolation in a darkened place, tempted him, +aroused impulses nearly irresistible. Her slender figure, the pretty +face, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swept +him to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the face +of Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn't +fight that truth eternally. She must have noticed his struggle without +grasping its cause, for she touched his hand, and the wistfulness of her +expression increased. + +"I wish you wouldn't think of me, Bobby. It's you we must all think of." + +He accepted with a cold dismay the sisterly anxiety of her attitude. It +made his renunciation easier. He walked away. + +"Why do you go?" she called after him. + +He gestured vaguely, without turning. + +He didn't see her again until dinner time. She was as silent then as she +had been the night before when Howells had sat with them, his moroseness +veiling a sharp interest in the plan that was to lead to his death. +Robinson's mood was very different. He talked a great deal, making no +effort to hide his irritation. His failure to find any clue in the +private staircase after Paredes's arrest had clearly stimulated his +interest in Bobby. The sharp little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, held +a threat for him. Bobby was glad when the meal ended. + +Howells's body was taken away that night. It was a relief for all of them +to know that the old room was empty again. + +"I daresay you won't sleep there," Graham said to Robinson. + +Robinson glanced at Bobby. + +"Not as things stand," he answered. "The library lounge is plenty good +enough for me tonight." + +Graham went upstairs with Bobby. There was no question about his +purpose. He wouldn't repeat last night's mistake. + +"At least," he said, when the door was closed behind them, "I can see if +you do get up and wander about in your sleep. I'd bet a good deal that +you won't." + +"If I did it would be an indication?" + +"Granted it's your custom, what is there to tempt you to-night?" + +Bobby answered, half jesting: + +"You've not forgotten Robinson on the library sofa. The man isn't exactly +working for me. Tonight he seems almost as unfriendly as Howells was." + +He yawned. + +"I ought to sleep now if ever. I've seldom been so tired. Two such +nights!" + +He hesitated. + +"But I am glad you're here, Hartley. I can go to sleep with a more +comfortable feeling." + +"Don't worry," Graham said. "You'll sleep quietly enough, and we'll all +be better for a good rest." + +For only a little while they talked of the mystery. While Graham +regretted his failure to find any trace of Maria, their voices dwindled +sleepily. Bobby recalled his last thought before losing himself last +night. He tried to force from his mind now the threat in Robinson's eyes. +He told himself again and again that the man wasn't actually unfriendly. +Then the blackness encircled him. He slept. + +Almost at once, it seemed to him, he was fighting away, demanding +drowsily: + +"What's the matter? Leave me alone." + +He heard Graham's voice, unnaturally subdued and anxious. + +"What are you doing, Bobby?" + +Then Bobby knew he was no longer in his bed, that he stood instead in +a cold place; and the meaning of his position came with a rush of +sick terror. + +"Get hold of yourself," Graham said. "Come back." + +Bobby opened his eyes. He was in the upper hall at the head of the +stairs. Unconsciously he had been about to creep quietly down, perhaps to +the library. Graham had awakened him. It seemed to offer the answer to +everything. It seemed to give outline to a monstrous familiar that +drowned his real self in the black pit while it conducted his body to the +commission of unspeakable crimes. + +He lurched into the bedroom and sat shivering on the bed. Graham entered +and quietly closed the door. + +"What time is it?" Bobby asked hoarsely. + +"Half-past two. I don't think Robinson was aroused." + +The damp moon gave an ominous unreality to the room. + +"What did I do?" Bobby whispered. + +"Got softly out of bed and went to the hall. It was uncanny. You were +like an automaton. I didn't wake you at once. You see, I--I thought you +might go to the old room." + +Bobby shook again. He drew a blanket about his shoulders. + +"And you believed I'd show the way in and out, but the room was empty, so +I was going downstairs--" + +He shuddered. + +"Good God! Then it's all true. I did it for the money. I put Howells out +to protect myself. I was going after Robinson. It's true. Hartley! Tell +me. Do you think it's true?" + +Graham turned away. + +"Don't ask me to say anything to help you just now," he answered huskily, +"for after this I don't dare, Bobby. I don't dare." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD + + +Bobby returned to his bed. He lay there still shivering, beneath +the heavy blankets. "I don't dare!" He echoed Graham's words. +"There's nothing else any one can say. I must decide what to do. I +must think it over." + +But, as always, thought brought no release. It merely insisted that the +case against him was proved. At last he had been seen slipping +unconsciously from his room--and at the same hour. All that remained was +to learn how he had accomplished the apparent miracles. Then no excuse +would remain for not going to Robinson and confessing. The woman at the +lake and in the courtyard, the movement of the body and the vanishing of +the evidence under his hand, Paredes's odd behaviour, all became in his +mind puzzling details that failed to obscure the chief fact. After this +something must be done about Paredes's detention. + +He hadn't dreamed that his weariness could placate even momentarily such +reflections, but at last he slept again. He was aroused by the tramping +of men around the house, and strange, harsh voices. He raised himself on +his elbow and glanced from the window. It had long been daylight. Two +burly fellows in overalls, carrying pick and spade across their +shoulders, pushed through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. He +turned. Graham, fully dressed, stood at the side of the bed. + +"Those men?" Bobby asked wearily. + +"The grave diggers," Graham answered. "They are going to work in the old +cemetery to prepare a place for Silas Blackburn with his fathers. That's +why I've come to wake you up. The minister's telephoned Katherine. He +will be here before noon. Do you know it's after ten o'clock?" + +For some time Bobby stared through the window at the desolate, ragged +landscape. It was abnormally cold even for the late fall. Dull clouds +obscured the sun and furnished an illusion of crowding earthward. + +"A funereal day." + +The words slipped into his mind. He repeated them. + +"When your grandfather's buried," Graham answered softly, "we'll all +feel happier." + +"Why?" Bobby asked. "It won't lessen the fact of his murder." + +"Time," Graham said, "lessens such facts--even for the police." + +Bobby glanced at him, flushing. + +"You mean you've decided to stand by me after what happened last night?" + +Graham smiled. + +"I've thought it all over. I slept like a top last night. I heard +nothing. I saw nothing." + +"Ought I to want you to stand by me?" Bobby said. "Oughtn't I to make a +clean breast of it? At least I must do something about Paredes." + +Graham frowned. + +"It's hard to believe he had any connection with your sleep-walking last +night, yet it's as clear as ever that Maria and he are up to some game in +which you figure." + +"He shouldn't be in jail," Bobby persisted. + +"Get up," Graham advised. "Bathe, and have some breakfast, then we can +decide. There's no use talking of the other thing. I've forgotten it. As +far as possible you must." + +Bobby sprang upright. + +"How can I forget it? If it was hard to face sleep before, what do you +think it is now? Have I any right--" + +"Don't," Graham said. "I'll be with you again to-night. If I were +satisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt I'd advise you to confess, but I +can't be until I know what Maria and Paredes are doing." + +When Bobby had bathed and dressed he found, in spite of his mental +turmoil, that his sleep had done him good. While he breakfasted Graham +urged him to eat, tried to drive from his brain the morbid aftermath of +last night's revealing moment. + +"The manager took my advice, but Maria's still missing. Her pictures are +in most of the papers. There have been reporters here this morning, about +the murders." + +He strolled over and handed Bobby a number of newspapers. + +"Where's Robinson?" Bobby asked. + +"I saw him in the court a while ago. I daresay he's wandering +around--perhaps watching the men at the grave." + +"He learned nothing new last night?" + +"I was with him at breakfast. I gather not." + +Bobby looked up. + +"Isn't that an automobile coming through the woods?" he asked. + +"Maybe Rawlins back from Smithtown, or the minister." + +The car stopped at the entrance of the court. They heard the remote +tinkling of the front door bell. Jenkins passed through. The cold air +invading the hall and the dining room told them he had opened the door. +His sharp exclamation recalled Howells's report which, at their +direction, he had failed to mail. Had his exclamation been drawn by an +accuser? Bobby started to rise. Graham moved toward the door. Then +Jenkins entered and stood to one side. Bobby shared his astonishment, for +Paredes walked in, unbuttoning his overcoat, the former easy-mannered, +uncommunicative foreigner. He appeared, moreover, to have slept +pleasantly. His eyes showed no weariness, his clothing no disarrangement. +He spoke at once, quite as if nothing disagreeable had shadowed his +departure. + +"Good morning. If I had dreamed of this change in the weather I would +have brought a heavier overcoat. I've nearly frozen driving from +Smithtown." + +Before either man could grope for a suitable greeting he faced Bobby. He +felt in his pockets with whimsical discouragement. + +"Fact is, Bobby, I left New York too suddenly. I hadn't noticed until a +little while ago. You see I spent a good deal in Smithtown yesterday." + +Bobby spoke with an obvious confusion: + +"What do you mean, Carlos? I thought you were--" + +Graham interrupted with a flat demand for an explanation. + +"How did you get away?" + +Paredes waved his hand. + +"Later, Mr. Graham. There is a hack driver outside who is even more +suspicious than you. He wants to be paid. I asked Rawlins to drive me +back, but he rushed from the courthouse, probably to telephone his +rotund superior. Fact is, this fellow wants five dollars--an +outrageous rate. I've told him so--but it doesn't do any good. So will +you lend me Bobby--" + +Bobby handed him a banknote. He didn't miss Graham's meaning glance. +Paredes gave the money to the butler. + +"Pay him, will you, Jenkins? Thanks." + +He surveyed the remains of Bobby's breakfast. He sat down. + +"May I? My breakfast was early, and prison food, when you're not in +the habit--" + +Bobby tried to account for Paredes's friendly manner. That he should have +come back at all was sufficiently strange, but it was harder to +understand why he should express no resentment for his treatment +yesterday, why he should fail to refer to Bobby's questions at the moment +of his arrest, or to the openly expressed enmity of Graham. Only one +theory promised to fit at all. It was necessary for the Panamanian to +return to the Cedars. His purpose, whatever it was, compelled him to +remain for the present in the mournful, tragic house. Therefore, he would +crush his justifiable anger. He would make it practically impossible for +Bobby to refuse his hospitality. And he had asked for money--only a +trifling sum, yet Graham would grasp at the fact to support his earlier +suspicion. + +Paredes's arrival possessed one virtue: It diverted Bobby's thoughts +temporarily from his own dilemma, from his inability to chart a course. + +Graham, on the other hand, was ill at ease. Beyond a doubt he was +disarmed by Paredes's good humour. For him yesterday's incident was not +so lightly to be passed over. Eventually his curiosity conquered. The +words came, nevertheless, with some difficulty: + +"We scarcely expected you back." + +His laugh was short and embarrassed. + +"We took it for granted you would find it necessary to stay in Smithtown +for a while." + +Paredes sipped the coffee which Jenkins had poured. + +"Splendid coffee! You should have tasted what I had this morning. Simple +enough, Mr. Graham. I telephoned as soon as Rawlins got me to the +Bastille. I communicated with the lawyer who represents the company for +which I once worked. He's a prominent and brilliant man. He planned it +with some local fellow. When I was arraigned at the opening of court this +morning the judge could hold me only as a material witness. He fixed a +pretty stiff bail, but the local lawyer was there with a bondsman, and I +came back. My clothes are here. You don't mind, Bobby?" + +That moment in the hall when Graham had awakened him urged Bobby to reply +with a genuine warmth: + +"I don't mind. I'm glad you're out of it. I'm sorry you went as you did. +I was tired, at my wits' end. Your presence in the private staircase was +the last straw. You will forgive us, Carlos?" + +Paredes smiled. He put down his coffee cup and lighted a cigarette. He +smoked with a vast contentment. + +"That's better. Nothing to forgive, Bobby. Let us call it a +misunderstanding." + +Graham moved closer. + +"Perhaps you'll tell us now what you were doing in the private +staircase." + +Paredes blew a wreath of smoke. His eyes still smiled, but his voice +was harder: + +"Bygones are bygones. Isn't that so, Bobby?" + +"Since you wish it," Bobby said. + +But more important than the knowledge Graham desired, loomed the old +question. What was the man's game? What held him here? + +Robinson entered. The flesh around his eyes was puffier than it had been +yesterday. Worry had increased the incongruous discontent of his round +face. Clearly he had slept little. + +"I saw you arrive," he said. "Rawlins warned me. But I must say I didn't +think you'd use your freedom to come to us." + +Paredes laughed. + +"Since the law won't hold me at your convenience in Smithtown I keep +myself at your service here--if Bobby permits it. Could you ask more?" + +Bobby shrank from the man with whom he had idled away so much time and +money. That fleeting, satanic impression of yesterday came back, sharper, +more alarming. Paredes's clear challenge to the district attorney was the +measure of his strength. His mind was subtler than theirs. His reserve +and easy daring mastered them all; and always, as now, he laughed at the +futility of their efforts to sound his purposes, to limit his freedom of +action. Bobby didn't care to meet the uncommunicative eyes whose depths +he had never been able to explore. Was there a special power there that +could control the destinies of other people, that might make men walk +unconsciously to accomplish the ends of an unscrupulous brain? + +The district attorney appeared as much at sea as the others. + +"Thanks," he said dryly to Paredes. + +And glancing at Bobby, he asked with a hollow scorn: + +"You've no objection to the gentleman visiting you for the present?" + +"If he wishes," Bobby answered, a trifle amused at Robinson's obvious +fancy of a collusion between Paredes and himself. + +Robinson jerked his head toward the window. + +"I've been watching the preparations out there. I guess when he's laid +away you'll be thinking about having the will read." + +"No hurry," Bobby answered with a quick intake of breath. + +"I suppose not," Robinson sneered, "since everybody knows well enough +what's in it." + +Bobby arose. Robinson still sneered. + +"You'll be at the grave--as chief mourner?" + +Bobby walked from the room. He hadn't cared to reply. He feared, as it +was, that he had let slip his increased self-doubt. He put on his coat +and hat and left the house. The raw cold, the year's first omen of +winter, made his blood run quicker, forced into his mind a cleansing +stimulation. But almost immediately even that prophylactic was denied +him. With his direction a matter of indifference, chance led him into the +thicket at the side of the house. He had walked some distance. The +underbrush had long interposed a veil between him and the Cedars above +whose roofs smoke wreathed in the still air like fantastic figures +weaving a shroud to lower over the time-stained, melancholy walls. For +once he was grateful to the forest because it had forbidden him to glance +perpetually back at that dismal and pensive picture. Then he became aware +of twigs hastily lopped off, of bushes bent and torn, of the uncovering, +through these careless means, of an old path. Simultaneously there +reached his ears the scraping of metal implements in the soft soil, the +dull thud of earth falling regularly. He paused, listening. The labour of +the men was given an uncouth rhythm by their grunting expulsions of +breath. Otherwise the nature of their industry and its surroundings had +imposed upon them a silence, in itself beast-like and unnatural. + +At last a harsh voice came to Bobby. Its brevity pointed the previous +dumbness of the speaker: + +"Deep enough!" + +And Bobby turned and hurried back along the roughly restored path, as if +fleeing from an immaterial thing suddenly quickened with the power of +accusation. + +He could picture the fresh oblong excavation in the soil of the family +burial ground. He could see where the men had had to tear bushes from +among the graves in order to insert their tools. There was an ironical +justice in the condition of the old cemetery. It had received no +interment since the death of Katherine's father. Like everything about +the Cedars, Silas Blackburn had delivered it to the swift, obliterating +fingers of time. If the old man in his selfishness had paused to gaze +beyond the inevitable fact of death, Bobby reflected, he would have +guarded with a more precious interest the drapings of his final sleep. + +This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket less +congenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keen +apprehension his approaching ordeal. It would, doubtless, be more +difficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's body +in the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment of his +grandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fall +noisily in that bleak place of silence without displaying for Robinson +the guilt that impressed him more and more? + +A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. His +black clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs between the +sleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony into +the landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to the +Cedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliage +between himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emerged +from the forest and saw again the leisurely weaving of the smoke shroud +above the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of a +pair of horses, standing in the shafts of a black wagon at the court +entrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass which offers no likely +path yet whose crossing is the price of salvation. + +He was glad to see Graham leave the court and hurry toward him. + +"I was coming to hunt you up, Bobby. The minister's arrived. So has +Doctor Groom. Everything's about ready." + +"Doctor Groom?" + +"Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enough +he should be here." + +Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Graham +made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead. + +"What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?" he +asked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in the +Cedars again." + +"I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlos +gave me the creeps." + +Graham glanced at him curiously. He spoke with pronounced deliberation, +startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that +Paredes's arrival had driven into his own mind. + +"Gave me the creeps, too. Makes me surer than ever that he has an +abominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggests +resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old +room. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence over +you--an influence for evil?" + +"I've liked to go around with him, if that's what you mean." + +"Isn't he the cause of the last two or three months nonsense in +New York?" + +"I won't blame Carlos for that," Bobby muttered. + +"He influenced you against your better judgment," Graham persisted, "to +refuse to leave with me the night of your grandfather's death." + +"Maria did her share," Bobby said. + +He broke off, looking at Graham. + +"What are you driving at?" + +"I've been asking myself since he came back," Graham answered, "if +there's any queer power behind his quiet manner. Maybe he _is_ psychic. +Maybe he can do things we don't understand. I've wondered if he had, +without your knowing it, acquired sufficient influence to direct your +body when your mind no longer controlled it. It's a nasty thought, but +I've heard of such things." + +"You mean Carlos may have made me go to the hall last night, perhaps sent +me to the old room those other times?" + +Now that another had expressed the idea Bobby fought it with all +his might. + +"No. I won't believe it. I've been weak, Hartley, but not that weak. And +I tell you I did feel Howells's body move under my hand." + +"Don't misunderstand me," Graham said gently. "I must consider every +possibility. You were excited and imaginative when you went to the old +room to take the evidence. It was a shock to have your candle go out. +Your own hand, reaching out to Howells, might have moved spasmodically. I +mean, you may have been responsible for the thing without realizing it." + +"And the disappearance of the evidence?" Bobby defended himself. + +"If it had been stolen earlier the coat pocket might have retained its +bulging shape. We know now that Paredes is capable of sneaking around +the house." + +"No, no," Bobby said hotly. "You're trying to take away my one hope. +But I was there, and you weren't. I know with my own senses what +happened, and you don't. Paredes has no such influence over me. I won't +think of it." + +"If it's so far-fetched," Graham asked quietly, "why do you revolt from +the idea?" + +Bobby turned on him. + +"And why do you fill my mind with such thoughts? If you think I'm guilty +say so. Go tell Robinson so." + +He glanced away while the angry colour left his face. He was a little +dazed by the realization that he had spoken to Graham as he might have +done to an enemy, as he had spoken to Howells in the old bedroom. He +felt the touch of Graham's hand on his shoulder. + +"I'm only working in your service," Graham said kindly. "I'm sorry if +I've troubled you by seeking physical facts in order to escape the +ghosts. For Groom has brought the ghosts back with him. Don't make any +mistake about that. You want the truth, don't you?" + +"Yes," Bobby said, "even if it does for me. But I want it quickly. I +can't go on this way indefinitely." + +Yet that flash of temper had given him courage to face the ordeal. A +lingering resentment at Graham's suggestion lessened the difficulty of +his position. Entering the court, he scarcely glanced at the black wagon. + +There were more dark-clothed men in the hall. Rawlins had returned. +From the rug in front of the fireplace he surveyed the group with a +bland curiosity. Robinson sat near by, glowering at Paredes. The +Panamanian had changed his clothing. He, too, was sombrely dressed, +and, instead of the vivid necktie he had worn from the courthouse, a +jet-black scarf was perfectly arranged beneath his collar. He lounged +opposite the district attorney, his eyes studying the fire. His fingers +on the chair arm were restless. + +Doctor Groom stood at the foot of the stairs, talking with the clergyman, +a stout and unctuous figure. Bobby