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 pallidmoonlight a new unfriendliness. Instinctively the six men moved closertogether. The coroner's thin tones expressed his alarm:
"What the devil was that? I don't really believe there could be a womanaround 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 ofa spiritual responsibility for the mystery of the Cedars, was the firstnow to reach for a rational explanation of this new phase.
"We mustn't let our fancies run away with us. The coroner's right foronce. No excuse for a woman hiding in that thicket. A bird, maybe, orsome animal--"
"Sounded more like a human being," Robinson objected.
The detective reasoned in a steady unmoved voice: "Only a mad woman wouldwander through the woods, crying like that without a special purpose.This man Paredes has left the house and come through here. I'd guess itwas a signal."
"Graham and I had thought of that," Bobby said.
"Howells was a sharp one," Robinson mused, "but he must have gone wrongon this fellow. He 'phoned me the man knew nothing. Spoke of him as aforeigner who lolled around smoking cigarettes and trying to make a foolof him with a lot of talk about ghosts."
"Howells," Graham said, "misjudged the case from the start. He wasn't toblame, but his mistake cost him his life."
Robinson didn't answer. Bobby saw that the man had discarded hisintolerant temper. From that change he drew a new hope. He accepted it asthe beginning of fulfilment of his prophecy last night that an accidentto Howells and the entrance of a new man into the case would give him afighting chance. It was clearly Paredes at the moment who filled thedistrict attorney's mind.
"Go after him," he said shortly to Rawlins. "If you can get away with itbring 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 anordinary case. I don't want to walk into an ambush. It would be safer notto run him down alone."
"All right," Robinson agreed, "I don't care to leave the Cedars for thepresent. Perhaps Mr. Graham--"
But Graham wasn't enthusiastic. It never occurred to Bobby that he wasafraid. 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 servicerather than sentiment. The man, it was reasonable, sought to protectKatherine from the Cedars itself and from Robinson's too direct methodsof examination. As an antidote for his unwelcome jealousy Bobby offeredhimself 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 districtattorney'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 ofthe path alone.
"No more loud talk now," the detective warned. "If he went on tiptoeso 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 timeto time he stooped close to the ground, shaded his lamp with his hand,and pressed the control. Always the light verified the presence ofParedes ahead of them. Bobby knew they were near the stagnant lake. Theunderbrush was thicker. They went with more care to limit the sound oftheir passage among the trees. And each moment the physical surroundingsof the pursuit increased Bobby's doubt of Paredes. No ordinary impulsewould bring a man to such a place in this black hour before thedawn--particularly Paredes, who spoke constantly of his superstitiousnature, who advertised a thorough-paced fear of the Cedars. ThePanamanian's decision to remain, his lack of emotion before the tragicsuccession of events at the house, his attempt to enter the corridor justbefore Bobby had gone himself to the old room for the evidence, hisdesire to direct suspicion against Katherine, finally this excursion inresponse to the eerie crying, all suggested a definite, perhaps adangerous, purpose in the brain of the serene and inscrutable man.
They slipped to the open space about the lake. The moon barelydistinguished for them the flat, melancholy stretch of water. Theylistened breathlessly. There was no sound beyond the normal stirrings ofthe forest. Bobby had a feeling, similar to the afternoon's, that he waswatched. He tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness across thelake where he had fancied the woman skulking. The detective's keen senseswere satisfied.
"Dollars to doughnuts they're not here. They've probably gone on. I'llhave 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 tothe 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 arendezvous, 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 theright a ledge of smooth rock stretched from the water to a grove of pinetrees. The detective arose and turned off his light.
"He's blocked us," he said. "He knew he wouldn't leave his marks on therocks or the pine needles. No way to guess his direction now."
Doctor Groom cleared his throat. With a hesitant manner he recited thediscovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountabledisappearances their failure to find its source.
