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+*** 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 ***