noticed that the great stolid form of +the doctor was ill at ease. From his thickly bearded face his reddish +eyes gleamed forth with a fresh instability. + +The clergyman shook hands with Bobby. "We need not delay. Your cousin is +upstairs." He included the company in his circling turn of the head. + +"Any one who cares to go--" + +Bobby forced himself to walk up the staircase, facing the first phase +of his ordeal. He saw that the district attorney realized that, too, +for he sprang from his chair, and, followed by Rawlins, started upward. +The entire company crowded the stairs. At the top Bobby found Paredes +at his side. + +"Carlos! Why do you come?" + +"I would like to be of some comfort," Paredes answered gravely. + +His fingers on the banister made that restless, groping movement. + +Graham summoned Katherine. One of the black-clothed men opened the door +of Silas Blackburn's room. He stepped aside, beckoning. He had an air of +a showman craving approbation for the surprise he has arranged. + +Bobby went in with the others. Automatically through the dim light he +catalogued remembered objects, all intimate to his grandfather, each +oddly entangled in his mind with his dislike of the old man. The iron +bed; the chest of drawers, scratched and with broken handles; the closed +colonial desk; the miserly rag carpet--all seemed mutely asking, as +Bobby did, why their owner had deserted them the other night and +delivered himself to the ghostly mystery of the old bedroom. + +Reluctantly Bobby's glance went to the centre of the floor where the +casket rested on trestles. From the chest of drawers two candles, the +only light, played wanly over the still figure and the ashen face. So for +the second time the living met the dead, and the law watched hopefully. + +Robinson stood opposite, but he didn't look at Silas Blackburn who could +no longer accuse. He stared instead at Bobby, and Bobby kept repeating +to himself: + +"I didn't do this thing. I didn't do this thing." + +And he searched the face of the dead man for a confirmation. A chill +thought, not without excuse under the circumstances and in this vague +light, raced along his nerves. Silas Blackburn had moved once since his +death. If the power to move and speak should miraculously return to him +now! In this house there appeared to be no impossibilities. The cold +control of death had been twice broken. + +Katherine's entrance swung his thoughts and released him for a moment +from Robinson's watchfulness. He found he could turn from the wrinkled +face that had fascinated him, that had seemed to question him with a calm +and complete knowledge, to the lovely one that was active with a little +smile of encouragement. He was grateful for that. It taught him that in +the heavy presence of death and from the harsh trappings of mourning the +magnetism of youth is unconquerable. So in affection he found an antidote +for fear. Even Graham's quick movement to her side couldn't make her +presence less helpful to Bobby. He looked at his grandfather again. He +glanced at Robinson. As in a dream he heard, the clergyman say: + +"The service will be read at the grave." + +Almost indifferently he saw the dark-clothed men sidle forward, lift a +grotesquely shaped plate of metal from the floor, and fit it in place, +hiding from his eyes the closed eyes of the dead man. He nodded and +stepped to the hall when Robinson tapped his arm and whispered: + +"Make way, Mr. Blackburn." + +He watched the sombre men carry their heavy burden across the hall, down +the stairs, and into the dull autumn air. He followed at the side of +Katherine across the clearing and into the overgrown path. He was aware +of the others drifting behind. Katherine slipped her hand in his. + +"It is dreadful we shouldn't feel more sorrow, more regret," she said. +"Perhaps we never understood him. That is dreadful, too; for no one +understood him. We are the only mourners." + +Bobby, as they threaded the path behind the stumbling bearers, found a +grim justice in that also. Because of his selfishness Silas Blackburn had +lived alone. Because of it he must go to his long rest with no other +mourners than these, and their eyes were dry. + +Bobby clung to Katherine's hand. + +"If I could only know!" he whispered. + +She pressed his hand. She did not reply. + +Ahead the forest was scarred by a yellow wound. The bearers set their +burden down beside it, glancing at each other with relief. Across the +heap of earth Bobby saw the waiting excavation. In his ears vibrated the +memory of the harsh voice: + +"It's deep enough!" + +Another voice droned. It was soft and unctuous. It seemed to take a +pleasure in the terrible words it loosed to stray eternally through the +decaying forest. + +Bobby glanced at bent stones, strangled by the underbrush; at other +slabs, cracked and brown, which lay prone, half covered by creeping +vines. The tones of the clergyman were no longer revolting in his ears. +He scarcely heard them. He imagined a fantasy. He pictured the +inhabitants of these forgotten, narrow houses straying to the great +dwelling where they had lived, punishing this one, bringing him to suffer +with them the degradation of their neglect. So Robinson became less +important in his mind. Through such fancies the ordeal was made bearable. + +A wind sprang up, rattling through the trees and disturbing the vines on +the fallen stones. Later, he thought, it would snow, and he shivered for +those left helpless to sleep in the sad forest. + +The dark-clothed men strained at ropes now. They glanced at Katherine +and Bobby as at those most to be impressed by their skill. They lowered +Silas Blackburn's grimly shaped casing into the sorrel pit. It passed +from Bobby's sight. The two roughly dressed labourers came from the +thicket where they had hidden, and with their spades approached the +grave. The sound from whose imminence Bobby had shrunk rattled in his +ears. The yellow earth cut across the stormy twilight of the cemetery and +scattered in the trench. After a time the response lost its metallic +petulance. + +Katherine pulled at Bobby's hand. He started and glanced up. One of the +black-clothed men was speaking to him with a professional gentleness: + +"You needn't wait, Mr. Blackburn. Everything is finished." + +He saw now that Robinson stood across the grave still staring at him. +The professional mourner smiled sympathetically and moved away. +Katherine, Robinson, the two grave diggers, and Bobby alone were left of +the little company; and Bobby, staring back at the district attorney, +took a sombre pride in facing it out until even the men with the spades +had gone. The ordeal, he reflected, had lost its poignancy. His mind was +intent on the empty trappings he had witnessed. He wondered if there +was, after all, no justice against his grandfather in this unkempt +burial. The place might have something to tell him. If it could only +make him believe that beyond the inevitable fact nothing mattered. If +he were sure of that it would offer a way out at the worst; perhaps the +happiest exit for Katherine's sake. + +Then Doctor Groom returned. His huge hairy figure dominated the cemetery. +His infused eyes, beneath the thick black brows, were far-seeing. They +seemed to penetrate Bobby's thought. Then they glanced at the excavation, +appearing to intimate that Silas Blackburn's earthy blanket could hide +nothing from the closed eyes it sheltered. At his age he faced the near +approach of that inevitable fact, and he didn't hesitate to look beyond. +Bobby knew what Graham had meant when he had said that Groom had brought +the ghosts back with him. It was as if the cemetery had recalled the old +doctor to answer his presumptuous question. + +"There's no use your staying here." + +The resonance of the deep voice jarred through the woods. The broad +shoulders twitched. One of the hairy hands made a half circle. + +"I hope you'll clean this up, my boy. You ought to replace the stones and +trim the graves. You couldn't blame them, could you, if these old people +were restless and tried to go abroad?" + +For Bobby, in spite of himself, the man on whose last shelter the earth +continued to fall became once more a potent thing, able to appraise the +penalty of his own carelessness. + +"Come," Katherine whispered. + +But Bobby lingered, oddly fascinated, supporting the ordeal to its final +moment. The blows of the backs of the spades on the completed mound beat +into his brain the end. The workmen wandered off through the woods. From +a distance the harsh voice of one of them came back: + +"I don't want to dig again in such a place. People don't seem dead +there." + +Robinson tried to laugh. + +"That man's wise," he said to the doctor. "If Paredes spoke of this +cemetery as being full of ghosts I could understand him." + +The doctor's deep bass answered thoughtfully: + +"Paredes is probably right. The man has a special sense, but I have felt +it myself. The Cedars and the forest are full of things that seem to +whisper, things that one never sees. Such things might have an excuse +for evil." + +"Let's get out of it," Robinson said gruffly. + +Katherine withdrew her hand. Bobby reached for it again, but she seemed +not to notice. She walked ahead of him along the path, her shoulders a +trifle bent. Bobby caught up with her. + +"Katherine!" he said. + +"Don't talk to me, Bobby." + +He looked closer. He saw that she was crying at last. Tears stained her +cheeks. Her lips were strange to him in the distortion of a grief that +seeks to control itself. He slackened his pace and let her walk ahead. +He followed with a sort of awe that there should have been grief for +Silas Blackburn after all. He blamed himself because his own eyes were +not moist. + +Back of him he heard the murmuring conversation of the doctor and the +district attorney. Strangely it made him sorry that Robinson should have +been more impressed than Howells by the doctor's beliefs. + +They stepped into the clearing. The wind had dissipated the smoke shroud. +It was no longer low over the roofs. Against the forest and the darker +clouds the house had a stark appearance. It was like a frame from which +the flesh has fallen. + +The black wagon had gone. The Cedars was left alone to the solution of +its mystery. + +Paredes, Graham, and Rawlins waited for them in the hall. There was +nothing to say. Paredes placed with a delicate accuracy fresh logs upon +the fire. He arose, flecking the wood dust from his hands. + +"How cold it will be here," he mused, "how impossible of entrance when +the house is left as empty as the woods to those who only go unseen!" + +Bobby saw Katherine's shoulders shake. She had dried her eyes, but in her +face was expressed an aversion for solitude, a desire for any company, +even that of the man she disliked and feared. + +Robinson took Rawlins to the library for another futile consultation, +Bobby guessed. Katherine sat on the arm of a chair, thrusting one foot +toward the fresh blaze. + +"It will snow," she said. "It is very early for that." + +No one answered. The strain tightened. The flames leapt, throwing +evanescent pulsations of brilliancy about the dusky hall. They welcomed +Jenkins's announcement that luncheon was ready, but they scarcely +disturbed the hurriedly prepared dishes, and afterward they gathered +again in the hall, silent and depressed, appalled by the long, dreary +afternoon, which, however, possessed the single virtue of dividing them +from another night. + +For long periods the district attorney and the detective were closeted in +the library. Now and then they passed upstairs, and they could be heard +moving about, but no one, save Graham, seemed to care. Already the +officers had had every opportunity to search the house. The old room no +longer held an inhabitant to set its fatal machinery in motion. Yet Bobby +realized in a dull way that at any moment the two men might come down to +him, saying: + +"We have found something. You are guilty." + +The heavy atmosphere of the house crushed such forecasts, made them seem +a little trivial. Bobby fancied it gathering density to cradle new +mysteries. The long minutes loitered. Doctor Groom made a movement to go. + +"Why should I stay?" he grumbled. "What is there to keep me?" + +Yet he sat back in his chair again and appeared to have forgotten his +intention. + +Graham wandered off. Bobby thought he had joined Rawlins and Robinson in +the library. + +The only daylight entered the hall through narrow slits of windows on +either side of the front door. Bobby, watching these, was, even with the +problems night brought to him now, glad when they grew paler. + +Paredes, who had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, arose and +brought his card table. Drawing it close to him, he arranged the cards in +neat piles. The uncertain firelight made it barely possible to identify +their numbers. Doctor Groom gestured his disgust. Katherine stooped +forward, placing her hands on the table. + +"Is it kind," she asked, "so soon after he has left his house?" + +Paredes started. + +"Wait!" he said softly. + +Puzzled, she glanced at him. + +"Stay just as you are," he directed. "There has been so much death in +this house--who knows?" + +Languidly he placed his fingers on the edge of the table opposite hers. + +"What are you doing?" Dr. Groom asked hoarsely. + +"Wait!" Paredes said again. + +Then Bobby, scarcely aware of what was going on, saw the cards glide +softly across the face of the table and flutter to the floor. The table +had lifted slowly toward the Panamanian. It stood now on two legs. + +"What is it?" Katherine said. "It's moving. I can feel it move beneath +my fingers." + +Her words recalled to Bobby unavoidably his experience in the old room. + +"Don't do that!" the doctor cried. + +Paredes smiled. + +"If," he answered, "the source of these crimes is, as you think, +spiritual, why not ask the spirits for a solution? You see how quickly +the table responds. It is as I thought. There is something in this hall. +Haven't you a feeling that the dead are in this dark hall with us? They +may wish to speak. See!" + +The table settled softly down without any noise. It commenced to rise +again. Katherine lifted her hands with a visible effort, as if the table +had tried to hold them against her will. She covered her face and sat +trembling. + +"I won't! I--" + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders, appealing to the doctor. The huge, shaggy +head shook determinedly. + +"I'm not so sure I don't agree with you. I'm not so sure the dead aren't +in this hall. That is why I'll have nothing to do with such dangerous +play. It has shown us, at least, that you are psychic, Mr. Paredes." + +"I have a gift," Paredes murmured. "It would be useful to speak with +them. They see so much more than we do." + +He lifted his hands. He waved them dejectedly. He stooped and commenced +picking up the cards. The doctor arose. + +"I shall go now." He sighed. "I don't know why I have stayed." + +Bobby got his coat and hat. + +"I'll walk to the stable with you." + +He was glad to escape from the dismal hall in which the firelight +grew more eccentric. The court was colder and damper, and even beyond +the chill was more penetrating than it had been at the grave that +noon. Uneven flakes of snow sifted from the swollen sky, heralds of a +white invasion. + +"No more sleep-walking?" the doctor asked when he had taken the blanket +from his horse and climbed into the buggy. + +Bobby leaned against the wall of the stable and told how Graham had +brought him back the previous night from the stairhead, to which he had +gone with a purpose he didn't dare sound. The doctor shook his head. + +"You shouldn't tell me that. You shouldn't tell any one. You place +yourself too much in my hands, as you are already in Graham's hands. +Maybe that is all right. But the district attorney? You're sure he knows +nothing of this habit which seems to have commenced the night of the +first murder?" + +"No, and I think Paredes alone of those who know about that first night +would be likely to tell him." + +"See that he doesn't," the doctor said shortly. "I've been watching +Robinson. If he doesn't make an arrest pretty soon with something back of +it he'll lose his mind. He mightn't stop to ask, as I do, as Howells did, +about the locked doors and the nature of the wounds." + +"How shall I find the courage to sleep to-night?" Bobby asked. + +The doctor thought for a moment. + +"Suppose I come back?" he said. "I've only one or two unimportant cases +to look after. I ought to return before dinner. I'll take Graham's place +for to-night. It's time your reactions were better diagnosed. I'll share +your room, and you can go to sleep, assured that you'll come to no harm, +that harm will come to no one through you. I'll bring some books on the +subject. I'll read them while you sleep. Perhaps I can learn the impulse +that makes your body active while your mind's a blank." + +The idea of the influence of Paredes, which Graham had put into words, +slipped back to Bobby. He was, nevertheless, strengthened by the +doctor's promise. To an extent the dread of the night fell from him +like a smothering garment. This old man, who had always filled him with +discomfort, had become a capable support in his difficult hour. He saw +him drive away. He studied his watch, computing the time that must +elapse before he could return. He wanted him at the Cedars even though +the doctor believed more thoroughly than any one else in the spiritual +survival of old passions and the power of the dead to project a +physical evil. + +He didn't care to go back to the hall. It would do him good to walk, to +force as far as he could from his mind the memory of the ordeal at the +grave, the grim, impending atmosphere of the house. And suppose he +should accomplish something useful? Suppose he should succeed where +Graham had failed? + +So he walked toward the stagnant lake. The flakes of snow fell thicker. +Already they had gathered in white patches on the floor of the forest. If +this weather continued the woods would cease to be habitable for that +dark feminine figure through which they had accounted for the mournful +crying after Howells's death, which Graham had tried to identify with the +dancer, Maria. + +As he passed the neighbourhood of the cemetery; he walked faster. Many +yards of underbrush separated him from the little time-devastated city of +the dead, but its mere proximity forced on him, as the old room had done, +a feeling of a stealthy and intangible companionship. + +He stepped from the fringe of trees about the open space in the centre of +which the lake brooded. The water received with a destructive +indifference the fluttering caresses of the snowflakes. Bobby paused with +a quick expectancy. He saw nothing of the woman who had startled him that +first evening, but he heard from the thicket a sound like muffled +sobbing, and he responded again to the sense of a malevolent regard. + +He hid himself among the trees, and in their shelter skirted the lake. +The sobbing had faded into nothing. For a long time he heard only the +whispers of the snow and the grief of the wind. When he had rounded the +lake and was some distance beyond it, however, the moaning reached him +again, and through the fast-deepening twilight he saw, as indistinctly as +he had before, a black feminine figure flitting among the trees in the +direction of the lake. Graham's theory lost its value. It was impossible +to fancy the brilliant, colourful dancer in this black, shadowy thing. He +commenced to run in pursuit, calling out: + +"Stop! Who are you? Why do you cry through the woods?" + +But the dusk was too thick, the forest too eager. The black figure +disappeared. In retrospect it was again as unsubstantial as a phantom. +The flakes whispered mockingly. The wind was ironical. + +He found his pursuit had led him back to the end of the lake nearest the +Cedars. He paused. His triumph was not unmixed with fear. A black figure +stood in the open, quite close to him, gazing over the stagnant water +that was like a veil for sinister things. He knew now that the woman was +flesh and blood, for she did not glide away, and the snow made pallid +scars on her black cloak. + +He crept carefully forward until he was close behind the black figure. + +"Now," he said, "you'll tell me who you are and why you cry about +the Cedars." + +The woman swung around with a cry. He stepped back, abashed, not knowing +what to say, for there was still enough light to disclose to him the +troubled face of Katherine, and there were tears in her eyes as if she +might recently have expressed an audible grief. + +"You frightened me, Bobby." + +Without calculation he spoke his swift thought: "Was it you I saw here +before? But surely you didn't cry in the house the other night and +afterward when we followed Carlos!" + +The tranquil beauty of her face was disturbed. When she answered her +voice had lost something of its music: + +"What do you mean?" + +"It was you who cried just now? It was you I saw running through +the woods?" + +"What do you mean?" she asked again. "I have not run. I--I am not your +woman in black, if that's what you think. I happened to pick up this +cloak. You've seen it often enough before. And I haven't cried." + +She brushed the tears angrily from her eyes. + +"At least I haven't cried so any one could hear me. I wanted to walk. I +hoped I would find you. I thought you had come this way, so I came, too. +Why, Bobby, you're suspecting me of something!" + +But the problem of the fugitive figure receded before the more intimate +one of his heart. There was a thrill in her desire to find him in the +solitude of the forest. + +Only the faintest gray survived in the sky above the trees. The shadows +were thick about them. The whispering snow urged him to use this moment +for his happiness. It wasn't the thought of Graham that held him back. +Last night, under an equal temptation, he might have spoken. To-night a +new element silenced him and bound his eager hands. His awakening at the +head of the stairs raised an obstacle to self-revelation around which +there seemed to exist no path. + +"I'm sorry. Let us go back," he said. + +She looked at him inquiringly. + +"What is it, Bobby? You are more afraid to-day than you have ever been +before. Has something happened I know nothing of?" + +He shook his head. He couldn't increase her own trouble by telling +her of that. + +The woods seemed to receive an ashy illumination from the passage of the +snowflakes. Katherine walked a little faster. + +"Don't be discouraged, Bobby," she begged him. "Everything will come out +straight. You must keep telling yourself that. You must fight until you +believe it." + +The nearness of her dusk-clothed, slender figure filled him with a new +courage, obscured to an extent his real situation. He burst out +impulsively: + +"Don't worry. I'll fight. I'll make myself believe. If necessary I'll +tell everything I know in order to find the guilty person." + +She placed her hand on his arm. Her voice fell to a whisper. + +"Don't fight that way. Uncle Silas is dead; Howells has been taken away. +The police will find nothing. By and by they will leave. It will all be +forgotten. Why should you keep it active and dangerous by trying to find +who is guilty?" + +"Katherine!" he cried, surprised. "Why do you say that?" + +Her hand left his arm. She walked on without answering. Paredes came back +to him--Paredes serenely calling attention to the fact that Katherine had +alarmed the household and had led it to the discovery of the Cedars's +successive mysteries. He shrank from asking her any more. + +They left the thicket. In the open space about the house the snow had +spread a white mantle. From it the heavy walls rose black and forbidding. + +"I don't want to go in," Katherine said. + +Their feet lagged as they followed the driveway to the entrance of +the court. The curtains of the room of death, they saw, had been +raised. A dim, unhealthy light slipped from the small-paned windows +across the court, staining the snow. Robinson and Rawlins were +probably searching again. + +Suddenly Katherine stopped. She pointed. + +"What's that?" she asked sharply. + +Bobby followed the direction of her glance. He saw a black patch against +the wall of the wing opposite the lighted windows. + +"It is a shadow," he said. + +She relaxed and they walked on. They entered the court. There she +turned, and Bobby stopped, too, with a sudden fear. For the thing he had +called a shadow was moving. He stared at it with a hypnotic belief that +the Cedars was at last disclosing its supernatural secret. He knew it +could be no illusion, since Katherine swayed, half-fainting, against him. +The moving shadow assumed the shape of a stout figure, slightly bent at +the shoulders. A pipe protruded from the bearded mouth. One hand waved a +careless welcome. + +Bobby's first instinct was to cry out, to command this old man they had +seen buried that day to return to his grave. For there wasn't the +slightest doubt. The unhealthy candlelight from the room of death shone +full on the gray and wrinkled face of Silas Blackburn. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GRAVE + + +"Hello, Katy! Hello, Bobby! You shown your face at last? I hope you've +come sober." + +The thin, quarrelsome voice of Silas Blackburn echoed in the mouldy +court. The stout, bent figure in the candlelight studied them +suspiciously. Katherine clung to Bobby, trembling, startled beyond speech +by the apparition. They both stared at the gray face, at the thick +figure, which, three days after death, they had seen buried that noon in +the overgrown cemetery. Bobby recalled how Doctor Groom had reminded him +that an activity like this might emerge from such places. He had +suggested that the condition of the family burial ground might be an +inspiration to such strayings. Yet why should the spirit of Silas +Blackburn have escaped? Why should it have returned forthwith to the +Cedars, unless to face his grandson as his murderer? + +Afterward Bobby experienced no shame for these reflections. The encounter +was a fitting sequel to the moment in the dark room when he had felt +Howells move beneath his hand. He had a fleeting faith that the void +between the living and the dead had, indeed, been bridged. + +Then he wondered that the familiar figure failed to disintegrate, and he +noticed smoke curling from the blackened briar pipe. He caught its +pungent aroma in the damp air of the court. Moreover, Silas Blackburn had +spoken, challenging him as usual with a sneer. + +"Let us go past," Katherine whispered. + +But Silas Blackburn stepped out, blocking their way. He spoke again. His +whining accents held a reproach. + +"What's the matter with you two? You might 'a' seen a ghost. Or maybe +you're sorry to have me back. Didn't you wonder where I was, Katy? Reckon +you hoped I was dead, Bobby." + +Bobby answered. He had a fancy of addressing emptiness. + +"Why have you come? That is what you are to us--dead." + +Silas Blackburn chuckled. He took the pipe from his mouth and tapped the +tobacco down with a knotted forefinger. + +"I'll show you how dead I am! Trying to be funny, ain't you? I'll make +you laugh on the wrong side of your face. It's cold here. I'm going in." + +The same voice, the same manner! Yet his presence denied that great fact +which during three days had been impressed upon them with a growing fear. + +The old man jerked his thumb toward the dimly lighted windows of the +wing. + +"What you got the old room lighted up for? What's going on there? I tried +to sleep there the other night--" + +"Uncle!" + +Katherine sprang forward. She stretched out her hand to him with a +reluctance as pronounced as Graham's when he had touched Howells's body. +Her fingers brushed his hand. Her shoulders drooped. She clung to his +arm. To Bobby this resolution was more of a shock, less to be explained, +than his first assurance of an immaterial visitor. What did it mean to +him? Was it an impossible assurance of safety? + +The old man patted Katherine's shoulder. + +"Why, what you crying for, Katy? Always seems something to scare +you lately." + +He jerked his thumb again toward the lighted windows. + +"You ain't told me yet what's going on in the old room." + +Bobby's laugh was dazed, questioning. + +"They're trying to account for your murder there." + +His grandfather looked at him with blank amazement. + +"You out of your head?" + +"No," Katherine cried. "We saw you lying there, cold and still. I--I +found you." + +"You've not forgotten, Katherine," Bobby said breathlessly, "that he +moved afterward." + +Silas Blackburn took his hand from Katherine's shoulder. + +"Trying to scare me? What's the matter with you? Some scheme to get +my money?" + +"You slept in the old room the other night?" Bobby asked helplessly. + +"No, I didn't sleep there," his grandfather whined. "I went in and lay +down, but I didn't sleep. I defy anybody to sleep in that room. What you +talking about? It's cold here. This court was always damp. I want to go +in. Is there a fire in the hall? We'll light one, while you tell me +what's ailin' you." + +He turned, and grasped the door knob. They followed him into the hall, +shaking the snow from their coats. + +Paredes sat alone by the fire, languidly engaged in the solitaire which +exerted so potent a fascination for him. He didn't turn at their +entrance. It wasn't until Bobby called out that he moved. + +"Carlos!" + +Bobby's tone must have suggested the abnormal, for Paredes sprang to his +feet, knocking over the table. The cards fell lightly to the floor, +straying as far as the hearth. His hands caught at the back of his +chair. He remained in an awkward position, rigid, white-faced, staring +at the newcomer. + +"I told you all," he whispered, "that the court was full of ghosts." + +Silas Blackburn walked to the fire, and stood with his back to the +smouldering logs. In this light he had the pallor of death--the lack of +colour Bobby remembered beneath the glass of the coffin. The old man, +always so intolerant and authoritative, was no longer sure of himself. + +"Why do you talk about ghosts?" he whined. "I--I wish I hadn't waked up." + +Paredes sank back in his chair. + +"Waked up!" he echoed in an awe-struck voice. + +Bobby took a trivial interest, as one will turn to small things during +the most vital moments, in the reflection that twice within twenty-four +hours the Panamanian had been startled from his cold reserve. + +"Waked up!" Paredes repeated. + +His voice rose. + +"At what time? Do you remember the time?" + +"Not exactly. Sometime after noon." + +Bobby guessed the object of Paredes's question. He knew it had been +about noon when they had seen the coffin covered in the restless, +wind-swept cemetery. + +Paredes hurried on. + +"How long had you been asleep?" + +"What makes you ask that?" the other whined. "I don't know." + +"It was a long time?" + +Blackburn's voice rose complainingly. + +"How did you guess that? I never slept so. I dozed nearly three days, but +I'm tired now--tired as if I hadn't slept at all." + +Paredes made a gesture of surrender. Bobby struggled against the purpose +of the man's questions, against the suggestion of his grandfather's +unexpected answers. + +"Your idea is madness, Carlos," he whispered. + +"This house is filled with it," Paredes said. "I wish Groom were here. +Groom ought to be here." + +"He's coming back," Bobby told him. "He shouldn't be long now. He said +before dinner time." + +Paredes stirred. + +"I wish he would hurry." + +The Panamanian said nothing more, as if he realized the futility of +pressing the matter before Doctor Groom should return. Necessary +questions surged in Bobby's brain. The two that Paredes had put, however, +disturbed his logic. + +Katherine, who hadn't spoken since entering, kept her eyes fixed on her +uncle. Her lips were slightly parted. She had the appearance of one +afraid to break a silence covering impossible doubts. + +Bobby called on his reason. His grandfather stood before him in flesh. +With the old man, in spite of Paredes's ghastly hint, probably lay the +solution of the entire mystery and his own safety. He was about to speak +when he heard footsteps in the upper hall. His grandfather glanced +inquiringly through the stair-well, asking: + +"Who's that up there?" + +The sharp tone confessed that fear of the Cedars was active in the +warped brain. + +"The district attorney," Bobby answered, "a detective, probably +Hartley Graham." + +"What they doing here?" + +He indicated Paredes. + +"What's this fellow doing here? I never liked him." + +Katherine answered: + +"They've all come because I thought I saw you dead, lying in the +old room." + +"We all saw," Bobby cried angrily, and Paredes nodded. + +Blackburn shrank away from them. + +The three men descended the stairs. Half way down they stopped. + +"Who is that?" Robinson cried. + +Graham's face whitened. He braced himself against the banister. + +"Next time, Mr. District Attorney," Paredes said, "you'll believe me when +I say the court is full of ghosts. He walked in from the court. I tell +you they found him in the court." + +Silas Blackburn's voice rose, shrill and angry: + +"What's the matter with you all? Why do you talk of ghosts and my being +dead? Haven't I a right to come in my own house? You all act as if you +were afraid of me." + +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." + +"He must tell us why he went, why he was afraid to sleep in his own +room," Graham began. + +Robinson held up his hand. + +"One question at a time, Mr. Graham. The important thing now is to learn +what happened in the room. You're not forgetting Howells, are you?" + +Silas Blackburn glanced at the floor. He moved his feet restlessly. He +fumbled in his pocket for some loose tobacco. With shaking fingers he +refilled his pipe. + +"Except for Bobby and Katherine," he quavered, "you don't know what that +room means to Blackburns; and they only know by hearsay, because I've +seen it was kept closed. Don't see how I'm going to tell you--" + +"You needn't hesitate," Robinson encouraged him. "We've all experienced +something of the peculiarities of the Cedars. Your return alone's enough +to keep us from laughter." + +"All right," the old man stumbled on. "I was raised on stories of that +room--even before my father shot himself there. Later on I saw +Katherine's father die in the big bed, and after that I never cared to +go near the place unless I had to. The other night, when I made up my +mind to sleep there, I tried to tell myself all this talk was tommyrot. +I tried to make myself believe I could sleep as comfortably in that bed +as anywhere. So I went in and locked the door and raised the window and +lay down." + +"You're sure you locked the door?" Robinson asked. + +"Yes. I remember turning the key in both doors, because I didn't want +anything bothering me from outside." + +They all looked at each other, unable to forecast anything of Blackburn's +experiences; for both doors had been locked when the body had been found. +Granted life, how would it have been possible for Silas Blackburn to have +left the room to commence his period of drowsiness? An explanation of +that should also unveil the criminal's route in and out. + +The tensity of the little group increased, but no one interposed the +obvious questions. Robinson was right. It would be quicker to let the +protagonist of this unbelievable adventure recite its details in his own +fashion. Paredes ran his slender fingers gropingly over the faces of +several of the cards he had picked up. + +"When I got in bed," Silas Blackburn continued, "I thought I'd let the +candle burn for company's sake, but there was a wind, and it came in the +open window, and it made the queerest black shadows dance all over the +walls until I couldn't stand it a minute longer. I blew the candle out +and lay back in the dark." + +He drew harshly on his cold pipe. He looked at it with an air of +surprise, and slipped it in his pocket. + +"It was the funniest darkness. I didn't like it. You put your hand out +and closed your fingers as if you could feel it. But it wasn't all black, +either. Some moonlight came in with the wind between the curtains. It +wasn't exactly yellow, and it wasn't white. After a little it seemed +alive, and I wouldn't look at it any more. The only way I could stop +myself was to shut my eyes, and that was worse, for it made me recollect +my father the way I saw him lying there when I was a boy. God grant none +of you will ever have to see anything like that. Then I seemed to see +Katy's father, too; and I remembered his screams. The room got thick +with, things like that--with those two, and with a lot of others come out +of the pictures and the stories I've heard about my family." + +His experience when he had gone to the room to take the evidence from +Howells's body became active in Bobby's memory. + +"There I lay with my eyes shut," Silas Blackburn went on in his strange, +inquiring voice. "And yet I seemed to see those dead people all around +me, and I thought they were in pain again, and were mad at me because I +didn't do anything. I guess maybe I must 'a' been dozing a little, for I +thought--" + +He broke off. He raised his hand slowly and pointed in the direction of +the overgrown cemetery where they had seen his coffin covered that noon. +His voice was lower and harsher when he continued: + +"I--I thought I heard them say that things were all broken out there, +and--and awful--so awful they couldn't stay." + +His voice became defiant. + +"I ain't going to tell you what I dreamed. It was too horrible, but I +made up my mind I would do what I could if I ever escaped from that room. +I--I was afraid they'd take me back with them underneath those broken +stones. And you--you stand there trying to tell me that they did." + +He paused again, looking around with a more defiant glare in his +bloodshot eyes. He appeared to be surprised not to find them +laughing at him. + +"What's the matter with you all?" he cried. "Why ain't you making me out +a fool? You seen something in that room, too?" + +"Go on," Robinson urged. "What happened then? What did you do?" + +Blackburn's voice resumed its throaty monotone. As he spoke he glanced +about slyly, suspecting, perhaps, the watchfulness of the fancies that +had intimidated him. + +"I realized I had to get out if they would let me. So I left the +bed. I went." + +He ceased, intimating that he had told everything. + +"I know," Robinson said, "but tell us how you got out of the room, for +when you--when the murder was discovered, both doors were locked on the +inside, and you know how impossible the windows are." + +"I tell you," Katherine said hysterically, "it _was_ his body in the +bed." + +Bobby knew her assurance was justified, but he motioned her to silence. + +"Let him answer," Robinson said. + +Silas Blackburn ran his knotted fingers through his hair. He shook his +head doubtfully. + +"That's what I don't understand myself. That's what's been worrying me +while these young ones have been talking as if I was dead and buried. I +recollect telling myself I must go. I seem to remember leaving the bed +all right, but I don't seem to remember walking on the floor or going +through the door. You're sure the doors were locked?" + +"No doubt about that," Rawlins said. + +"Seems to me," Blackburn went on, "that I was in the private staircase, +but did I walk downstairs? First thing I see clearly is the road through +the woods, not far from the station." + +"What did you wear?" Robinson asked. + +"I'd had my trousers and jacket on under my dressing-gown," the old man +answered, "because I knew the bed wasn't made up. That's what I wore +except for the dressing-gown. I reckon I must have left that in the room. +I wouldn't have gone back there for anything. My mind was full of those +angry people. I wanted to get as far away from the Cedars as possible. I +knew the last train from New York would be along about three o'clock, so +I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and in the morning see this detective +I'd been talking to. I went to Robert Waters's house. I've known him for +a long time. I guess you know who he is. He's such a book worm I figured +he might be up, and he wouldn't ask a lot of silly questions, being +selfish like most people that live all the time with books. He came to +the door, and I told him I wanted to spend the night. He offered to shake +hands. That's funny, too. I didn't feel like shaking hands with anybody. +I recollect that, because I'd felt sort of queer ever since going in the +old room, and something told me I'd better not shake hands." + +Paredes looked up, wide-eyed. The cards slipped from his fragile, +pointed fingers. + +"Do you realize, Mr. District Attorney, what this man is saying?" + +But Robinson motioned him to silence. + +"Let him go on. What happened then?" + +"That's all," Blackburn answered, "except this long sleep I can't make +out. Old Waters didn't get mad at my not shaking hands. He was too tied +up in some book, I guess. I told him I was sleepy and didn't want to be +bothered, and he nodded to the spare room off the main hall, and I +tumbled into bed and was off almost before I knew it." + +Paredes sprang to his feet and commenced to walk about the hall. + +"Tell us," he said, "when you first woke up?" + +"I guess it was late the next afternoon," Silas Blackburn quavered, +fumbling with his pipe again. "But it was only for a minute." + +Paredes stopped in front of Robinson. + +"When he turned! You see!" + +"It was Waters knocking on the door," Blackburn went on. "I guess he +wanted to know what was the matter, and he talked about some food, but I +didn't want to be bothered, so I called to him through the door to go +away, and turned over and went to sleep again." + +"He turned over and went to sleep again!" Katherine said breathlessly, +"and it was about that time that I heard the turning in the old bedroom." + +"Katherine!" Graham called. "What are you talking about? What are you +thinking about?" + +"What else is there?" she asked. + +"She's thinking about the truth," Paredes said tensely. "I've always +heard of such things. So have you. You've read of them, if you read at +all. India is full of it. It goes back to ancient Egypt--the same person +simultaneously in two places--the astral body--whatever you choose to +call it. It's the projection of one's self whether consciously or +unconsciously; perhaps the projection of something that retains reason +after an apparent death. You heard him. He didn't seem to walk. He +doesn't remember leaving the room, which was locked on the inside. His +descent of the stairs was without motion as we know it. He had gone some +distance before his mind consciously directed the movement of this +active image of Silas Blackburn, while the double from which it had +sprung lay apparently dead in the old room. You notice he shrank from +shaking hands, and he slept until we hid away the shell. What +disintegration and coming together again has taken place since we buried +that shell in the old graveyard? If his friend had shaken hands with him +would he have grasped emptiness? Did his normal self come back to him +when the shell was put from our sight, and he awakened? These are some of +the questions we must answer." + +"You've a fine imagination, Mr. Paredes," Robinson said dryly. + +His fat face, nevertheless, was bewildered, and in the eyes, surrounded +by puffy flesh, smouldered a profound uncertainty. + +"I wish Groom were here," Paredes was saying. "He would agree with me. He +would know more about it than I." + +Robinson threw back his shoulders. He turned to Rawlins with his old +authority. The unimaginative detective had stood throughout, +releasing no indication of his emotions; but as he raised his hand +now to an unnecessary adjustment of his scarf pin, the fingers were +not quite steady. + +"Telephone this man Waters," Robinson directed. "Then get in +communication with the office and put them on that end." + +Rawlins walked away. Robinson apologized to Silas Blackburn with an +uneasy voice. + +"Got to check up what I can. Can't get anywhere with these things unless +you make sure of your first facts. I daresay Waters's story will tally +with yours." + +Blackburn nodded. Graham cleared his throat. + +"Now perhaps we may ask that very important question. The day Mr. +Blackburn called at your office in Smithtown he told Howells he was +afraid of being murdered. According to Howells, he said: 'My heart's all +right. It won't stop yet awhile unless it's made to. So if I'm found cold +some fine morning you can be sure I was put out of the way.'" + +"I know," Robinson said. + +"And that night," Graham continued, "when he went to the old room, he was +terrified of something which he wouldn't define for Miss Perrine." + +"He warned me not to mention he'd gone there," Katherine put in. "He told +me he was afraid--afraid to sleep in his own room any longer." + +Robinson turned. + +"What about that, Mr. Blackburn?" + +For a moment Bobby's curiosity overcame the confusion aroused by his +grandfather's apparently occult return. All along they had craved the +knowledge he was about to give them, the statement on which Bobby's life +had seemed to depend. Blackburn, however, was unwilling. The question +seemed to have returned to him something of his normal manner. + +"No use," he mumbled, "going into that." + +"A good deal of use," Robinson insisted. + +Blackburn shifted his feet. He gazed at his pipe doubtfully. + +"I don't see why. That didn't come, and seems it wasn't what I ought to +have been afraid of after all. All along I ought to have been afraid only +of the Cedars and the old room. I've been accused of being unjust. I +don't want to do an injustice now." + +"Please answer," Robinson said impatiently. + +"You must answer," Graham urged. + +"I don't see that it makes the slightest difference," Paredes drawled. +"What has it got to do with the case as it stands to-night?" + +Robinson snapped at him. + +"You keep out of it. Don't forget there's a lot you haven't +answered yet." + +Silas Blackburn looked straight at Bobby. Slowly he raised his hand, +pointing an accusing finger at his grandson. + +"If you want to know, I was afraid of that young rascal." + +Katherine started impulsively forward in an effort to stop him. Blackburn +waved her away. + +"You trying to scare me, Katy?" he asked suspiciously. + +"Evidently," Robinson commented to Graham, "Howells wasn't as dull as we +thought him. Go on, Mr. Blackburn. Why were you afraid of your grandson?" + +"Maybe he can tell you better than I can," the old man answered. "Don't +see any use raking up such things, anyway. Maybe I'd been pretty harsh +with him. Anyway, I knew he hated the ground I walked on and would be +glad enough to see me drop in my tracks." + +"That isn't so," Bobby said. + +"You keep quiet now. You always talked too much." + +So the old feeling survived. + +"Go on," Robinson urged. + +"I'd always been a hard worker," Blackburn whined, "and he was a waster. +Naturally we didn't get along. I'd decided to make a new will, leaving my +money to the Bedford Foundation, and I wrote him that, thinking it would +bring him hot foot to make it up with me. I'd been nervous about him +before, because I didn't know what might come into his head when he was +on these wild parties. So I'd spoken to Howells, thinking I'd trip him if +he tried any funny business. When he didn't come that night I got scared. +He knew I wouldn't make the new will until morning, and since I couldn't +see any man throwing all that money away, I figured he'd guessed he +couldn't turn me and wouldn't waste any time talking. + +"When you got a lot of money and a grandson who hates you, you have to +think of such things. Suppose, I thought, he should come out here drunk +when I was sound asleep. I knew he had a latch key, and he might sneak up +to my room before I could even get to the telephone. Or I was afraid he +might hire somebody. You