"I was thinking," he explained, "that Paredes alone saw the light giveout. It was his suggestion that he go to the front of the house toinvestigate. This path might be used as a short cut to the desertedhouse. 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 walkedlast, noticed the faint messengers of dawn behind the trees in the east.He was glad. The night cloaked too much in this neighbourhood. Bydaylight the empty house would guard its secret less easily. Suddenly hepaused and stood quite still. He wanted to call to the others, to pointout what he had seen. There was no question. By chance he hadaccomplished the task that had seemed so hopeless yesterday. He had foundthe spot where his consciousness had come back momentarily to record awet moon, trees straining in the wind like puny men, and a figure in amask which he had called his conscience. He gazed, his hope retreatingbefore an unforeseen disappointment, for with the paling moon and thebent trees survived that very figure on the discovery of whose nature hehad built so vital a hope; and in this bad light it conveyed to him anappearance nearly human. Through the underbrush the trunk of a treeshattered by some violent storm mocked him with its illusion. The deadleaves at the top were like cloth across a face. Therefore, he argued,there had been no conspiracy against him. Paredes was clean as far asthat was concerned. He had wandered about the Cedars alone. He had openedhis eyes at a point between the court and the deserted house.
Rawlins turned back suspiciously, asking why he loitered. He continuedalmost indifferently. He still wanted to know Paredes's goal, but hisdisappointment and its mean
ing obsessed him.
When they crept up the growing light exposed the scars of the desertedhouse. Everything was as Bobby remembered it. At the front there was nodecayed wood or vegetation to strengthen the doctor's half-hearted theoryof a phosphorescent emanation.
The tangle of footsteps near the rear door was confusing and it was sometime before the three men straightened and glanced at each other, knowingthat 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 hiddenhis tracks, as he could have done, in the thick grass. Instead he hadcome in a straight line from the woods across a piece of sandy groundwhich contained the record of his direction and his continued stealth.But inside they found nothing except burnt-out matches strewn across thefloor, testimony of their earlier search. The fugitive had evidentlyleft more carefully than he had come. The chill emptiness of the desertedhouse had drawn and released him ahead of the chase.
"I guess he knew what the light meant," the detective said, "as well ashe did that queer calling. It complicates matters that I can't find awoman's footprints around here. She may have kept to the grass and thismarked-up path, for, since I don't believe in banshees, I'll swearthere's been a woman around, either a crazy woman, wandering at large,who might be connected with the murders, or else a sane one whosignalled the foreigner. Let's get back and see what the districtattorney makes of it."
"It might be wiser not to dismiss the banshees, as you call them, toohurriedly," Doctor Groom rumbled.
As they returned along the road in the growing light Bobby lost thefeeling he had had of being spied upon. The memory of such an adventurewas bound to breed something like confidence among its actors. Rawlins,Bobby hoped, would be less unfriendly. The detective, in fact, talked asmuch to him as to the doctor. He assured them that Robinson would get thePanamanian unless he proved miraculously clever.
"He's shown us that he knows something," he went on. "I don't say howmuch, because I can't get a motive to make it worth his while to commitsuch 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 strongerthan love."
Bobby wondered. Love had been the impulse for the last few months' follythat had led him into his present situation. Graham, over his sternprinciples of right, had already stepped outside the law in backingKatherine's efforts to save Bobby. So he wondered how much Graham wouldrisk, how far he was capable of going himself, at the inspiration ofsuch a motive.
The sun was up when they reached the Cedars. Katherine had gone to herroom. The coroner had left. Robinson and Graham had built a fresh fire inthe hall. They sat there, talking.
"Where you been?" Robinson demanded. "We'd about decided the spooks haddone for you."
The detective outlined their failure. The district attorney listened witha frown. At the end he arose and, without saying anything, walked to thetelephone. When he returned he appeared better satisfied.