can buy men for that sort of work in New York. I +tell you the more I thought of it the more I was sure he'd do something. +You'd understand if you lived in this lonely place with all that money +and nobody you wanted to will it to. I nearly sent for Howells right +then. But if nothing had happened I'd have looked a fool." + +"I wanted you to send for a man," Katherine cried. + +Bobby leaned against the wall, repeating to himself the words of Maria's +note which accused him of having made the very threat his grandfather +had feared. + +"So," Blackburn rambled on, "I decided I wouldn't sleep in my room that +night, and I picked out the least likely place for anybody to find me. I +was more afraid of him than I was of the old room, but, as I've told you, +the old room made me forget Master Robert." + +Robinson stepped to Bobby's side. + +"All along Howells was right. Tell me what you did with that evidence." + +Bobby turned away. Katherine tried to laugh. Graham beckoned to Robinson. + +"What's the use of bothering with evidence against a suspected murderer +when the murdered man stands talking to you?" + +Robinson frowned helplessly. Paredes sprang to his feet. + +"You're taking too much for granted, Graham. There was a murder. +Blackburn was killed. We've as many witnesses to that fact as we have +that he's come back. This man who talks with us, accusing Bobby, may not +stay. Have you thought of that? I have noticed something that makes me +think it possible. I have been afraid to speak of it. But it makes me +hesitate to say that this man is alive, as we understand life. We have to +learn the nature of the forces we are dealing with, exactly how dangerous +they are." + +They started at a sharp rap on the front door. + +"Now who?" the old man whined. "I wish you wouldn't look at me so. It +makes me feel queer. You're all crazy." + +"It's probably Doctor Groom," Bobby said, and stepped to the door, +opening it. + +It was Groom. The huge man walked in, struggling out of his coat. At +first the others screened Silas Blackburn from him, but he +acknowledged their strained attitudes, the excitement that still +animated Paredes's face. + +"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Found something, Mr. District +Attorney?" + +Robinson moved to one side, jerking his thumb at Silas Blackburn. The +coat and hat slipped from Doctor Groom's hand. His mouth opened. His +great body crept slowly back until the shoulders rested against the wall. +He placed the palms of his hands against the wall as if to push it away +in order to assure further retreat. Always the little, infused eyes +remained fixed on the man who had been his friend. Such terror was +chiefly arresting because of the great figure conquered by it. + +Blackburn thrust his pipe in his mouth. He laughed shakily. + +"That fellow Groom will have a stroke." + +The Doctor's greeting had the difficult quality of a masculine sob. + +"Silas Blackburn!" + +"Who do you think?" the other whined. "You going to try to frighten me +out of my skin, too? These people are trying to say I've been lying dead +in the old room. Hoped you'd have enough sense to set them right and tell +me what it's all about." + +The doctor straightened. + +"You did lie dead in the old room." + +His harsh, amazed tones held an unqualified conviction. + +"I saw you there. I helped the coroner make the examination. You had been +dead for many hours. And I saw you bolted in your coffin. I saw you +buried in the graveyard you'd let go to pieces." + +The others had, as far as possible, recovered from the first shock, had +done their best to fathom the mystery, but Groom's fear increased. His +reddish eyes grew always more alarmed. Silas Blackburn turned with a +quick, frightened gesture, facing the fire. Paredes drew a deep breath. + +"Now you'll see," he said. + +Doctor Groom shrank against the wall again. After a moment, with the +motions of one drawn by an outside will, he approached the figure at the +fireplace. Then Bobby saw, and he heard Katherine's choked scream. For +now that his grandfather's back was turned there was plainly visible on +the white of the collar, near the base of the brain, a scarlet stain. And +the hair above it was matted. + +"That's what I meant," Paredes whispered. + +Graham moved back. + +"Good God!" + +Robinson stared. The fear had found him, too. + +Doctor Groom touched Blackburn's shoulder tentatively. + +"What's the matter with the back of your neck?" + +Blackburn drew fearfully away. He raised his hand and fumbled at the top +of his collar. He held his fingers to the firelight. + +"Why," he said blankly, "I been bleeding back there." + +To an extent the doctor controlled himself. + +"Sit down here, Silas Blackburn," he said. "I want to get the lamplight +on your head." + +"I ain't badly hurt?" Blackburn whined. + +"I don't know," the doctor answered. "Heaven knows." + +Blackburn sat down. The light shone full on the stained collar and the +dark patch of hair at the base of the brain. Doctor Groom examined the +wound minutely. He straightened. He spoke unsteadily: + +"It is a healed wound. It was made by something sharp." + +Robinson thrust his hands in his pockets. + +"You're getting beyond my depths, Doctor. Bring him up to the old +bedroom. I want him to see that pillow." + +But Blackburn cowered in his chair. + +"I won't go to that room again. They don't want me there. I'll have work +started in the cemetery to-morrow." + +"Mr. Blackburn," Robinson said, "the man we buried in the cemetery +to-day, the man these members of your family identify as yourself, died +of just such a wound as the doctor says has healed in your head." + +Blackburn cowered farther in his chair. + +"You're making fun of me," he whimpered. "You're trying to scare +an old man." + +"No," Robinson said. "How was that wound made?" + +The crouched figure wagged its head from side to side. + +"I don't know. Nothing's touched me there. I remember I had a headache +when I woke up. Why doesn't Groom tell me why I slept so long?" + +"I only know," Groom rumbled, "that the wound I examined upstairs must +have caused instant death." + +Paredes whispered to him. The doctor nodded reluctantly. + +"What do you mean?" Blackburn cried. "You trying to tell me I can't stay +with you?" + +He pointed to Paredes. + +"That's what he said--that I might have to go back, but I never heard of +such a thing. I'm all right. My neck doesn't hurt. I'm alive. I tell you +I'm alive. I'll teach you--" + +Rawlins returned from the telephone. + +"His story's straight," he said in his crisp manner. "I've been talking +to Waters himself. Says Mr. Blackburn turned up about three-thirty, +looking queer and acting queer. Wouldn't shake hands, just as he says. He +went to the spare room and slept practically all the time until this +afternoon. No food. Waters couldn't rouse him. Mr. Blackburn wouldn't +answer at all or else seemed half asleep. He'd made up his mind to call +in a doctor this afternoon. Then Mr. Blackburn seemed all right again, +and started home." + +Robinson gazed at the fire. + +"What's to be done now, sir?" Rawlins asked. + +"Find the answer if we can," Robinson said. + +Paredes spoke as softly as he had done the other night while reciting his +sensitive reaction to the Cedars's gloomy atmosphere. Only now his voice +wasn't groping. + +"Call me a dreamer if you want, Mr. District Attorney, but I have given +you the only answer. This man's soul has dwelt in two places." + +Robinson grinned. + +"I'm going slow on calling anybody names, but I haven't forgotten that +there's been another crime in this house. Howells was killed in that +room, too. I would like to believe he could return as Mr. Blackburn has." + +Blackburn looked up. + +"What's that? Who's Howells?" + +And as Robinson told him of the second crime he sank back in his chair +again, whimpering from time to time. His fear was harder to watch. + +"Might I suggest," Graham said, "that Howells isn't out of the case yet? +It would be worth looking into." + +"By all means," Robinson agreed. + +Rawlins coughed apologetically. + +"I asked them about that at the office. Howells was taken to his home in +Boston to-day. The funeral's to be to-morrow." + +"Then," Robinson said, "we're confined for the present to this end of the +case. The facts I have tell me that two murders have been committed in +this house. It is still my first duty to convict the guilty man." + +Graham indicated the huddled, frightened figure in the chair. + +"You are going against the evidence of your own eyes." + +"I shall do what I can," Robinson said sternly. "We buried one of those +men this noon. His grandson, his niece, and those who saw him +frequently, swear it was this living being who has such a wound as the +one that caused the death of that man. There is only one thing to +do--see who we buried." + +"The permits?" Graham suggested. + +"I shall telephone the judge," Robinson answered, "and he can send +them out, but I shan't wait for hours doing nothing. I am going to the +grave at once." + +"A waste of time," Paredes murmured. + +"I don't understand," Silas Blackburn whined, "You say the doors were +locked. Then how could anybody have got in that room to be murdered? How +did I get out?" + +Robinson turned on Paredes angrily. + +"I'm not through with you yet. Before I am I'll get what I want +from you." + +He stormed away to the telephone. No one spoke. The doctor's rumpled head +was still bent over the back of Silas Blackburn's chair. The infused eyes +didn't waver from the crimson stain and the healed wound, and Blackburn +remained huddled among the cushions, his shoulders twitching. Paredes +commenced gathering up his cards. Katherine watched him out of +expressionless eyes. Graham walked to her side. Rawlins, as always +phlegmatic, remained motionless, waiting for his superior. + +Bobby threw off his recent numbness. He realized the disturbing parallel +in the actions of his grandfather and himself. He had come to the Cedars +unconsciously, perhaps directed by an evil, external influence, on the +night of the first murder. Now, it appeared, the man he was accused of +killing had also wandered under an unknown impulse that night. Was the +same subtle control responsible in both cases? Was there at the Cedars a +force that defied physical laws, moving its inhabitants like puppets for +special aims of its own? Yet, he recalled, there was something here +friendly to him. After the movement of Howells's body and the +disappearance of the evidence, the return of Silas Blackburn stripped +Robinson's threats of power and seemed to place the solution beyond the +district attorney's trivial reach. + +The silence and the delay increased their weight upon the little group. +Silas Blackburn, huddled in his chair, was grayer, more haggard than he +had been at first. He appeared attentive to an expected summons. He +seemed fighting the idea of going back. + +The proximity of Graham to Katherine quieted the turmoil of Bobby's +thoughts. If he could only have foreseen this return he would have +listened to the whispered encouragement of the forest. + +Robinson reappeared. Anxiety had replaced the anger in the round face +which, one felt, should always have been no more than good-natured. + +"Jenkins will have to help," he said. + +Silas Blackburn arose unsteadily. + +"I'm coming with you. You're not going to leave me here. I won't stay +here alone." + +"He should come by all means," Paredes said, "in case anything +should happen--" + +The old man put his hands to his ears. + +"You keep quiet. I'm not going back, I tell you." + +Bobby didn't want to hear any more. He went to the kitchen and called +Jenkins. He let the butler go to the hall ahead of him in order that he +might not have to witness this new greeting. But Jenkins's cry came back +to him, and when he reached the hall he saw that the man's terror had not +diminished. + +They went through the court and around the house to the stable where they +found spades and shovels. Their grim purpose holding them silent, they +crossed the clearing and entered the pathway that had been freshly blazed +that day for the passage of the men in black. + +The snow was quite deep. It still drifted down. It filled the woods with +a wan, unnatural radiance. Without really illuminating the sooty masses +of the trees it made the night white. + +Silas Blackburn stumbled in the van with Paredes and Robinson. The doctor +and Rawlins followed. Graham was with Katherine behind them. Bobby walked +last, fighting an instinct to linger, to avoid whatever they might find +beneath the white blanket of the little, intimate burial ground. + +Groom turned and spoke to Graham. Katherine waited for Bobby, and the +white night closed swiftly about them, whispering until the shuffling of +the others became inaudible. + +Was she glad of this solitude? Had she sought it? Her extraordinary +request in that earlier solitude came to him, and he spoke of it while he +tried to control his emotions, while he sought to mould the next few +minutes reasonably and justly. + +"Why did you tell me to make no attempt to find the guilty person?" + +"Because," she answered, "you were too sure it was yourself. Why, Bobby, +did you think I was the--the woman in black? That has hurt me." + +"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, "but there is something I must tell +you now that may hurt you a little." + +And he explained how Graham had awakened him at the head of the stairs. + +"You're right," he said. "I was sure then it was myself, in spite of +Howells's movement. It followed so neatly on the handkerchief and the +footmarks. But now he has come back, and it changes everything. So I can +tell you." + +He couldn't be sure whether it was the cold, white loneliness through +which they paced, or what he had just said that made her tremble. + +"Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that." + +"I am glad," she answered. "You must never close your confidence to me +again. Why have you done it these last few months? I want to know." + +Calculation died. + +"Then you shall know." + +Through the white night his hands reached for her, found her, drew her +close. The moment was too masterful for him to mould. He became, instead, +plastic in its white and stealthy grasp. + +"I couldn't stay," he said, "and see you give yourself to Hartley." + +She raised her hands to his shoulders. He barely caught her whisper +because of the sly communicativeness of the snow. + +"I am glad, but why didn't you say so then?" + +The intoxication faded. The enterprise ahead gave to their joy a fugitive +quality. Moreover, with her very surrender came to him a great misgiving. + +"But you and Hartley? I've watched. It's been forced on me." + +"Then you have misunderstood," she answered. "You put me too completely +out of your life after our quarrel. That was about Hartley. You were too +jealous, but it was my fault." + +"Hartley," he asked, "spoke to you about that time?" + +"Yes, and I told him he was a very dear friend, and he was kind enough to +accept that and not to go away." + +His measure of the widening of the rift between them made her more +precious because of its affectionate human quality. She had been kinder +to Graham, more mysterious about him, to draw Bobby back. Yet ever since +his arrival at the Cedars, Graham had assumed toward Katherine an +attitude scarcely to be limited by friendship. He had done what he had +in Bobby's service clearly enough for her sake. For a long time past, +indeed, in speaking of her Graham always seemed to discuss the woman he +expected to marry. + +"You are quite sure," he asked, puzzled, "that Hartley understood?" + +"Why do you ask? He has shown how good a friend he is." + +"He has always made me think," Bobby said, "that he had your love. You're +sure he guessed that you cared for me?" + +In that place, at that moment, there was a tragic colour to her coquetry. + +"I think every one must have guessed it except you, Bobby." + +He raised her head and touched her lips. Her lips were as cold as the +caresses of the drifting snowflakes. + +"We must go on," she sighed. + +In his memory the chill of her kiss was bitter. In the forest they could +speak no more of love. + +But Bobby, hand in hand with her as they hurried after the others, +received a new strength. He saw as a condition to their happiness the +unveiling of the mystery at the Cedars. He gathered his courage for that +task. He would not give way even before the memory of all that he had +experienced, even before the return of his grandfather, even before the +revelation toward which they walked. And side by side with his +determination grew shame for his former weakness. It was comforting to +realize that the causes for his weakness and his strength were identical. + +The subdued murmur of voices reached them. They saw among the indistinct +masses of the trees restless patches of black. Katherine stumbled against +one of the fallen stones. They stood with the others in the burial +ground, close to the mound that had been made that day. + +"They haven't begun," Bobby whispered. + +She freed her hand. + +A white flame sprang across the mound. The trees from formless masses +took on individual shapes. A row of cypresses on which the light gleamed +were like sombre sentinels, guarding the dead. The snow patches, +clustered on their branches, were like funeral decorations pointing their +morbid function. The light gave the overturned stones an illusion of +striving to struggle from their white imprisonment. Robinson swung his +lamp back to the mound. + +"The snow isn't heavy," he said, "and the ground isn't frozen. It +oughtn't to take long." + +Silas Blackburn commenced to shake. + +"It's a desecration of the dead." + +"We have to know," Robinson said, "who is buried in that grave." + +With a spade Jenkins scraped the snow from the mound. Rawlins joined him. +They commenced to throw to one side, staining the white carpet, spadesful +of moist, yellow earth. Their labour was rapid. Silas Blackburn watched +with an unconquerable fascination. He continued to shake. + +"I'm too cold. I'll never be warm again," he whined. "If anything happens +to me, Bobby, try to forget I've been hard, and don't let them bury me. +Suppose I should be buried alive?" + +"Suppose," Paredes said, "you were buried alive to-day?" + +He turned to Bobby and Katherine. + +"That also is possible. You remember the old theories that have never +been disproved of the disintegration of matter into its atoms, of its +passage through solid substances, of its reforming in a far place? I +wouldn't have to ask an East Indian that." + +Jenkins, standing in the excavation, broke into torrential speech. + +"Mr. Robinson! I can't work with the light. It makes the stones seem to +move. It throws too many shadows. I seem to see people behind you, and +I'm afraid to look." + +Nothing aggressive survived in Rawlins's voice. + +"We can work well enough without it, sir." + +Robinson snapped off the light. The darkness descended eagerly upon +them. Above the noise of the spades in the soft earth Bobby heard +indefinite stirrings. In the graveyard at such an hour the supernatural +legend of the Cedars assumed an inescapable probability. Bobby wished +for some way to stop the task on which they were engaged. He felt +instinctively it would be better not to tamper with the mystery of +Silas Blackburn's return. + +Bobby grew rigid. + +"There it is again," Graham breathed. + +A low keening came from the thicket. It increased in power a trifle, then +drifted into silence. + +It wasn't the wind. It was like the moaning Bobby had heard at the +stagnant lake that afternoon, like the cries Graham and he had suffered +in the old room. Seeming at first to come from a distance, it achieved +a sense of intimacy. It was like an escape of sorrow from the +dismantled tombs. + +Bobby turned to Katherine. He couldn't see her for the darkness. He +reached out. She was not there. + +"Katherine," he called softly. + +Her hand stole into his. He had been afraid that the forest had taken +her. Under the reassurance of her handclasp he tried to make himself +believe there was actually a woman near by, if not Maria, some one who +had a definite purpose there. + +Robinson flashed on his light. Old Blackburn whimpered: + +"The Cedars is at its tricks again, and there's nothing we can do." + +"It was like a lost soul," Katherine sighed. "It seemed to cry from +this place." + +"It must be traced," Bobby said. + +"Then tell me its direction certainly," Robinson challenged. "We'd +flounder in the thicket. A waste of time. Let us get through here. +Hurry, Rawlins!" + +The light showed Bobby that the detective and Jenkins had nearly +finished. He shrank from the first hard sound of metal against metal. + +It came. After a moment the light shone on the dull face of the casket +which was streaked with dirt. + +Jenkins rested on his spade. He groaned. It occurred to Bobby that the +man couldn't have worked hard enough in this cold air to have started the +perspiration that streamed down his wrinkled face. + +"It would be a tough job to lift it out," Rawlins said. + +"No need," Robinson answered. "Get the soil away from the edges." + +He bent over, passing a screw driver to the detective. + +"Take off the top plate. That will let us see all we want." + +Jenkins climbed out. + +"I shan't look. I don't dare look." + +Silas Blackburn touched Bobby's arm timidly. + +"I've been a hard man, Bobby--" + +He broke off, his bearded lips twitching. + +The grating of the screws tore through the silence. Rawlins glanced up. + +"Lend a hand, somebody." + +Groom spoke hoarsely: + +"It isn't too late to let the dead rest." + +Robinson gestured him away. Graham, Paredes, and he knelt in the snow +and helped the detective raise the heavy lid. They placed it at the side +of the grave. + +They all forced themselves to glance downward. + +Katherine screamed. Silas Blackburn leaned on Bobby's arm, shaking with +gross, impossible sobs. Paredes shrugged his shoulders. The light +wavered in Robinson's hand. They continued to stare. There was nothing +else to do. + +The coffin was empty. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +BOBBY'S VIGIL IN THE ABANDONED ROOM + + +For a long time the little group gathered in the snow-swept cemetery +remained silent. The lamp, shaking in the district attorney's hand, +illuminated each detail of the casket's interior linings. Bobby tried to +realize that, except for these meaningless embellishments, the box was +empty. That was what held them all--the void, the unoccupied silken couch +in which they had seen Silas Blackburn's body imprisoned. Yet the screws +which the detective had removed, and the mass of earth, packed down and +covered with snow, must have made escape a dreadful impossibility even if +the spark of life had reanimated its occupant. And that occupant stood +there, trembling and haggard, sobbing from time to time in an utter +abandonment to the terror of what he saw. + +To Bobby in that moment the supernatural legend of the Cedars seemed more +triumphantly fulfilled than it would have been through the immaterial +return of his grandfather. For Silas Blackburn was a reincarnation more +difficult to accept than any ghost. Had Paredes, who all along had +offered them a spectacle of veiled activity and thought, grasped the +truth? At first glance, indeed his gossip of oriental theories concerning +the disintegration of matter, its passage through solid substances, its +reassembly in far places, seemed thoroughly justified. Yet, granted that, +who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had they buried to vanish +completely? Who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had drowsed without +food for three days in the house at Smithtown? + +The old man stretched his shaking hands to Bobby and Katherine. + +"Don't let them bury me again. They never buried me. I've not been dead! +I tell you I've not been dead!" He mouthed horribly. "I'm alive! Can't +you see I'm alive?" + +He broke down and covered his face. Jenkins sank on the heap of earth. + +"I saw you, Mr. Silas, in that box. And I saw you on the bed. Miss +Katherine and I found you. We had to break the door. You looked so +peaceful we thought you were asleep. But when we touched you you +were cold." + +"No, no, no," Blackburn grimaced. "I wasn't cold. I couldn't have been." + +"There's no question," Bobby said hoarsely. + +"No question," Robinson repeated. + +Katherine shrank from her uncle as he had shrunk from her in the library +the night of the murder. + +"What do you make of it?" the district attorney asked Rawlins. + +The detective, who had remained crouched at the side of the grave, arose, +brushing the dirt from his hands, shaking his head. + +"What is one to make of it, sir?" + +Paredes spoke softly to Graham. + +"The Cedars wants to be left alone to the dead. We would all be better +away from it." + +"You won't go yet awhile," Robinson said gruffly. "Don't forget you're +still under bond." + +The detail no longer seemed of importance to Bobby. The mystery, +centreing in the empty grave, was apparently inexplicable. He experienced +a great pity for his grandfather; and, recalling that strengthening +moment with Katherine, he made up his mind that there was only one course +for him. It might be dangerous in itself, yet, on the other hand, he +couldn't go to Katherine while his share in the mystery of the Cedars +remained so darkly shadowed. He had no right to withhold anything, and he +wouldn't ask Graham's advice. He had stepped all at once into the mastery +of his own destiny. He would tell Robinson, therefore, everything he +knew, from the party with Maria and Paredes in New York, through his +unconscious wanderings around the house on the night of the first murder, +to the moment when Graham had stopped his somnambulistic excursion down +the stairs. + +Robinson turned his light away from the grave. + +"There's nothing more to do here. Let us go back." + +The little party straggled through the snow to the house. The hall fire +smouldered as pleasantly as it had done before they had set forth, yet an +interminable period seemed to have elapsed. Silas Blackburn went close to +the fire. He sank in a chair, trembling. + +"I'm so cold," he whined. "I've never been so cold. What is the matter +with me? For God's sake tell me what is the matter! Katherine--if--if +nothing happens, we'll close the Cedars. We'll go to the city where there +are lots of lights." + +"If you'd only listened to Bobby and me and gone long ago," she said. + +Robinson stared at the fire. + +"I'm about beaten," he muttered wearily. + +Rawlins, with an air of stealth, walked upstairs. Graham, after a +moment's hesitation, followed him. Bobby wondered why they went. He +caught Robinson's eye. He indicated he would like to speak to him in the +library. As he left the hall he saw Paredes, who had not removed his hat +or coat, start for the front door. + +"Where are you going?" he heard Robinson demand. + +Paredes's reply came glibly. + +"Only to walk up and down in the court. The house oppresses me more than +ever to-night. I feel with Mr. Blackburn that it is no place to stay." + +And while he talked with Robinson in the library Bobby caught at times +the crunching of Paredes's feet in the court. + +"Why does that court draw him?" Robinson asked. "Why does he keep +repeating that it is full of ghosts? He can't be trying to scare us with +that now." + +But Bobby didn't answer. + +"I've come to tell you the truth," he burst out, "everything I know. You +may lock me up. Even that would be better than this uncertainty. I must +have an answer, if it condemns me; and how could I have had anything to +do with what has happened to-night?" + +He withheld nothing. Robinson listened with an intent interest. At the +end he said not unkindly: + +"If the evidence and Howells's report hadn't disappeared I'd have +arrested you and considered the case closed before this miracle was +thrown at me. You've involved yourself so frankly that I don't believe +you're lying about what went on in the old room when you entered to steal +those exhibits. Can't say I blame you for trying that, either. You were +in a pretty bad position--an unheard-of position. You still are, for that +matter. But the case is put on such an extraordinary basis by what has +happened to-night that I'd be a fool to lock you up on such a confession. +I believe there's a good deal more in what has gone on in that room and +in the return of your grandfather than you can account for." + +"Thanks," Bobby said. "I hoped you'd take it this way, for, if you will +let me help, I have a plan." + +He turned restlessly to the door of the private staircase. In his memory +Howells's bold figure was outlined there, but now the face with its slow +smile seemed sympathetic rather than challenging. + +"What's your plan?" Robinson asked. + +Bobby forced himself to speak deliberately, steadily: + +"To go for the night alone to the old room as Howells did." + +Robinson whistled. + +"Didn't believe you had that much nerve. Two men have tried that. What +good would it do?" + +"If the answer's anywhere," Bobby said, "it must be hidden in that room. +Howells felt it. I was sure of it when I was prevented from taking the +evidence. You've believed it, I think." + +"There is something strange and unhealthy about the room," Robinson +agreed. "Certainly the secret of the locked doors lies there. But we've +had sufficient warning. I'm not ashamed to say I wouldn't take such a +chance. I don't know that I ought to let you." + +Bobby smiled. + +"I've been enough of a coward," he said, "and, Robinson, I've got to +know. I shan't go near the bed. I'll watch the bed from a corner. If +the danger's at the bed, as we suspect, it probably won't be able to +reach me, but just the same it may expose itself. And Rawlins or you +can be outside the broken door in the corridor, waiting to enter at +the first alarm." + +"Howells had no chance to give an alarm," Robinson muttered. "We'll +see later." + +But Bobby understood that he would agree, and he forced his new courage +to face the prospect. + +"Maybe something will turn up," Robinson mused. "The case can't grow more +mysterious indefinitely." + +But his tone held no assurance. He seemed to foresee new and difficult +complications. + +When they returned to the hall Bobby shrank from the picture of his +grandfather still crouched by the fire, his shoulders twitching, his +fingers about the black briar pipe shaking. Groom alone had remained with +him. Bobby opened the front door. There was no one in the court. + +"Paredes," he said, closing the door, "has gone out of the court. Where's +Katherine, Doctor?" + +"She went to the kitchen," the doctor rumbled. "I'm sure I don't know +what for this time of night." + +After a little Graham and Rawlins came down the stairs. Graham's face was +scarred by fresh trouble. Rawlins drew the district attorney to one side. + +"What have you two been doing up there?" Bobby asked Graham. + +"Rawlins is hard-headed," Graham answered in a low, worried tone. + +He wouldn't meet Bobby's eyes. He seemed to seek an escape. + +"Where's Katherine?" he asked. + +"Doctor Groom says she went to the back part of the house. Why won't you +tell me what you were doing?" + +"Only keeping Rawlins from trying to make more mischief," Graham +answered. + +He wouldn't explain. + +"Aren't there enough riddles in this house?" Doctor Groom asked with +frank disapproval. + +Rawlins and Robinson joined them, sparing Graham a further defence. The +district attorney had an air of fresh resolution. He was about to speak +when the front door opened quietly, framing the blackness of the court. +They started forward, seeing no one. + +Silas Blackburn made a slow, shrinking movement, crying out: + +"They've opened the door! Don't let them in. Don't let them come near +me again." + +Although they knew Paredes had been in the court the spell of the Cedars +was so heavy upon them that for a moment they didn't know what to expect. +They hesitated with a little of the abnormal apprehension Silas Blackburn +exposed. Then Rawlins sprang forward, and Bobby called: + +"Carlos!" + +Paredes stepped from one side. He lingered against the black +background of the doorway. It was plain enough something was wrong +with him. In the first place, although he had opened the door, he had +been unwilling to enter. + +"Shut the door," Silas Blackburn moaned. + +Paredes, with a quick gesture of surrender, stepped in and obeyed. His +face was white. He had lost his immaculate appearance. His clothing +showed stains of snow and mould. He held his left hand behind his back. + +"What's the matter with you?" Robinson demanded. + +The Panamanian's laugh lacked its usual indifference. + +"When I said the Cedars was full of ghosts I should have heeded my own +warning. I might better have stayed comfortably locked up in Smithtown." + +Silas Blackburn spoke in a hoarse whisper: + +"What did you see out there? Are they coming?" + +"I saw very little," Paredes answered. "It was too dark." + +"You saw something," Doctor Groom rumbled. + +Paredes nodded. He looked at the floor. + +"A--a woman in black." + +"By the lake!" Bobby cried. + +"Not as far as the lake. It was near the empty grave." + +Silas Blackburn commenced to shake again. The doctor's little eyes +were wider. + +"It was a woman--a flesh-and-blood woman?" Robinson asked. + +"If it was a ghost," Paredes answered, "it had the power of attack; but +that, as you'll recall, is by no means unusual here. That's why I've come +in rather against my will. It seems strange, but I, too, have been +struck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctor +had better look at the result." + +With a motion of repugnance he moved his left hand from behind his back +and stretched it to the light. The coat below the elbow was torn. The +slender hand was crimson. He tried to smile. + +"Luckily it wasn't at the back of my head." + +"Sit down," Doctor Groom said, waving Robinson and Rawlins away. "Let me +see how badly he's hurt. There'll be plenty of time for questions +afterward." + +Paredes lay back in one of the chairs and extended his arm. He kept his +eyes closed while the doctor stooped, examining the wound. All at once +his nearly perpetual sleeplessness since coming to the Cedars had +recorded itself in his face. His nerves at last confessed their +vulnerability as he fumbled for a cigarette with his good hand, as he +placed it awkwardly between his lips. + +"Would you mind giving me a light, Bobby?" + +Bobby struck a match and held it to the cigarette. + +"Thanks," Paredes said. "Are you nearly through, doctor? I daresay +it's nothing." + +Doctor Groom glanced up. + +"Nothing serious with a little luck. It's only torn through a muscle. It +might have pierced the large vein." + +His forehead beneath the shaggy black hair was deeply lined. He turned to +Robinson doubtfully. + +"Maybe you'll tell us," Robinson said, "what made the wound." + +"No use shirking facts," the doctor rumbled. "Mr. Paredes has been +wounded just as he said, by something sharp and slender." + +"You mean," Robinson said, "by an instrument that could have caused death +in the case of Howells and--and--" + +"I won't have you looking at me that way," Silas Blackburn whined. + +"Yes," the doctor answered. "Before we go any farther I want to bind this +arm. There must be an antiseptic in the house. Where is Katherine? See if +you can find her, Bobby." + +As Bobby started to cross the dining room he heard the slight scraping of +the door leading to the kitchen. He knew there was someone in the room +with him. He touched a cold hand. + +"Bobby!" Katherine breathed in his ear. + +He understood why the little light from the hall had failed to disclose +her when she had come from the kitchen. She wore the black cloak. Against +the darkness at the end of the room she had made no silhouette. When he +put his arms around her and touched her cheek, he noticed that that, too, +was cold; and the shoulders of the cloak were damp as if she had just +come in from the falling snow. + +"Where have you been?" he asked. + +"Looking outside," she answered frankly. "I couldn't sit still. I +wondered if the woman in black would be around the house to-night. Then +I was afraid, so I came in." + +Doctor Groom's voice reached them. + +"Have you found her? Is she in the dining room?" + +Without any thought of disloyalty Bobby recognized the menace of +coincidence. + +"Take your cloak off," he whispered. "Leave it here." + +"Why?" + +While he drew the cloak from her shoulders he raised his voice. + +"Carlos has been hurt. The doctor asked me to find you." + +His simple strategy was destroyed by the appearance of Rawlins. The +detective came directly to them; nor was the coincidence lost on him, and +it was his business to advertise rather than to conceal it. Without +ceremony he took the cloak from Bobby. He draped it over his arm. + +"The doctor," he said to Katherine, "wants a basin of warm water, some +old linen, carbolic acid, if you have it." + +She nodded and went back to the kitchen while Bobby returned with the +detective to the hall. Paredes's eyes remained closed. + +"Where did you get the cloak, Rawlins?" Robinson asked. + +"The young lady," Rawlins answered with soft satisfaction, "just wore it +in. At least it's still wet from the snow." + +Paredes opened his eyes. He looked for a moment at the black cloak. He +closed his eyes again. + +"You could recognize the woman who attacked you?" Rawlins said. + +Paredes shook his head. + +"You've forgotten how dark it is. Please don't ask me even to swear that +it was a woman." + +"You're trying to say it wasn't flesh and blood," Blackburn quavered. + +Paredes smiled weakly. + +"I'm trying to say nothing at all." + +"Tell us each detail of the attack," Robinson said. + +But Katherine's footsteps reached them from the dining room and Paredes +wouldn't answer. Under those conditions Robinson's failure to press the +question was as disturbing as the detective's matter-of-fact capture of +the cloak. + +Paredes glanced at Katherine once. There was no softness in her attitude +as she knelt beside his chair. Neither, Bobby felt, was there the +slightest uneasiness. With a facile grace she helped the doctor bathe and +bandage the slight wound. + +"A silk handkerchief for a sling--" the doctor suggested. + +"I won't have a sling," Paredes said. "I wouldn't know what to do without +the use of both my hands." + +"You ought to congratulate yourself that you still keep it," the +doctor grumbled. + +Bobby took the pan and the bottles from Katherine and rang for Jenkins. +It was clear that Robinson had hoped the girl would go out with them +herself and so give Paredes an opportunity to speak. This new development +made him wonder about Graham's theories as to Paredes. If it was Maria +who had struck the man there had either been a quarrel among thieves or +else no criminal connection had ever existed between the two. Paredes, +however, aping the gestures of an invalid, was less to Bobby's taste than +his satanic appearance when he had come from the private staircase. + +Rawlins still held the cloak. After Jenkins had removed the doctor's +paraphernalia, everyone seemed to wait. It was Silas Blackburn who +finally released the strain. + +"Katy, where you been with that cloak? What's he doing with it?" + +Without answering she took the cloak from Rawlins, and gave the detective +and the district attorney the opportunity they craved. She walked up the +stairs, turning at the landing. Her farewell seemed pointed at the +Panamanian who looked languidly up at her. + +"If I'm wanted I shall be in my room." + +"Who would want you, Katherine?" Graham blurted out. But it was clear he +had caught the coincidence, too, and the trouble he had confessed a +little earlier was radically increased. + +"That remains to be seen," Robinson sneered as soon as she had gone. +"Now, Mr. Paredes." + +"I've really told you everything," he said. "I walked toward the +graveyard. At a point very close to it I felt the presence of this +creature in black. I spoke. I took my courage in my hands. I reached +out. I touched nothing." He raised his injured hand. "I got this for +my pains." + +"What made you go to the graveyard?" Robinson asked suspiciously. + +There was no mockery in the Panamanian's answer. + +"I have told you the court for me has always been full of ghosts." He +pointed to Silas Blackburn. "It frightened me that this man should come +back through the court from his grave with all the evidence pointing to +an astral magic. I wanted to retrace his journey. I thought at the grave, +if I were alone, something might expose itself that had naturally +remained hidden in the presence of so many materialistic human beings." + +A smile spread over Rawlins's cold, unimaginative features. + +"That sounds well, Mr. Paredes, and there is a lot about this case that +looks like ghosts, but leave us a few flesh-and-blood clues. This woman +in black is one of them, although she's been slippery as an eel. It looks +to me as if you went to the grave to meet her alone exactly as you went +to the deserted house to talk quietly with her night before last. Maybe +she mistook you for one of us snooping in the dark, and let you have it." + +"If that is so," Paredes said easily, "the nature of my wound would +suggest that she is guilty of the crimes in the old room. Why not go out +and arrest her then? She might explain everything except the return to +life of Mr. Blackburn. I'm afraid that's rather beyond you in any case. +But at least find her." + +Robinson joined in Rawlins's laugh. + +"Why go outside for that?" + +Paredes started. + +"You never mean--" + +"You bet we do," Rawlins said. "If what I've doped out hadn't been so +we'd have caught her long before. We're not blind, and we haven't missed +the nerve with which she helped the doctor fix you up. We haven't caught +her before because her headquarters have been right in this house all the +time. You remember the other night, Mr. Robinson. You'd just questioned +her in the court and had threatened to question him, too, when she came +in here ahead of us and slipped out the back way. She must have told him +to follow because they had to talk, undisturbed by us. They went by +different roads to the deserted house where a light had been seen before. +We happened to hit his trail first and followed it. I'll guarantee you +didn't see her when you first came in." + +Robinson shook his head. + +"Mr. Graham kept me busy, and I rather waited for your report before +pushing things. I didn't see her or question her until after Mr. Graham +and Mr. Blackburn had started for New York." + +"And she could have sneaked in the back way any time before that," +Rawlins said. + +"It's utter nonsense!" Graham cried. + +Rawlins turned on him. + +"See here, Mr. Graham, you've been trying to fight me off this way all +afternoon. It won't do." + +"Katy's a good girl," Silas Blackburn quavered. + +With a growing discomfort Bobby realized that when the woman had cried +near the graveyard he had reached out for Katherine and had failed to +find her. Moreover, the night Graham and he had heard the crying in the +old room she had stood alone in the corridor. It was easily conceivable +that the turn of events after Robinson's arrival should have made it +necessary for conspirators to consult free from any danger of +disturbance. But Katherine, he told himself, was assuredly the victim of +coincidence. He couldn't picture her entangled in any of Paredes's +purposes. Her dislike of the man was complete and open. But he saw that +Rawlins out of the mass of apparently inexplicable clues had extracted +this material one and would follow it desperately no matter who was hurt; +and Robinson was behind him. That accounted for their frequent excursions +upstairs during the afternoon, for Rawlins's ascent as soon as they had +returned from the grave. They had evidently found something to sharpen +their suspicions, and Graham probably knew what it was. + +Robinson took out his watch. + +"We can't put this off too late," he mused. + +The detective at his heels, he walked to the library. Bobby started +after them. Graham caught him and they crossed the dining room together. + +"What do they mean to do?" Bobby asked. + +"I have been afraid of it since this afternoon," Graham answered. "I +haven't cared to talk about it. I had hoped to hold them off. They intend +to search Katherine's room. I think they believe she has something +important hidden there. I've been wondering if they've got track of +Howells's report which we told Jenkins to hide." + +"Why," Bobby asked, "should that involve Katherine?" + +"Howells may have written something damaging to her. He knew she was +devoted to your interests." + +Robinson called to them from the library. + +"Won't you please come in, Mr. Blackburn?" + +Bobby and Graham continued to the library. They found Rawlins gazing +through the door of the private staircase. + +"We could go up this way," he was saying, "and across the old room so +that she needn't suspect." + +"What is he talking about?" Bobby asked Robinson angrily. + +"You wanted to help," Robinson answered, "so Rawlins and I are going to +give you a chance. We are about to search your cousin's room. We hope to +find there an explanation of a part of the mystery--the motive, at least, +for Howells's death; perhaps your own exoneration. You'd do anything to +have that, wouldn't you? You've said so." + +"At her expense!" Bobby cried. "You've no right to go to her room. +She's incapable of a share in such crimes. Do you seriously think she +could plan an escape from the grave and bring back to life a man three +days dead?" + +"Give me a human being that caused death," Robinson answered, "and I'll +tackle the ghosts later. You're wrong if you think I'm going to quit cold +because your grandfather looks like a dead thing that moves about and +talks. I shan't give up to that madness until I've done everything in my +power. I would be a criminal myself if I failed to do as Rawlins wishes. +If your cousin's skirts are clear no harm will be done. I'm acting on the +assumption that your confession was honest. I want you to get Miss +Perrine out of her room. I want you to see that she stays downstairs +while we search." + +"You've already searched her room." + +"Not since Rawlins--" + +Robinson caught himself. + +"Never mind that. It is necessary it should be searched to-night. Even +you'll acknowledge it's significant that all day when she has been +downstairs her door has been locked." + +"It's only significant," Bobby flashed, "in view of your treatment of her +yesterday." + +Robinson grinned. + +"That will hardly go down. Rawlins has hesitated to break in. I've +instructed him to do it now, if necessary. For the last time, will you +bring your cousin down? Will you go through and unlock the door leading +from the old bedroom to the private hall so we can get up?" + +"No," Bobby cried, "I wouldn't do it if I believed you were right. And I +know you're wrong." + +"Prove that we're wrong. Clear your cousin by helping us," +Robinson urged. + +"Since you're so determined," Graham said quietly, "I'll do it." + +"Hartley! What are you thinking of?" + +"Of showing them how wrong they are," Graham said. "I'll tell her +Doctor Groom wishes to speak to her about Mr. Blackburn. I'll warn him +to keep her downstairs for a quarter of an hour. That should give you +plenty of time." + +Robinson nodded. + +"She'll never forgive you," Bobby said. "It's spying." + +He wondered that Graham should choose such a course so soon after it had +become clear that Katherine had never really loved him. + +"It's the best way to satisfy them," Graham said. "I have, perhaps, more +faith than you in Katherine." + +He left them to carry out Robinson's instructions. They waited at the +entrance of the private staircase. + +"I may witness this outrage?" Bobby asked. + +"I'd rather you didn't speak of it in such harsh terms," Robinson +smiled. + +Bobby didn't know