"Mr. Paredes," he said, "will have to be a slick article to make a cleangetaway. And I'm bringing another man to keep reporters out. They'll knowfrom Howells's murder that Mr. Blackburn didn't die a natural death. Ifreporters get in don't talk to them. I don't want that damned foreignerreading in the papers what's going on here. I'd give my job to have himin 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 closeobservation. But he has a fair idea of Paredes's habits, his haunts, andhis friends in New York. He might be able to learn things the policecouldn't. I've one or two matters to take me to town. I would make myselfpersonally 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. Thelittle eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, became enigmatic. All at once heglanced up with a genial smile.
"Why not? I haven't said anything about holding Mr. Blackburn as morethan a witness."
His tone chilled Bobby as thoroughly as a direct accusation wouldhave done.
"And," Robinson went on, "the sooner you go the better. The sooner youget back the better."
Graham was visibly puzzled by this prompt acquiescence. He started forthe 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 themoff. Graham gestured angrily as they drove away.
"It's plain as the nose on your face. I was too anxious to test theirattitude toward you, Bobby. He jumped at the chance to run us out of thehouse. He'll have several hours during which to turn the place upsidedown, to give Katherine the third degree. And we can't go back. We'llhave 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 thejunction of the road from Smithtown a car picked them up and clung totheir heels all the way to the city.
"Rawlins must have telephoned," Graham said, "while we went to thestable. They're still playing Howells's game. They'll give youplenty of rope."
He drove straight to Bobby's apartment. The elevator man verified theirsuspicions. Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search. Afamiliar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outsideBobby'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 ineach room. Bureau drawers had been turned upside down. The desk had beenexamined 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 roomshave 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 comesince the night of his grandfather's murder. In the car again he glancedover 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 failedtoward the end.
"DEAR BOBBY;
"You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport. You were very wickedlast night. Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty littlecocktails. Why should you threaten poor Maria? And you boasted you weregoing out to the Cedars to kill your grandfather because you didn't likehim any more. So I told Carlos to take you home. I was afraid of a scenein public. Come around. Have tea with me. Tell me you forgive me. Tell mewhat was the matter with you."
"She must have written that yesterday morning," Bobby muttered. "GoodLord, Hartley! Then it was in my mind!"
"Unless that letter's a plant, too," Graham said. "Yet how could she knowthere'd be a search? Why shouldn't she have addressed it to the Cedarswhere 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 toask 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.
r /> "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'tbeen back for the last twenty-four hours--don't you see? It wasyesterday afternoon you thought you saw a woman at the lake, and lastnight 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 themwith 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 Mariawas 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 therewho knew anything at all, except that mademoiselle had not appeared atthe 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 theperformance 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 neverforgive me for an indiscretion."
"For the present I advise you to do nothing," Graham said. "You cansafely leave all that to her managers. I am going to see them now. Iwill 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 thedancer'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 atangible clue that may lead to the heart of the case. Maria pulled thewool 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 lastnight. She probably made a bee line for the Cedars. It was probably shethat you saw at the lake, probably she who cried last night. If only shehadn't written that note! I can't get the meaning of it. It's up to hermanagers now. If they haven't heard from her it's a safe guess she'splaying a deep game, connected with the crying, and the light at thedeserted house, and the disappearance of Paredes before dawn. You mustrealize the connection between that and your condition the other eveningafter you had left them."
Bobby nodded. He began to hope that at the managers' office they wouldreceive 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 pacingwith an air of panic a blantantly furnished office.
"Well!" he burst out as they entered. "My secretary tells me you've comeabout this temperamental Carmen of mine. Tell me where she is. Quick!"
Graham smiled at Bobby. The manager ran his fingers across his bald andshining 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 thechance of getting some word? She didn't even telephone last night. I hadto show myself in front of the curtain and give them a spiel about asudden indisposition. And believe me, gentlemen, audiences ain't whatthey used to be. Did these ginks sit back and take the show for what itwas worth? Not by a darn sight. Flocked to the box office and howled fortheir money back. If she doesn't appear to-night I might as well closethe house. I'll be ruined."
"Unless," Graham suggested, "you get your press agent to make capital outof her absence. The papers would publish her picture and thousands ofpeople would look her up for you."
The manager ceased his perplexed massage of his forehead. He shookhands genially.
"I'd thought of that with some frills. 'Has beautiful dancer met foulplay? Millions in jewels on her person when last seen.' Old stuff, butthey 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 myhand on. My man evidently fell down because she had gone before I got himon the case." At his office they learned that was the fact. The privatedetective had been able to get no slightest clue as to Maria'swhereabouts. Moreover, Bobby's description of the stranger who hadentered the cafe with her merely suggested a type familiar to theTenderloin. For purposes of identification it was worthless. Alwaysfollowed by the car from Smithtown, they went to the hotel where Paredeshad 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'sdeparture for the Cedars the day before. So they turned their backs onthe city, elated by the significance of Maria's absence, yet worried bythe search and the watchful car which never lost sight of them. When theywere in the country Graham sighed his relief. "You haven't been stopped.Therefore, nothing was found at your apartment, but if that wasn'tplanted why should Maria have sent an incriminating note there?""Unless," Bobby answered, "she told the truth. Unless she was sincerewhen she mailed it. Unless she learned something important between thetime she wrote it and her disappearance from her home."
"Frankly, Bobby," Graham said, "the note and the circumstances underwhich it came to you are as damaging as the footprints and thehandkerchief, but it doesn't tell us how any human being could haveentered that room to commit the murders and disturb the bodies. At leastwe'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 amazinglyslippery, and with Paredes gone what are you going to do with yourphysical fact? And how does it explain the friendly influence that wipedout my footprints? Is it a friendly or an evil influence that snatchedaway the evidence and that keeps it secreted?"
"We'll see," Graham said. "I'm going after a flesh-and-blood criminal whoisn't you. I'm going to try to find out what your grandfather was afraidof 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'veever told me how you met him."
"A couple of years ago I should think," Bobby answered. "Somebody broughthim to the club. I've forgotten who. Carlos was working for a big Panamaimporting 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 mannerand a queer, dry wit he had in those days. Two or three months ago he--heseemed 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 inhis armour. I wonder if Robinson didn't scare him away by threatening toquestion him. Paredes isn't connected with that company now, is he? Igather 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 hisridiculous suspicion of Katherine."
He told Graham in detail of that conversation. Graham frowned. He openedthe throttle wider. Their anxiety increased to know what had happened atthe Cedars since their departure. The outposts of the forest imposedsilence, closed eagerly about them, seemed to welcome them to its deadloneliness. There was a man on guard at the gate. They hurried past. Thehouse showed no sign of life, but when they entered the court Bobby sawKatherine at her window, doubtless attracted by the sounds of theirarrival. Her face brightened, but she rai
sed her arms in a gesturesuggestive of despair.
"Does she mean the evidence has been found?" Bobby asked.
Graham made no attempt to conceal his real interest, the impulse at theback of all his efforts in Bobby's behalf.
"More likely Robinson has worried the life out of her since we've beengone. 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 vastsurprise. The hall was empty but they heard voices in the library.They hurried across the dining room, pausing in the doorway, staringwith unbelieving eyes at the accustomed picture they had leastexpected to see.
Paredes lounged on the divan, smoking with easy indifference. Hisclothing and his shoes were spotless. He had shaved, and his beard hadbeen freshly trimmed. Rawlins and the district attorney stood in front ofthe fireplace, studying him with perplexed eyes. The persistence of theirregard even after Bobby's entrance suggested to him that the evidenceremained secreted, that the officers, under the circumstances, werescarcely interested in his return. He was swept himself into an explosiveamazement:
"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 Grahamand he had brought back from the city. He couldn't imagine guilt lurkingbehind 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, noaccounting for his easy gesture now as he drew again at his cigaretteand tossed it in the fireplace.
"These gentlemen," he said, "have been asking just that question. I'mhonoured. I had no idea my movements were of such interest. I've toldthem that I took a stroll. The night was over. There was no point ingoing to bed, and all day I had been without exercise."