what to expect. The whole thing might be a trick of +Paredes, in line with his hints the night of Howells's death, to involve +Katharine. The quiet confidence of the two officials was disturbing. What +had Rawlins seen? + +After a long time Graham descended the private staircase, carrying a +lighted candle. He beckoned and they followed him back through the +private hall into the wide and mournful bedroom. It encouraged Bobby to +see the district attorney and the detective hurry across it. After all, +they were really without confidence of solving its ghostly riddle. What +they were about to do, he argued, was a last chance. They would find +nothing. They would acknowledge themselves beaten. + +When they entered the farther wing he noticed that Katherine's door +stood wide. + +"You see," he said. + +"When I called her," Graham explained, "she thought something had +happened to her grandfather. She ran out." + +"And forgot all about the door," Robinson grinned. "That's lucky. +Now, Rawlins." + +Bobby couldn't bring himself to cross the threshold, but from the +corridor he could see the interior of the room and all that went on there +during the next few moments. A candle burned on the bureau, exposing the +feminine neatness and delicacy of the furnishings. The presence of the +three men was a desecration; what they were about to do, an unforgivable +act of vandalism. + +Rawlins went to a work table while Robinson rummaged in the closet. +Graham, meantime, bent against the footboard of the bed, watching with +anxious eyes. Bobby's anger was increased by this picture. He resisted an +impulse to run to the stairs and call Katherine up. That would simply +increase Robinson's suspicions. There was nothing she could do, nothing +he could do. + +Rawlins had clearly been unsuccessful at the work table. He glided to the +bureau. One after the other he opened the drawers, fumbling within, +lifting the contents out, replacing them with a rough haste while Bobby's +futile rage increased. + +Suddenly he saw Graham's attitude alter. Rawlins's back stiffened. He +pulled the bottom drawer altogether from the bureau and thrust it to one +side. He gazed in the opening. + +"Come here, Mr. Robinson," he said softly. + +Robinson left the closet and stooped beside the detective. He exclaimed. +Graham went closer looking over their backs. + +"You'd better see, Bobby," he said without turning. + +"Yes," Robinson said. "Let me show you how wrong you were, Mr. Blackburn. +Let me ask if you knew you were wrong." + +Bobby entered with a quicker pulse. He, too, stooped and looked in the +opening. Abruptly everything altered for him. He wondered that his +physical surroundings should remain the same, that the eager faces beside +him should retain their familiar lines. + +Against the back-board of the bureau, where it would fit neatly when the +drawer was in place, lay a plaster cast of a footmark. Near by was a +rumpled handkerchief that Bobby recognized as his own, and the envelope, +containing Howells's report which they had told Jenkins to hide. + +"Well?" Robinson grinned. + +"I swear I didn't know they were there," Bobby answered. "You'll never +make me believe that Katherine knows it." + +"I've guessed," Rawlins said, "that the stuff was hidden here ever since +this afternoon when I saw a small bundle sneaked in." + +"Who brought it?" Bobby took him up. + +Robinson's grin expanded. + +"Leave us one or two surprises to spring in court." + +"Then," Bobby said, "my cousin wasn't in the room when this evidence was +brought here." + +"I'll admit that," Rawlins answered, "but she wasn't far away, and she +got here before I could investigate, and she's kept the door locked ever +since until just now." + +He lifted the exhibits out. The shape of the cast, the monogram on the +handkerchief cried out their testimony. + +Robinson grasped Howells's report and glanced over the fine handwriting. +After a time he looked up. + +"There's the case against you, Mr. Blackburn, and at the least your +cousin's an accessory. But why the devil did you come to me and make a +clean breast of it?" + +"Because," Bobby cried, "I didn't know anything about these things being +here. Can't you see that?" + +"That's the trouble," Robinson answered uncertainly, "I think I do see +it." + +"Besides," Graham said, "you're still without the instrument that +caused death." + +"I expect to land it in this room," Rawlins answered grimly. + +He replaced the drawer and continued to fumble among the clothing it +contained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On the +forefinger a tiny red stain showed. + +"How did you do that?" Robinson asked. + +"Something pricked me," the detective answered. "Maybe it was only a pin, +but it might have been--" + +Excitedly he resumed his search. He took the clothing from the drawer and +threw it to one side. Nothing remained in the drawer. + +"I guess it must have been a pin," Robinson said, disappointed. + +But Rawlins took up each article of clothing and examined it minutely. +His face brightened. + +"Here's something stiff. By gad, I believe I've got it!" + +Concealed in a woollen sack, with the slender shaft thrust through and +through the folds, was a peculiarly long, stout, and sharp hat pin. +Rawlins drew it out. He held it up triumphantly. + +"Now maybe we're not getting somewheres! That's the boy that did the +trick in both cases, and it's what scratched Mr. Paredes. Maybe you +noticed how quickly she came upstairs to hide this when she got in." + +"Good work, Rawlins," Robinson said. + +He glanced at Bobby and Graham. + +"Have either of you seen this deadly thing before?" + +Bobby wouldn't answer, but after a moment's hesitation Graham spoke: + +"There's no point in lying, Bobby. Katherine knows nothing of this. I +disagree with Rawlins. If she had been working with Paredes, which is +unthinkable, she'd never have made such a mistake. She wouldn't have +struck him. I have seen her wear such a pin." + +"If she didn't cut him with it," Rawlins reasoned, "who else could +have got it out of here and put it back to-night when she kept her +door locked?" + +"There's no getting around it," Robinson said. "Take charge of these +things, Rawlins. Put them in a safe place." + +"What are you going to do?" Bobby asked. + +"I'm afraid there's only one thing to do," Robinson answered. "I'll have +to arrest you both. One of you used this pin in the old room. It doesn't +make much difference which one. You've been working together, and we'll +find out about Paredes later." + +"You're making a terrible mistake," Bobby muttered. "You don't know +Katherine or you couldn't suspect her of any share in such crimes. Give +me until morning to prove how wrong you are." + +"What would be the use?" Robinson asked. + +"If you'll do that, I will get the truth for you--the whole truth, how +the room was entered, everything. I swear it, Robinson. Only a few hours. +Let me carry out my plan. Let me offer myself to the dangers of the old +room as Howells and my grandfather did. Your case is no good unless you +can explain the miracle to-night. Give us this chance. Then in the +morning, if nothing happens and you still think I'm guilty, lock me up, +but for God's sake, Robinson, leave her out of it." + +Graham walked to the window and flung it open. A violent gust of wind +swept in, carrying a multitude of icy flakes. + +"The storm is worse," he said. "No one is likely to try to escape from +this house to-night." + +Bobby stretched out his hand. + +"You can't expose her to that." + +Rawlins hadn't forgotten the sense of fellowship sprung from the pursuit +of Paredes through the forest. + +"He's right, Mr. Robinson. You could lock up a dozen people. You might +send them to the chair without uncovering the real mystery of the Cedars. +Maybe he might find something, and he'd be as safe in that room as in any +jail I know of. I mean one of us would be in the library and the other in +the corridor outside the broken door. How could he reasonably get out? If +there was an attempt to repeat the trick we'd be ready. As for the girl, +it's simple enough to safeguard against her getting away before morning. +As Mr. Graham says, no one's likely to run far in this storm, anyway." + +Robinson considered. + +"I don't want to be hard," he said finally, "and I don't want to miss any +chance of cleaning up where poor Howells failed." + +He glanced at the extraordinary array of evidence. The good nature which, +one felt, should always have been in his face, shone at last. + +"I don't believe you're guilty. As far as you're concerned it's likely +enough a put-up job. I don't know about the girl. Go ahead, anyway, and +tell us, if you can, how the locked room was entered. Explain the mystery +of that old man who looks as if he were dead, but who moves around and +talks with us." + +"The answer, if it's anywhere," Bobby said, "is in the old room." + +Robinson nodded. + +"Under the conditions it seems worth while. Go on then and clear your +cousin and yourself if you can. You have until daylight to-morrow." + +Bobby's gratitude was sufficiently eloquent in his eyes, but he said +nothing. He hurried from the room to find Katherine. As soon as he had +stepped in the corridor he saw her figure against the wall. + +"Katherine!" he breathed. + +"I've heard everything," she said. + +He led her to the main hall where the greedy ears in her bedroom couldn't +overhear them. + +"Then you suspected what they were about?" he asked her. + +"Uncle Silas," she answered, "seemed just as he had been when I went +upstairs, so I wondered, and I remembered I had left my door unlocked." + +"Then you knew those things were there?" + +Her face was white. She trembled. Her words came jerkily: + +"Of course I didn't. I only kept my door locked because they had +searched so thoroughly before. It was an humiliation I couldn't bear to +face again." + +"You don't know," he asked, "who took that stuff from Howells; who hid it +in your bureau?" + +The trembling of her slender body became more pronounced. She spoke +through chattering teeth: + +"Bobby! Why do you ask such things? You believe I am guilty as you +thought I was the woman in black. You think now, because those things +were in my bureau--" + +"Stop, Katherine! You won't answer me?" + +"No," she said, backing away from him. "But you are going to answer me. +We have come to that point already. Just an hour or two of trust, and +then this! It's the Cedars forcing us apart as it did when we had our +quarrel. Only this time it is definite. Do you think I'm guilty of these +atrocious crimes, or don't you? Everything for us depends on your answer, +and I'll know whether you are telling me the truth." + +"Then," he said, "why should I answer?" + +And he took her in his arms and held her close. + +She didn't cry, but for a moment she ceased trembling, and her teeth no +longer chattered. + +"My dear," he said, "even if you had hidden that evidence I'd have known +it was to protect me." + +Then she cried a little, and for a moment, even in the unmerciful grasp +of their trouble, they were nearly happy. The footsteps of the others in +the corridor recalled them. Katherine leaned against the table, drying +her eyes. Graham, Robinson, and Rawlins walked into the hall. + +"Hello!" Robinson said, "I suppose that isn't an unfair advantage, Mr. +Blackburn. Still, I'd rather she hadn't been told." + +"He's told me nothing," Katherine answered. "I came back to the corridor; +I heard everything you said." + +"Maybe it's as well," Robinson reflected. "It certainly is if what you +heard has shown you the wisdom of giving up the whole thing." + +She stared at him without replying. + +"Come now," he wheedled. "You might tell us at least why you stole and +secreted the evidence." + +"I'll answer nothing." + +"That's wiser, Katherine," Graham put in. + +She turned on him with a complete and unexpected fury. The colour rushed +back to her face. Her eyes blazed. Bobby had never guessed her capable +of such anger. His wonder grew that her outburst should be directed +against Graham. + +"Keep quiet!" she cried hysterically. "Don't speak to me again. I hate +you! Do you understand?" + +Graham drew back. + +"Why, Katherine--" + +"Don't," she said. "Don't call me that." + +The officers glanced at Graham with frank bewilderment. Rawlins's +materialistic mind didn't hesitate to express its first thought: + +"Must say, I always thought you were sweet on the lady." + +"Hartley!" Bobby said. "You have been fair to us?" + +"I don't know why she attacks me," Graham muttered. + +His face recorded a genuine pain. His words, Bobby felt, overcame a +barrier of emotion. + +They heard Paredes and Doctor Groom on the stairs. + +"What's this?" the doctor rumbled as he came up. + +"I--I'm sorry I forgot myself," Katherine said through her chattering +teeth. She turned to Robinson. "I am going to my room. You needn't be +afraid. I shan't leave it until you come to take me." + +"Truly I hope it won't be necessary," the district attorney answered. + +She hurried away. Rawlins grinned at Paredes. + +"I'm wondering what the devil you know." + +Robinson made no secret of what had happened. In reply to the questions +of Paredes and the doctor he told of the discovery of the evidence and of +the stout hat-pin that had, unquestionably, caused death. The man made it +clear enough, however, that he didn't care to have Paredes know of +Bobby's plan to spend the night in the old room, and Rawlins, Bobby, and +Graham indicated that they understood. + +"It's quite absurd that any one should think Katherine guilty," the +doctor said to Robinson. "This evidence and its presence in her room are +details that don't approach the heart of the mystery. That's to be found +only in the old room, and I don't think any one wants to tempt it again. +In fact, I'm not sure one can learn the truth there and live. You know +what happened to Howells when he tried. Silas Blackburn went there, and +none of us can understand the change that's taken place. I have been +watching him closely. So has Mr. Paredes. We have seen him become grayer. +We have seen his eyes alter. He sits shaking in his chair. Since we came +back from the grave the man--if we can call him a man--seems to +have--shrunk." + +"Yes," Paredes said. "Perhaps we shouldn't have left him alone. Let us go +back. Let us see if he is all right." + +Rawlins laughed skeptically. + +"You're not afraid he'll melt away!" + +"I'm not so sure he won't," Paredes answered. + +They followed him downstairs. Because of the position of Blackburn's +chair they could be sure of nothing until they had reached the lower +floor and approached the fireplace. Then they saw. It was as if Paredes's +far-fetched fear had been realized. Blackburn was not in his chair, nor +was he to be found in the hall. Even then, with the exception of Paredes, +they wouldn't take the thing seriously. Since the old man wasn't in the +hall; since he couldn't have gone upstairs, unobserved by them, he must +be either in the library, the dining room, or the rear part of the house. +There was no one in the library or the dining room; and Jenkins, who sat +in the kitchen, still shaken by the discovery at the grave, said he +hadn't moved for the last half hour, was entirely sure no one had come +through from the front part of the house. + +They returned to the hall and stood in a half circle about the empty +chair, where a little while ago Silas Blackburn had cowered, mouthing +snatches of his fear--"I'm not dead! I tell you I'm not dead! They can't +make me go back--" + +The echoes of that fear still shocked their ears. + +There was a hypnotic power about the vacancy as there had been about the +emptiness in the burial ground. Paredes spoke gropingly. + +"What would we find," he whispered, "if we went to the cemetery and +looked again in the coffin?" + +"Why should he have come back at all?" Groom mused. + +Robinson opened the front door. + +"You know he might have gone this way." + +But already the snow had obliterated the signs of their own passage in +and out. It showed no fresh marks. + +"Silas Blackburn has not gone that way in the body," Doctor Groom +rumbled. + +The storm was more violent. It discouraged the idea of examining the +graveyard again before morning. + +Robinson glanced at his watch. He led Bobby and the detective to +the library. + +"Then try your scheme if you want," he said, "but understand I assume no +responsibility. Honestly, I doubt if it amounts to anything. You'll shout +out if you are attacked, or the moment you suspect any real cause for +fear. Rawlins will be in the corridor, and I'll be in the library or +wandering about the house--always within call. Rawlins will guard the +broken door, but be sure and lock the other one." + +The two officers went upstairs with Bobby. Graham followed. + +"You understand," Robinson said. "I'd rather Paredes and the doctor +didn't suspect what you are going to do. Change your mind before it's too +late, if you want." + +Bobby walked on without replying. + +"You can't dissuade him," Graham said, "because of what will happen +to-morrow unless the truth is discovered to-night." + +In the upper hall they found Katherine waiting. Her endeavours were +hard to face. + +"You shan't go there for me, Bobby," she said. + +"Isn't it clear I must go in my own service?" he said, trying to smile. + +He wouldn't speak to her again. He wouldn't look at her. Her anxiety and +the affection in her eyes weakened him, and he needed all his strength, +for at the entrance of the dark, narrow corridor the fear met him. + +Rawlins brought a candle and guided him down the corridor. Graham came, +too. The detective locked the door leading to the private hall and +slipped the key in his pocket. + +"Nobody will get through there any more than they will through the other +door which I'll watch." + +With Graham's help he made a quick inspection of the room, searching the +closets and glancing beneath the bed and behind the furniture. + +"There's no one," he said, preparing to depart. "I tell you there's no +chance of a physical attack." + +His unimaginative mind cried out. + +"I tell you you'll find nothing, learn nothing, for there's nothing here +to find, nothing to learn." + +"Just the same," Graham urged, "you'll call out, won't you, Bobby, at +the first sign of anything out of the way? For God's sake take no +foolish chances." + +"I don't want the light," Bobby forced himself to say. "My grandfather +and Howells both put their candles out. I want everything as it was when +they were attacked." + +Rawlins nodded and, followed by Graham, carried the candle from the room +and closed the broken door. + +The sudden solitude and the darkness crushed Bobby, taking his breath. +Yellow flames, the response of his eyes to the disappearance of the +candle, tore across the blackness, confusing him. He felt his way to the +wall near the open window. He sat down there, facing the bed. + +At first he couldn't see the bed. He saw only the projections of his +fancy, stimulated by Silas Blackburn's story, against the black screen +of the night. He understood at last what the old man had meant. The +darkness did appear to possess a physical resistance, and as the minutes +lengthened it seemed to encase all the suffering the room had ever +harboured. But he wouldn't close his eyes as his grandfather had done. +It was a defence to keep them on the spot where the bed stood while his +mind, in spite of his will, pictured, lying there, still forms with +bandaged heads. He wouldn't close his eyes even when those fancied +shapes commenced to struggle in grotesque and impotent motion, like ants +whose hill has been demolished. Nor could he drive from his ears the +echoes of delirium that seemed to have lingered in the old room. He +continued to watch the darkness until the outlines of the room and of +its furniture dimly detached themselves from the black pall. The snow +apparently caught what feeble light the moon forced through, reflecting +it with a disconsolate inefficiency. He could see after a time the +pallid frames of the windows, the pillow on the bed, and the wall above +it. He fancied the dark stain, the depression in the mattress where the +two bodies had rested. Those physical objects forced on him the +probability of his guilt. Then he recalled that both men, dead for many +hours, had moved apparently of their own volition; and his grandfather +had come back from the grave and then had disappeared, leaving no trace; +and he comforted himself with the thought that the explanation, if it +came at all, must arise from a force outside himself, whether of the +living or the dead. + +Because of that very assurance his fear of the room was incited. Could +any subtle change overcome him here as it evidently had the others? Could +there be repeated in his case a return and a disappearance like his +grandfather's? There was, as Rawlins had said, no way in or out for an +attack. Therefore the danger must emerge from the dead, and he was +helpless before their incomprehensible campaign. + +The whole illogical, abominable course of events warned him to bring his +vigil to an end before it should be too late; urged him to escape from +the restless revolt of the dead who had dwelt in this room. And he wanted +to respond. He wanted to go to the corridor and confess to Rawlins and +Robinson that he was beaten. Yet he had begged so hard for this chance! +That course, moreover, meant the arrest of Katherine and himself in the +morning. For a few hours he could suffer here for her sake. Daylight, if +he could persist until then, would bring release, and surely it couldn't +be long now. + +He shrank back. Steadily it had grown colder in the old room. He +shivered. He drew his coat closer about him. What temerity to invade the +domain of death, as Paredes had called it, to seek the secrets of +unquiet souls! + +He ceased shivering. He waited, tensely quiet. Without calculation he +realized that the moment for which he had hoped was at hand. The old room +was about to disclose its secret, but would it permit him to depart with +his knowledge? He forgot to call. He waited, helpless and terrified, +against the wall. He heard a moaning cry, faint and distant--the voice +they had heard in the forest and at the grave. But it was more than that +that held him. He knew now what Katherine had heard across the court, +heralding each tragedy and mystery. He caught a formless stirring. Yet on +the bed there was no one. Fortunately he had not gone there. + +He tried to call out, realizing that the danger could find him if it +chose, but his throat was tight and it permitted no response. + +His glance hadn't wavered from the wall above the stained pillow. There +was movement there. Then he saw. A hand protruded from the blackness of +the panelling where they had sounded and measured without success. In the +ashen, unnatural light from the snow the long fingers of the hand were +like the feelers of a gigantic reptile. They wavered feebly, and he +became convinced that the hand was immaterial, that it was unattached to +any body. If that was so it couldn't be the hand of Katherine. At least +he had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had been wrong about her. That +sense of victory stripped him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tight +band about his throat. He called. He could prove the immaterial nature of +the repulsive hand wavering from the wall. + +Crying out, he sprang to his feet. He flung himself across the bed. With +both of his own hands he grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers which +wavered above the stained pillow, and once more his throat tightened. He +couldn't cry out again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS + + +Straightway Bobby repented the alarm he had, perhaps too impulsively, +given. For the hand protruding from the wall was, indeed, flesh and +blood, and with the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine, +conquering his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him. He remembered +the evidence found in Katherine's room, and her refusal to answer +questions. Could Paredes and the officers have been right? Was it +conceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp? + +The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins burst through. Graham +ran after him. From the private stairway arose the sound of the district +attorney's hurrying footsteps. + +"What is it? What have you got?" Rawlins shouted. + +Graham cried out: + +"You're all right, Bobby?" + +The candle which the detective carried gleamed on the slender fingers, +showing Bobby that they had been inserted through an opening in the +wall. He couldn't understand, for time after time each one of the +panels had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could see dimly the +dark clothing of the person who, with a stealth in itself suggestive of +abnormal crime, had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried up he +wondered if it wouldn't be the better course to free his prisoner, to +cry out, urging an escape. + +Already it was too late. The detective and Graham had seen, and clearly +they had no doubt that he held the one responsible for two brutal murders +and for the confusing mysteries that had capped them. + +"Looks like a lady's hand," Rawlins called. "Don't let go, young fellow." + +He unlocked the door to the private hallway. Graham and he dashed out. In +Bobby's uncertain grasp the hand twitched. + +Robinson's voice reached him through the opening. + +"Let go, Mr. Blackburn. You've done your share, the Lord knows. You've +caught the beast with the goods." + +Bobby released the slender fingers. He saw them vanish through the +opening. He left the bed and reluctantly approached the door to the +private hall. Excited phrases roared in his ears. He scarcely dared +listen because of their possible confirmation of his doubt. The fingers, +he repeated to himself, had been too slender. The moment that had freed +him from fear of his own guilt had constructed in its place an +uncertainty harder to face. Yet there was nothing to be gained by +waiting. Sooner or later he must learn whether Katherine had hidden the +evidence, whether she had used the stout and deadly hatpin, whether she +struggled now in the grasp of vindictive men. + +A voice from the corridor arrested him. + +"Bobby!" + +With a glad cry he swung around. Katherine stood in the opposite doorway. +Her presence there, beyond a doubt, was her exculpation. He crossed the +sombre room. He grasped her hands. He smiled happily. After all, the hand +he had held was not as slender as hers. + +"Thank heavens you're here." + +In a word he recited the result of his vigil. + +"It clears you," she said. "Quick! We must see who it is." + +But he lingered, for he wanted that ugly fear done with once for all. + +"You can tell me now how the evidence got in your room." + +"I can't," she said. "I don't know." + +The truth of her reply impressed him. He looked at her and wondered that +she should be fully dressed. + +"Why are you dressed?" he asked. + +She was puzzled. + +"Why not? I don't think any one had gone to bed." + +"But it must be very late. I supposed it was the same +time--half-past two." + +She started to cross the room. She laughed nervously. + +"It isn't eleven." + +He recalled his interminable anticipation among the shadows of the old +room. + +"I've watched there only a little more than an hour!" + +"Not much more than that, Bobby." + +"What a coward! I'd have sworn it was nearly daylight." + +She pressed his hand. + +"No. Very brave," she whispered. "Let us see if it was worth it." + +They stepped through the doorway. Half way down the hall Robinson, +Graham, and Rawlins held a fourth, who had ceased struggling. Bobby +paused, yet, since seeing Katherine step from the corridor, his reason +had taught him to expect just this. + +The fourth man was Paredes, nearly effeminate, slender-fingered. + +"Carlos!" Bobby cried. "You can't have done these unspeakable things!" + +The Panamanian stared without answering. Evidently he had had time to +control his chagrin, to smother his revolt from the future; for the thin +face was bare of emotion. The depths of the eyes as usual turned back +scrutiny. The man disclosed neither guilt nor the outrage of an assumed +innocence; neither confession nor denial. He simply stared, straining a +trifle against the eager hands of his captors. + +Rawlins grinned joyously. + +"You ought to have a medal for getting away with this, young fellow. +Things didn't look so happy for you an hour or so ago." + +"And I had half a mind," Robinson confessed, "to refuse you the chance. +Glad I didn't. Glad as I can be you made good." + +With the egotism any man is likely to draw from his efforts in the +detection of crime he added easily: + +"Of course I've suspected this spigotty all along. I don't have to remind +you of that." + +"Sure," Rawlins said. "And didn't I put it up to him strong enough +to-night?" + +Paredes laughed lightly. + +"All credit where it is due. You also put it up to Miss Perrine." + +"The details will straighten all that out," Robinson said. "I don't +pretend to have them yet." + +"I gather not," Paredes mused, "with old Blackburn's ghost still in +the offing." + +"That talk," Rawlins said, "won't go down from you any more. I daresay +you've got most of the details in your head." + +"I daresay," Paredes answered dryly. + +He fought farther back against the detaining hands. + +"Is there any necessity for this exhibition of brute strength? You must +find it very exhausting. You may think me dangerous, and I thank you; but +I have no gun, and I'm no match for four men and a woman. Besides, you +hurt my arm. Bobby was none too tender with that. I ought to have used my +good arm. You'll get no details from me unless you take your hands off." + +Robinson's hesitation was easily comprehensible. If Paredes were +responsible for the abnormalities they had experienced at the Cedars he +might find it simple enough to trick them now, but the man's mocking +smile brought the anger to Robinson's face. + +"Of course he can't get away. See if there's anything on his clothes, +Rawlins. He ought to have the hatpin. Then let him go." + +The detective, however, failed to find the hatpin or any other weapon. + +"You see," Paredes smiled. "That's something in my favour." + +He stepped back, brushing his clothing with his uninjured hand. He +lighted a cigarette. He drew back the coat sleeve of his left arm and +readjusted the bandage. He glanced up as heavy footsteps heralded +Doctor Groom. + +"Hello, Doctor," he called cheerily. "I was afraid you'd nap through the +show. It seems the bloodhounds of the law left us out of their +confidence." + +"What's all this?" the doctor rumbled. + +Paredes waved his hand. + +"I am a prisoner." + +The doctor gaped. + +"You mean you--" + +"Young Blackburn caught him," Robinson explained. "He was in a position +to finish him just as he did Howells." + +"Except that I had no hatpin," Paredes yawned. + +The doctor's uneasy glance sought the opening in the wall. + +"I thought you had examined all these walls," he grumbled. "How did you +miss this?" + +Robinson ran his fingers through his hair. + +"That's what I've been asking myself," he said. "I went over that +panelling a dozen times myself." + +Bobby and Katherine went closer. Bobby had been from the first puzzled by +Paredes's easy manner. He had a quick hope. He saw the man watch with an +amused tolerance while the district attorney bent over, examining the +face of the panel. + +"An entire section," Robinson said--"the thickness of the wall--has been +shifted to one side. No wonder we didn't see any joints or get a hollow +sound from this panel any more than from the others. But why didn't we +stumble on the mechanism? Maybe you'll tell us that, Paredes." + +The Panamanian blew a wreath of smoke against the ancient wall. + +"Gladly, but you will find it humiliating. I have experienced humility in +this hall myself. The reason you didn't find any mechanism is that there +wasn't any. You looked for something most cautiously concealed, not +realizing that the best concealment is no concealment at all. It's +fundamental. I don't know how it slipped my own mind. No grooves show +because the door is an entire panel. There isn't even a latch. You merely +push hard against its face. Such arrangements are common enough in +colonial houses, and there was more than the nature of the crimes to tell +you there was some such thing here. I mean if you will examine the +farther door closer than you have done you will find that it has fewer +coats of paint than the one leading to the corridor, that its frame is of +newer wood. In other words, it was cut through after the wing was built. +This panel was the original door, designed, with the private stairway and +the hall, for the exclusive use of the master of the house. Try it." + +Robinson braced himself and shoved against the panel. It moved in its +grooves with a vibrant stirring. + +"Rusty," he said. + +Katherine started. + +"That's what I heard each time," she cried. + +Above his heavy black beard the doctor's cheeks whitened. Robinson made a +gesture of revulsion. + +"That gives the nasty game away." + +"Naturally," Paredes said, "and you must admit the game is as beautifully +simple as the panel. The instrument of death wasn't inserted through the +bedding as you thought inevitable, Doctor. Suppose you were lying in that +bed, asleep, or half asleep, and you were aroused by such a sound as +that in the wall behind you? What would you do? What would any man do +first of all?" + +Robinson nodded. + +"I see what you mean. I'd get up on my elbow. I'd look around as quickly +as I could to see what it was. I'd expose myself to a clean thrust. I'd +drop back on the bed, more thoroughly out of it than though I'd been +struck through the heart." + +"Exactly," Paredes said, with the familiar shrug of his shoulders. + +"You're sensible to give up this way," Robinson said. "It's the best plan +for you. What about Mr. Blackburn?" + +Graham interfered. + +"After all," he said thoughtfully. "I'm a lawyer, and it isn't fair, +Robinson. It's only decent to tell him that anything he says may be used +against him." + +"Keep your mouth shut," Robinson shouted. + +But Paredes smiled at Graham. + +"It's very good of you, but I agree with the district attorney. There's +no point in being a clam now." + +"Can you account for Silas Blackburn's return?" the doctor asked eagerly. + +"That's right, Doctor," Paredes said. "Stick to the ghosts. I fancy +there are plenty in this house. I'm afraid we must look on Silas +Blackburn as dead." + +"You don't mean we've been talking to a dead man?" Katherine whispered. + +"Before I answer," Paredes said, "I want to have one or two things +straight. These men, Bobby, I really believe, think me capable of the +crimes in this house. I want to know if you accept such a theory. Do you +think I had any idea of killing you?" + +Bobby studied the reserved face which even now was without emotion. + +"I can't think anything of the kind," he said softly. + +"That's very nice," Paredes said. "If you had answered differently I'd +have let these clever policemen lay their own ghosts." + +He turned to Robinson. + +"Even you must begin to see that I'm not guilty. Your common sense will +tell you so. If I had been planning to kill Bobby, why didn't I bring +the weapon? Why did I put my hand through the opening before I was ready +to strike? Why did I use my left hand--my injured hand? I was like +Howells. I couldn't consider the case finished until I had solved the +mystery of the locked doors. I supposed the room was empty. When I found +the secret to-night, I reached through to see how far my hand would be +from the pillow." + +Bobby's assurance of Paredes's innocence clouded his own situation; made +it, in a sense, more dangerous than it had ever been. His wanderings +about the Cedars remained unexplained, and they knew now it had never +been necessary for the murderer to enter the room, Katherine, too, +evidently realized the menace. + +"Do you think I--" she began. + +Paredes bowed. + +"You dislike me, Miss Katherine, but don't be afraid for yourself or +Bobby. I think I can tell you how the evidence got in your room. I can +answer nearly everything. There's one point--" + +He broke off, glancing at his watch. + +"Extraordinary courage!" he mused enigmatically. "I scarcely +understand it." + +Rawlins looked at him suspiciously. + +"All this explaining may be a trick, Mr. Robinson. The man's slippery." + +"I've had to be slippery to work under your noses," Paredes laughed. +"By the way, Bobby, did you hear a woman crying about the time I opened +this door?" + +"Yes. It sounded like the voice we heard at the grave." + +"I thought I heard it from the library," Robinson put in. "Then the +rumpus up here started, and I forgot about it." + +"The woman in black is very brave," Paredes mused. "We should have had a +visit from her long before this." + +"Do you know who she is?" Robinson asked. "And as Rawlins says, no +tricks. We haven't let you go yet." + +"I thought," Paredes mocked, "that you had identified the woman in black +as Miss Katherine. She hasn't had anything to do with the mystery +directly. Neither has Bobby. Neither have I." + +"Then what the devil have you been doing here?" Robinson snapped. + +"Seeing your job through," Paredes answered, "for Bobby's sake." + +With a warm gratitude Bobby knew that Paredes had told the truth. Then he +had told it in the library yesterday when they had caught him prowling in +the private staircase. All along he had told it while they had tried to +convict him of under-handed and unfriendly intentions. + +"I saw," Paredes was saying, "that Howells wouldn't succeed, and it was +obvious you and Rawlins would do worse, while Graham's blundering from +the start left no hope. Somebody had to rescue Bobby." + +"Then why did you give us the impression," Graham asked, "that you were +not a friend?" + +Paredes held up his hand. + +"That's going rather far, Mr. Graham. Never once have I given such an +impression. I have time after time stated the fact that I was here in +Bobby's service. That has been the trouble with all of you. As most +detectives do, you have denied facts, searching always for something more +subtle. You have asked for impossibilities while you blustered that they +couldn't exist. Still every one is prone to do that when he fancies +himself in the presence of the supernatural. The facts of this case have +been within your reach as well as mine. The motive has been an easy one +to understand. Money! And you have consistently turned your back." + +Robinson spread his hands. + +"All right. Prove that I'm a fool and I'll acknowledge it." + +Doctor Groom interrupted sharply. + +"What was that?" + +They bent forward, listening. Even with Paredes offering them a physical +explanation they shrank from the keening that barely survived the heavy +atmosphere of the old house. + +"You see the woman in black isn't Miss Perrine," Paredes said. + +He ran down the stairs. They followed, responding to an excited sense of +imminence. Even in the private staircase the pounding that had followed +the cry reached them with harsh reverberations. Its echoes filled the +house as they dashed across the library and the dining room. In the hall +they realized that it came from the front door. It had attained a +feverish, a desperate insistence. + +Paredes walked to the fireplace. + +"Open the door," he directed Rawlins. + +Rawlins stepped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it wide. + +"The woman!" Katherine breathed. + +A feminine figure, white with snow, stumbled in, as if she had stood +braced against the door. Rawlins caught her and held her upright. The +flakes whirled from the court in vicious pursuit. Bobby slammed the +door shut. + +"Maria!" he cried. "You were right, Hartley!" + +Yet at first he could scarcely accept this pitiful creature as the +brilliant and exotic dancer with whom he had dined the night of the first +murder. As he stared at her, her features twisted. She burst into +retching sobs. She staggered toward Paredes. As she went the snow melted +from her hat and cloak. She became a black figure again. With an +appearance of having been immersed in water she sank on the hearth, +swaying back and forth, reaching blindly for Paredes's hand. + +"Do what you please with me, Carlos," she whimpered with her slight +accent from which all the music had fled. "I couldn't stand it another +minute. I couldn't get to the station, and I--I wanted to know +which--which--" + +Paredes watched her curiously. + +"Get Jenkins," he said softly to Rawlins. + +He faced Maria again. + +"I could have told you, I think, when you fought me away out there. No +one wants to arrest you. Jenkins will verify my own knowledge." + +"This is dangerous," the doctor rumbled. "This woman shouldn't wait here. +She should have dry clothing at once." + +Maria shrank from him. For the first time her wet skirt exposed her +feet, encased in torn stockings. The dancer wore no shoes, and Bobby +guessed why she had been so elusive, why she had left so few traces. + +"I won't go," she cried, "until he tells me." + +Katherine got a cloak and threw it across the woman's shoulders. Maria +looked up at her with a dumb gratitude. Then Rawlins came back with +Jenkins. The butler was bent and haggard. His surrender to fear was more +pronounced than it had been at the grave or when they had last seen him +in the kitchen. He grasped a chair and, breathing heavily, looked from +one to the other, moistening his lips. + +Paredes faced the man, completely master of the situation. Through the +old butler, it became clear, he would make his revelation and announce +that simple fact they all had missed. + +"It was Mr. Silas, of course, who came back?" + +"Oh my God!" the butler moaned, "What do you mean?" + +"I know everything, Jenkins," Paredes said evenly. + +The butler collapsed against the chair. Paredes grasped his arm. + +"Pull yourself together, man. They won't want you as more than an +accessory." + +Maria started to rise. She shrank back again, shivering close to the +fire. + +"Is your master hiding," Paredes asked, "or has he left the house?" + +Jenkins's answer came through trembling lips. + +"He's gone! Mr. Silas is gone! How did you find out? My God! How did you +find out?" + +"He said nothing to you?" Paredes asked. + +Jenkins shook his head. + +"Tell me how he was dressed." + +The old servant covered his face. + +"Mr. Silas stumbled through the kitchen," he answered hoarsely. "I tried +to stop him, but he pushed me away and ran out." His voice rose. "I tell +you he ran without a coat or a hat into the storm." + +Paredes sighed. + +"The Cedars's final tragedy, yet it was the most graceful exit he could +have made." + +Maria struggled to her feet. Her eyes were the eyes of a person without +reason. That familiar, hysterical quality which they had heard before at +a distance vibrated in her voice. + +"Then he was the one! I wanted to kill him, I couldn't kill him because I +never was sure." + +"Did you see him go out an hour or so ago?" Paredes asked. + +"I saw him," she cried feverishly, "run from the back of the house and +down the path to the lake. I--I tried to catch him, but my feet were +frozen, and the snow was slippery, and I couldn't find my shoes. But I +called and he wouldn't stop. I had to know, because I wanted to kill him +if it was Silas Blackburn. And I saw him run to the lake and splash in +until the water was over his head." + +She flung her clenched hands out. Her voice became a scream, shot with +all her suffering, all her doubt, all her fury. + +"You don't understand. He can't be punished. I tell you he's at the +bottom of the lake with the man he murdered. And I can't pay him. I tried +to go after him, but it--it was too cold." + +She sank in one of the chairs, shaking and sobbing. + +"Unless we want another tragedy," the doctor said, "this woman must be +put to bed and taken care of. She has been terribly exposed. You've heard +her. She's delirious." + +"Not so delirious that she hasn't told the truth," Paredes said. + +The doctor lifted her in his arms and with Rawlins's help carried her +upstairs. Katherine went with them. Almost immediately the doctor and +Rawlins hurried down. + +"I have told Katherine what to do," Doctor Groom said. "The woman may be +all right in the morning. What's she been up to here?" + +"Then," Bobby cried, "there was a connection between the dinner party and +the murders. But what about my coming here unconscious? What about my +handkerchief?" + +"I can see no answer yet," Graham said. + +Paredes smiled. + +"Not when you've had the answer to everything? I have shown you that +Silas Blackburn was the murderer. The fact stared you in the face. +Everything that has happened at the Cedars has pointed to his guilt." + +"Except," the doctor said, "his own apparent murder which made his guilt +seem impossible. And I'm not sure you're right now, for there is no other +Blackburn he could have murdered, and Blackburns look alike. You wouldn't +mistake another man for one of them." + +"This house," Paredes smiled, "has all along been full of the presence of +the other Blackburn. There has been evidence enough for you all to have +known he was here." + +He stretched himself in an easy chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew +the smoke toward the ceiling. + +"I shall tell you the simple facts, if only to save my skin from this +blood-thirsty district attorney." + +"Rub it in," Robinson grinned. "I'll take my medicine." + +They gathered closer about the Panamanian. Jenkins sidled to the back of +his chair. + +"I don't see how you found it out," he muttered. + +"I had only one advantage over you or the police, Graham," Paredes began, +"and you were in a position to overcome that. Maria did telephone me the +afternoon of that ghastly dinner. She asked me to get hold of Bobby. She +was plainly anxious to keep him in New York that night, and, to be frank, +I was glad enough to help her when you turned up, trying to impress us +with your puritan watchfulness. Even you guessed that she had drugged +Bobby. I suspected it when I saw him go to pieces in the cafe. He gave me +the slip, as I told you, in the coat room when I was trying to get him +home, so I went back and asked Maria what her idea was. She laughed in my +face, denying everything. I, too, suspected the stranger, but I've +convinced myself that he simply happened along by chance. + +"Now here's the first significant point: Maria by drugging Bobby defeated +her own purpose. He had been drinking more than the Band of Hope would +approve of, and on top of that he got an overdose of a powerful drug. The +doctor can tell you better than I of the likely effect of such a +combination." + +"What I told you in the court, Bobby," the doctor answered, "much the +same symptoms as genuine aphasia. Your brain was unquestionably dulled by +an overdose on top of all that alcohol, while your mechanical reflexes +were stimulated. Automatically you followed your ruling impulse. +Automatically at the last minute you revolted from exposing yourself in +such a condition to your cousin and your grandfather. Your lucid period +in the woods just before you reached the deserted house and went to sleep +showed that your exercise was overcoming the effect of the drug. That +moment, you'll remember, was coloured by the fanciful ideas such a drug +would induce." + +"So, Bobby," Paredes said, "although you were asleep when the body moved +and when Howells was murdered, you can be sure you weren't anywhere near +the old room." + +"But I walked in my sleep last night," Bobby reminded him. + +The doctor slapped his knee. + +"I understand. It was only when we thought that was your habit that it +frightened us. It's plain. This sleep-walking had been suggested to you +and you had brooded upon the suggestion until you were bound to respond. +Graham's presence in your room, watching for just that reaction, was a +perpetual, an unescapable stimulation. It would have been a miracle in +itself if your brain had failed to carry it out." + +Bobby made a swift gesture of distaste. + +"If you hadn't come, Carlos, where would I have been?" + +"Why did you come?" Graham asked. + +"Bobby was my friend," the Panamanian answered. "He had been very good to +me. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria had +drugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an element +of trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understanding +between her and old Blackburn--perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby away +from the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburn +murdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion on +Bobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me of +his innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for I +had dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get out +here by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was the +key, and I began to speculate about her. + +"She had told me something of her history. You might have had as much +from her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was a +child, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother and +an American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been in +Panama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possible +understanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documents +about Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papers +existed, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searched +there a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to get +upstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowing +something, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I found what I wanted--a +carefully hidden packet of accounts and letters and newspaper clippings. +They're at your service, Mr. District Attorney. They told me that Silas +Blackburn had been in Panama. They proved that Maria, instead of ever +having been his accomplice, was his enemy. They explained the source of +his wealth and the foundation of that enmity. Certainly you remember the +doctor told us Silas Blackburn started life with nothing; and hadn't +you ever wondered why with all his money he buried himself in this +lonely hole?" + +"He returned from South America, rich, more than twenty-five years ago," +the doctor said. "Why should we bother about his money?" + +"I wish you had bothered about several things besides your ghosts," +Paredes said. "You'd have found it significant that Blackburn laid the +foundation of his fortune in Panama during the hideous scandals of the +old French canal company. We knew he was a selfish tyrant. That discovery +showed me how selfish, how merciless he was, for to succeed in Panama +during those days required an utter contempt for all the standards of law +and decency. The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful of +coppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of the +ghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, his +trip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of the +other Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly. Why had it been +forgotten here, Doctor, that Silas Blackburn had a brother--his partner +in those wretched and profitable contract scandals?" + +"You mean," the doctor answered, "Robert Blackburn. He was a year younger +than Silas. This boy was named in memory of him. Why should any one have +remembered? He died in South America more than a quarter of a century +ago, before these children were born." + +"That's what Silas Blackburn told you when he came back," Paredes said. +"He may have believed it at first or he may not have. I daresay he wanted +to, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own--the +cash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handle +in that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, and +when he ran from Panama he knew she was about to become a mother. + +"That brings me to the other feature that made me wander around here like +a restless spirit myself that night. You had just told your story about +the woman crying. If there was a strange woman around here it was almost +certainly Maria. As Rawlins deduced, she must either be hysterical or +signalling some one. Why should she come unless something had gone wrong +the night she drugged Bobby to keep him in New York? She wasn't his +enemy, because that very night she did him a good turn by trampling out +his tracks in the court." + +Bobby took Maria's letter from his pocket and handed it to Paredes. + +"Then how would you account for this?" + +The Panamanian read the letter. + +"Her way of covering herself," he explained, "in case you suspected she +had made you drink too much or had drugged you. She really wanted you to +come to tea that afternoon. It was after writing that that she found out +what had gone wrong. In other words, she read in the paper of Silas +Blackburn's death, and in a panic she put on plain clothes and hurried +out to see what had happened. The fact that she forgot her managers, her +professional reputation, everything, testified to her anxiety, and I +began to sense the truth. She had been born in Panama of a Spanish mother +and an American father. She had some stealthy interest in the Cedars and +the Blackburns. She was about the right age. Ten to one she was Silas +Blackburn's niece. So for me, many hours before Silas Blackburn walked in +here, the presence of the other Blackburn about the Cedars became a +tragic and threatening inevitability. Had Silas Blackburn been murdered +or had his brother? Where was the survivor who had committed that brutal +murder? Maria had come here hysterically to answer those questions. She +might know. The light in the deserted house! She might be hiding him and +taking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which he +never answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. I +thought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I would +trap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we had +seen proved that it had come through the cobwebbed windows of the cellar, +which are set in little wells below the level of the ground. The cellar +explained also how she had turned her flashlight off and slipped through +the hall and out while we searched the rooms. She hadn't gone back. I +couldn't find her. So I went on into Smithtown and sent a costly cable +to my father. His answer came to-night just before Silas Blackburn walked +in. He had talked with several of the survivors of those evil days. He +gave me a confirmation of everything I had gathered from the papers. The +Blackburns had quarrelled over a contract. Robert had been struck over +the head. He wandered about the isthmus, half-witted, forgetting his +name, nursing one idea. Someone had robbed him, and he wanted his money +back or a different kind of payment, but he couldn't remember who, and he +took it out in angry talk. Then he disappeared, and people said he had +gone to Spain. Of course his wife suspected a good deal. In Blackburn's +desk are pitiful and threatening letters from her which he ignored. Then +she died, and Blackburn thought he was safe. But he took no chances. Some +survivor of those days might turn up and try blackmail. It was safer to +bury himself here." + +"Then," Bobby said, "Maria must have brought her father with her when she +came from Spain last summer." + +"Brought him or sent for him," Paredes answered. "She's made most of her +money on this side, you know. And she's as loyal and generous as she is +impulsive. Undoubtedly she had the doctors do what they could for her +father, and when she got track of Silas Blackburn through you, Bobby, she +nursed in the warped brain that dominant idea with her own Latin desire +for justice and payment." + +"Then," Graham said, "that's what Silas Blackburn was afraid of instead +of Bobby, as he tried to convince us to-night to cover himself." + +"One minute, Mr. Paredes," Robinson broke in. "Why did you maintain this +extraordinary secrecy? Nobody would have hurt you if you had put us on +the right track and asked for a little help. Why did you throw sand in +our eyes? Why did you talk all the time about ghosts?" + +"I had to go on tiptoe," Paredes smiled. "I suspected there was at least +one spy in the house. So I gave the doctor's ghost talk all the impetus I +could. I was like Howells, as I've told you, in believing the case +couldn't be complete without the discovery of the secret entrance of the +room of death. My belief in the existence of such a thing made me lean +from the first to Silas Blackburn rather than Robert. It's a tradition in +many families to hand such things down to the head of each generation. +Silas Blackburn was the one most likely to know. Such a secret door had +never been mentioned to you, had it, Bobby?" + +Bobby shook his head. Paredes turned and smiled at the haggard butler. + +"I'm right so far, am I not, Jenkins?" + +Jenkins bobbed his head jerkily. + +"Then," Paredes went on, "you might answer one or two questions. When did +the first letter that frightened your master come?" + +"The day he went to Smithtown and talked to the detective," the +butler quavered. + +"You can understand his reflections," Paredes mused. "Money was his god. +He distrusted and hated his own flesh and blood because he thought they +coveted it. He was prepared to punish them by leaving it to a public +charity. Now arises this apparition from the past with no claim in a +court of law, with an intention simply to ask, and, in case of a refusal, +to punish. The conclusion reached by that selfish and merciless mind was +inevitable. He probably knew nothing whatever about Maria. If all the +world thought his brother dead, his brother's murder now wouldn't alter +anything. I'll wager, Doctor, that at that time he talked over wounds at +the base of the brain with you." + +The doctor moved restlessly. + +"Yes. But he was very superstitious. We talked about it in connection +with his ancestors who had died of such wounds in that room." + +"Everything was ready when he made the rendezvous here," Paredes went on. +"He expected to have Bobby at hand in case his plan failed and he had to +defend himself. But Maria had made sure that there should be no help for +him. When the man came did you take him upstairs, Jenkins?" + +"No, sir. I watched that Miss Katherine didn't leave the library, but I +think she must have caught Mr. Silas in the upper hall after he had +pretended to give up and had persuaded his brother to spend the night." + +Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from his +pocket. They were of young men, after the fashion of Blackburns, +remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating marks of old age. + +"I found these in the family album," he said. + +"We should have known the difference just the same," the doctor grumbled. +"Why didn't we know the difference?" + +"I've complained often enough," Paredes smiled, "of the necessity of +using candles in this house. There was never more than one candle in the +old bedroom. There were only two when we looked at the murdered man in +his coffin. And in death there are no familiar facial expressions, no +eccentricities of speech. So you can imagine my feelings when I tried to +picture the drama that had gone on in that room. You can imagine poor +Maria's. Which one? And Maria didn't know about the panel, or the use of +Miss Katherine's hat-pin, or the handkerchief. All of those details +indicated Silas Blackburn." + +"How could my handkerchief indicate anything of the kind?" Bobby asked, +"How did it come there?" + +"What," Paredes said, "is the commonest form of borrowing in the world, +particularly in a climate where people have frequent colds? I found a +number of your handkerchiefs in your grandfather's bureau. The +handkerchief furnished me with an important clue. It explains, I think, +Jenkins will tell you, the moving of the body. It was obviously the cause +of Howells's death." + +"Yes, sir," Jenkins quavered. "Mr. Silas thought he had dropped his own +handkerchief in the room with the body. I don't know how you've found +these things out." + +"By adding two and two," Paredes laughed. "In the first place, you must +all realize that we might have had no mystery at all if it hadn't been +for Miss Katherine. For I don't know that Maria could have done much in a +legal way. Silas Blackburn had intended to dispose of the body +immediately, but Miss Katherine heard the panel move and ran to the +corridor. She made Jenkins break down the door, and she sent for the +police. Silas Blackburn was helpless. He was beaten at that moment, but +he did the best he could. He went to Waters, hoping, at the worst, to +establish an alibi through the book-worm who probably wouldn't remember +the exact hour of his arrival. Waters's house offered him, too, a +strategic advantage. You heard him say the spare room was on the ground +floor. You heard him add that he refused to open his door, either asking +to be left alone or failing to answer at all. And he had to return to the +Cedars the next day, for he missed his handkerchief, and he pictured +himself, since he thought it was his own, in the electric chair. I'm +right, Jenkins?" + +"Yes, sir. I kept him hidden and gave him his chance along in the +afternoon. He wanted me to try to find the handkerchief, but I didn't +have the courage. He couldn't find it. He searched through the panel all +about the body and the bed." + +"That was when Katherine heard," Bobby said, "when we found the body had +been moved." + +"It put him in a dreadful way," Jenkins mumbled, "for no one had bothered +to tell me it was young Mr. Robert the detective suspected, and when Mr. +Silas heard the detective boast that he knew everything and would make an +arrest in the morning, he thought about the handkerchief and knew he was +done for unless he took Howells up. And the man did ask for trouble, sir. +Well! Mr. Silas gave it to him to save himself." + +"I've never been able to understand," Paredes said, "why he didn't take +the evidence when he killed Howells." + +"Didn't you know you prevented that, sir?" Jenkins asked. "I heard you +come in from the court. I thought you'd been listening. I signalled Mr. +Silas there was danger and to get out of the private stairway before you +could trap him. And I couldn't give him another chance for a long time. +Some of you were in the room after that, or Miss Katherine and Mr. Graham +were sitting in the corridor watching the body until just before Mr. +Robert tried to get the evidence for himself. Mr. Silas had to act then. +It was his last chance, for he thought Mr. Robert would be glad enough to +turn him over to the law." + +"Why did you ever hide that stuff in Miss Katherine's room?" Bobby asked. + +Jenkins flung up his hands. + +"Oh, he was angry, sir, when he knew the truth and learned what a +mistake he'd made. Howells didn't give me that report I showed you. It +was in his pocket with the other things. We got it open without +tearing the envelope and Mr. Silas read it. He wouldn't destroy +anything. He never dreamed of anybody's suspecting Miss Katherine, so +he told me to hide the things in her bureau. I think he figured on +using the evidence to put the blame on Mr. Robert in case it was the +only way to save himself." + +"Why did you show the report to me?" Bobby asked. + +"I--I was afraid to take all that responsibility," the butler quavered. +"I figured if you were partly to blame it might go easier with me." + +Paredes shrugged his shoulders. + +"You were a good mate for Silas Blackburn," he sneered. + +"Even now I don't see how that old scoundrel had the courage to show +himself to-night," Rawlins said. + +"That's the beautiful justice of the whole thing," Paredes answered, "for +there was nothing else whatever for him to do. There never had been +anything else for him to do since Miss Katherine had spoiled his scheme, +since you all believed that it was he who had been murdered. He had to +hide the truth or face the electric chair. If he disappeared he was +infinitely worse off than though he had settled with his brother--a man +without a home, without a name, without a penny." + +Jenkins nodded. + +"He had to come back," he said slowly, "and he knew how scared you were +of the old room." + +"The funeral and the snow," Paredes said, "gave him his chance. Jenkins +will doubtless tell you how they uncovered the grave late this afternoon, +took that poor devil's body, and threw it in the lake, then fastened the +coffin and covered it again. Of course the snow effaced every one of +their tracks. He came in, naturally scared to death, and told us that +story based on the legends of the Cedars and the doctor's supernatural +theories. And you must admit that he might, as you call it, have got away +with it. He did create a mystification. The body of the murdered man had +disappeared. There was no murdered Blackburn as far as you could tell. +Heaven knows how long you might have struggled with the case of Howells." + +He glanced up. + +"Here is Miss Katherine." + +She stood at the head of the stairs. + +"I think she's all right," she said to the doctor. "She's asleep. She +went to sleep crying. May I come down?" + +The doctor nodded. She walked down, glancing from one to the other +questioningly. + +"Poor Maria!" Paredes mused. "She's the one I pity most. She's been at +times, I think, what Rawlins suspected--an insane woman, wandering and +crying through the woods. Assuredly she was out of her head to-night, +when I found her finally at the grave. I tried to tell her that her +father was dead. I begged her to come in. I told her we were friends. But +she fought. She wouldn't answer my questions. She struck me finally when +I tried to force her to come out of the storm. Robinson, I want you to +listen to me for a moment. I honestly believe, for everybody's sake, I +did a good thing when I asked Silas Blackburn just before he disappeared +why he had thrown his brother's body in the lake. I'd hoped it would +simply make him run for it. I prayed that we would never hear from him +again, and that Miss Katherine and Bobby could be spared the ugly +scandal. Doesn't this do as well? Can't we get along without much +publicity?" + +"You've about earned the right to dictate," Robinson said gruffly. + +"Thanks." + +"For everybody's sake!" Bobby echoed. "You're right, Carlos. Maria must +be considered now. She shall have what was taken from her father, with +interest. I know Katherine will agree." + +Katherine nodded. + +"I doubt if Maria will want it or take it," Paredes said simply. "She has +plenty of her own. It isn't fair to think it was greed that urged her. +You must understand that it was a bigger impulse than greed. It was a +thing of which we of Spanish blood are rather proud--a desire for +justice, for something that has no softer name than revenge." + +Suddenly Rawlins stooped and took the Panamanian's hand. + +"Say! We've been giving you the raw end of a lot of snap judgments. We've +never got acquainted until to-night." + +"Glad to meet you, too," Robinson grinned. + +Rawlins patted the Panamanian's shoulder. + +"At that, you'd make a first-class detective." + +Paredes yawned. + +"I disagree with you thoroughly. I have no equipment beyond my eyes and +my common sense." + +He yawned again. He arranged the card table in front of the fire. He got +the cards and piled them in neat packs on the green cloth. He placed a +box of cigarettes convenient to his right hand. He smoked. + +"I'm very sleepy, but I've been so stupid over this solitaire since I've +been at the Cedars that I must solve it in the interest of my +self-respect before I go to bed." + +Bobby went to him impulsively. + +"I'm ashamed, Carlos. I don't know what to say. How can I say anything? +How can I begin to thank you?" + +"If you ever tell me I saved your life," Paredes yawned, "I shall have to +disappear because then you'd have a claim on me." + +Katherine touched his hand. There were tears in her eyes. It wasn't +necessary for her to speak. Paredes indicated two chairs. + +"If you aren't too tired, sit here and help me for a while. Perhaps +between us we'll get somewhere. I wonder why I have been so stupid with +the thing." + +After a time, as he manipulated the cards, he laughed lightly. + +"The same thing--the thing I've been scolding you all for. With a +perfectly simple play staring me in the face I nearly made the mistake of +choosing a difficult one. That would have got me in trouble while the +simple one gives me the game. Why are people like that?" + +As he moved the cards with a deft assurance to their desired combination +he smiled drolly at Graham, Rawlins, and Robinson. + +"I guess it must be human nature. Don't you think so, Mr. District +Attorney?" + + * * * * * + +The condition Paredes had more than once foreseen was about to shroud the +Cedars in loneliness and abandonment. After the hasty double burial in +the old graveyard the few things Bobby and Katherine wanted from the +house had been packed and taken to the station. At Katherine's suggestion +they had decided to leave last of all and to walk. Paredes with a tender +solicitude had helped Maria to the waiting automobile. He came back, +trying to colour his good-bye with cheerfulness. + +"After all, you may open the place again and let me visit you." + +"You will visit us perpetually," Bobby said, while Katherine pressed the +Panamanian's hand, "but never here again. We will leave it to its ghosts, +as you have often prophesied." + +"I am not sure," Paredes said thoughtfully, "that the ghosts +aren't here." + +It was evident that Graham wished to speak to Bobby and Katherine alone, +so the Panamanian strolled back to the automobile. Graham's embarrassment +made them all uncomfortable. + +"You have not said much to me, Katherine," he began. "Is it because I +practically lied to Bobby, trying to keep you apart?" + +She tried to smile. + +"I, too, must ask forgiveness. I shouldn't have spoken to you as I did +the other night in the hall, but I thought, because you saw Bobby and +I had come together, that you had spied on me, had deliberately +tricked me, knowing the evidence was in my room. Of course you did try +to help Bobby." + +"Yes," he said, "and I tried to help you that night. I was sure you +were innocent. I believed the best way to prove it to them was to let +them search. The two of you have nothing worse than jealousy to +reproach me with." + +In a sense it pleased Bobby that Graham, who had always made him +feel unworthy in Katherine's presence, should confess himself not +beyond reproach. + +"Come, Hartley," he cried, "I was beginning to think you were perfect. +We'll get along all the better, the three of us, for having had it out." + +Graham murmured his thanks. He joined Paredes and Maria in the +automobile. As they drove off Paredes turned. His face, as he waved a +languid farewell, was quite without expression. + +Bobby and Katherine were left alone to the thicket and the old house. +After a time they walked through the court and from the shadow of the +time-stained, melancholy walls. At the curve of the driveway they paused +and looked back. The shroud of loneliness and abandonment descending upon +the Cedars became for them nearly ponderable. So they turned from that +brooding picture, and hand in hand walked out of the forest into the +friendly and welcoming sunlight. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Abandoned Room, by Wadsworth Camp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ABANDONED ROOM *** + +***** This file should be named 10869.txt or 10869.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/8/6/10869/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10869.zip b/old/10869.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2e30d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10869.zip |