"Yet," Graham said harshly, "you have had practically no sleep since youcame here."
Paredes nodded.
"Very distressing, isn't it?"
"Maybe," Rawlins sneered, "you'll tell us why you went on tiptoe, and Isuppose you didn't hear a woman crying in the woods?"
"That's just it," Paredes answered. "I did hear something like that, andit occurred to me to follow such a curious sound. So I went on tiptoe, asyou call it."
"Why," Robinson exclaimed angrily, "you walked in the lake to hideyour 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 thedeserted 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'tfar to the station I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and have a bath andrest. But I assure you I've trudged back from the station just now."
Suddenly he repeated the apparently absurd formula he had usedwith Howells.
"You know the court seems full of unfriendly things--what the ignorantwould call ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." After a moment he added: "Thewoods, 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'tit, to commit crimes with the devilish ingenuity of these? No, no, Mr.District Attorney, look to the ghosts. They alone are sufficientlyclever. But I might say, since you take this attitude, that I don't careto answer any more questions until you discover something that might giveyou the right to ask them."
He lay back on the divan, languidly lighting another cigarette. Grahambeckoned 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 polishedreserve. When he joined the others, indeed, Graham with an aggressive airwas demanding the district attorney's intentions.
"If he could elude you so easily last night, it's common sense to put himwhere 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 otherelements."
"What's happened since we left?" Graham asked quickly. "Have you got anytrace 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 learnhow the room was entered, how the crimes were committed, how those poordevils were made to alter their positions."
"So," Bobby said, "you had my rooms in New York searched. You had mefollowed to-day. It's ridiculous."
Robinson ignored him. He stepped to the front door, opened it, and lookedaround the court.
"What did the sphinx mean about ghosts in the court?"
They walked out, gazing helplessly at the trampled grass about thefountain, at the melancholy walls, at the partly opened window of theroom 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 tofollow that radical course. Like Howells, he hesitated to remove from theCedars the person most likely to solve its mystery. As long as a chanceremained that Howells had been right about Bobby he would give SilasBlackburn's grandson his head, merely making sure, as he had done thismorning, 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 disturbinghim."
Robinson nodded and led the way silently back to the house. Such a methodwas repugnant to Bobby, and he followed at a distance. Then he saw fromthe movements of the two men ahead that the library had again offered theunexpected, and he entered. Paredes was no longer in the room. Bobby wasabout to speak, but Robinson shook his head angrily, raising his hand ina gesture of warning. All three strained forward, listening, and Bobbycaught the sound that had arrested the others--a stealthy scraping thatwould have been inaudible except through such a brooding silence aspervaded 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. Itgave to his memory of Paredes, with his tall, graceful figure, his lackof emotion, his inscrutable eyes, and his pointed beard, a suggestionnearly satanic. For the stealthy scraping had come from behind the closeddoor of the private staircase. Howells had gone up that staircase. Noneof them could forget for a moment that it led to the private hall outsidethe room in which the murders had been committed.
It occurred to Bobby that the triumph Graham's face expressed was out ofkeeping with the man. It disturbed him nearly as thoroughly as Paredes'sstealthy presence in that place.
"We've got him," Graham whispered.
Robinson's bulky figure moved cautiously toward the door. He grasped theknob, swung the door open, and stepped back, smiling his satisfaction.
Half way down the staircase Paredes leaned against the wall, one footraised and outstretched, as though an infinitely quiet descent had beeninterrupted. The exposure had been too quick for his habit. His facefailed to hide its discomfiture. His laugh rang false.
"Hello!"
"I'm afraid we've caught you, Paredes," Graham said, and the triumphblazed now in his voice.
What Paredes did then was more startling,
more out of key than any of hisrecent actions. He came precipitately down. His eyes were dangerous. AsBobby watched the face whose quiet had at last been tempestuouslydestroyed, he felt that the man was capable of anything under sufficientprovocation.
"Got me for what?" he snarled.
"Tell us why you were sneaking up there. In connection with your littleexcursion before dawn it suggests a guilty knowledge."
Paredes straightened. He shrugged his shoulders. With an admirable effortof the will he smoothed the rage from his face, but for Bobby the satanicsuggestion lingered.
"Why do you suppose I'm here?" he said in a restrained voice thatscarcely rose above a whisper. "To help Bobby. I was simply lookingaround for Bobby's sake."
That angered Bobby. He wanted to cry out against the supposed friend whohad at last shown his teeth.
"That," Graham laughed, "is why you sneaked, why you didn't make anynoise, 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 asafe 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 yourhouse?"
Bobby flushed.
"Why have you stayed? What were you doing up there? Answer thosequestions. 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 toBobby, Paredes was afraid. Rawlins came back from the telephone. He tookin the tableau.
"What's the rumpus?"
"Run this man to Smithtown," Robinson directed. "Lock him up, and tellthe judge, when he's arraigned in the morning, that I want him held as amaterial 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'llfind the jail about as comfortable as the New Hotel."
Paredes smiled. The evil and dangerous light died in his eyes. He becameall at once easy and impervious again.
"Like a lamb. How else?"
"I'm sorry, Carlos," Bobby muttered. "If you'd only say something! Ifyou'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 thebracelets since you haven't a gun."
Puffing at his cigarette, Paredes got his coat and hat and followed thedetective from the house.
Robinson and Graham climbed the private staircase to commence anothersystematic search of the hall, to discover, if they could, the motive forParedes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily thisopportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what hadhappened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of herdespairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her doorand stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been anexpression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face ofRobinson's harsh determination.
"He questioned me for an hour," she said, "principally about the heelmark in the court. They cling to that, because I don't think they'vefound 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 itthan you do."
"Carlos was in the court," he mused. "Did you know they'd taken him? Wefound 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 theyseemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged everyroom--even mine."
She laughed feverishly.
"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed--" She broke off. She pickedat her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyesand 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 prettyface, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swepthim to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the faceof Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn'tfight that truth eternally. She must have noticed his struggle withoutgrasping its cause, for she touched his hand, and the wistfulness of herexpression 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. Itmade 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 shehad been the night before when Howells had sat with them, his morosenessveiling 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 noeffort to hide his irritation. His failure to find any clue in theprivate staircase after Paredes's arrest had clearly stimulated hisinterest in Bobby. The sharp little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, helda 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 themto 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 goodenough for me tonight."
Graham went upstairs with Bobby. There was no question about hispurpose. He wouldn't repeat last night's mistake.
"At least," he said, when the door was closed behind them, "I can see ifyou do get up and wander about in your sleep. I'd bet a good deal thatyou 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 exactlyworking 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 suchnights!"
He hesitated.
"But I am glad you're here, Hartley. I can go to sleep with a morecomfortable feeling."
"Don't worry," Graham said. "You'll sleep quietly enough, and we'll allbe better for a good rest."
For only a little while they talked of the mystery. While Grahamregretted his failure to find any trace of Maria, their voices dwindledsleepily. Bobby recalled his last thought before losing himself lastnight. 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, demandingdrowsily:
"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 ina cold place; and the meaning of his position came with a rush ofsick terror.
"Get hold of yourself," Graham said. "Come back."
Bobby opened his eyes. He was in the upper hall at the head of thestairs. Unconsciously
he had been about to creep quietly down, perhaps tothe library. Graham had awakened him. It seemed to offer the answer toeverything. It seemed to give outline to a monstrous familiar thatdrowned his real self in the black pit while it conducted his body to thecommission of unspeakable crimes.
He lurched into the bedroom and sat shivering on the bed. Graham enteredand 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 werelike an automaton. I didn't wake you at once. You see, I--I thought youmight 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, soI was going downstairs--"
He shuddered.
"Good God! Then it's all true. I did it for the money. I put Howells outto protect myself. I was going after Robinson. It's true. Hartley! Tellme. 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."