CHAPTER VII
THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD
Bobby returned to his bed. He lay there still shivering, beneaththe 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. Imust think it over."
But, as always, thought brought no release. It merely insisted that thecase against him was proved. At last he had been seen slippingunconsciously from his room--and at the same hour. All that remained wasto learn how he had accomplished the apparent miracles. Then no excusewould remain for not going to Robinson and confessing. The woman at thelake and in the courtyard, the movement of the body and the vanishing ofthe evidence under his hand, Paredes's odd behaviour, all became in hismind puzzling details that failed to obscure the chief fact. After thissomething must be done about Paredes's detention.
He hadn't dreamed that his weariness could placate even momentarily suchreflections, but at last he slept again. He was aroused by the trampingof men around the house, and strange, harsh voices. He raised himself onhis elbow and glanced from the window. It had long been daylight. Twoburly fellows in overalls, carrying pick and spade across theirshoulders, pushed through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. Heturned. 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 oldcemetery to prepare a place for Silas Blackburn with his fathers. That'swhy I've come to wake you up. The minister's telephoned Katherine. Hewill be here before noon. Do you know it's after ten o'clock?"
For some time Bobby stared through the window at the desolate, raggedlandscape. It was abnormally cold even for the late fall. Dull cloudsobscured 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 allfeel 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 heardnothing. I saw nothing."
"Ought I to want you to stand by me?" Bobby said. "Oughtn't I to make aclean 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 lastnight, yet it's as clear as ever that Maria and he are up to some game inwhich you figure."
"He shouldn't be in jail," Bobby persisted.
"Get up," Graham advised. "Bathe, and have some breakfast, then we candecide. There's no use talking of the other thing. I've forgotten it. Asfar as possible you must."
Bobby sprang upright.
"How can I forget it? If it was hard to face sleep before, what do youthink it is now? Have I any right--"
"Don't," Graham said. "I'll be with you again to-night. If I weresatisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt I'd advise you to confess, but Ican't be until I know what Maria and Paredes are doing."
When Bobby had bathed and dressed he found, in spite of his mentalturmoil, that his sleep had done him good. While he breakfasted Grahamurged him to eat, tried to drive from his brain the morbid aftermath oflast night's revealing moment.
"The manager took my advice, but Maria's still missing. Her pictures arein most of the papers. There have been reporters here this morning, aboutthe 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 wanderingaround--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 remotetinkling of the front door bell. Jenkins passed through. The cold airinvading the hall and the dining room told them he had opened the door.His sharp exclamation recalled Howells's report which, at theirdirection, he had failed to mail. Had his exclamation been drawn by anaccuser? Bobby started to rise. Graham moved toward the door. ThenJenkins entered and stood to one side. Bobby shared his astonishment, forParedes walked in, unbuttoning his overcoat, the former easy-mannered,uncommunicative foreigner. He appeared, moreover, to have sleptpleasantly. His eyes showed no weariness, his clothing no disarrangement.He spoke at once, quite as if nothing disagreeable had shadowed hisdeparture.
"Good morning. If I had dreamed of this change in the weather I wouldhave brought a heavier overcoat. I've nearly frozen driving fromSmithtown."
Before either man could grope for a suitable greeting he faced Bobby. Hefelt in his pockets with whimsical discouragement.
"Fact is, Bobby, I left New York too suddenly. I hadn't noticed until alittle 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 moresuspicious than you. He wants to be paid. I asked Rawlins to drive meback, but he rushed from the courthouse, probably to telephone hisrotund superior. Fact is, this fellow wants five dollars--anoutrageous rate. I've told him so--but it doesn't do any good. So willyou 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 inthe habit--"
Bobby tried to account for Paredes's friendly manner. That he should havecome back at all was sufficiently strange, but it was harder tounderstand why he should express no resentment for his treatmentyesterday, why he should fail to refer to Bobby's questions at the momentof his arrest, or to the openly expressed enmity of Graham. Only onetheory promised to fit at all. It was necessary for the Panamanian toreturn to the Cedars. His purpose, whatever it was, compelled him toremain for the present in the mournful, tragic house. Therefore, he wouldcrush his justifiable anger. He would make it practically impossible forBobby to refuse his hospitality. And he had asked for money--only atrifling sum, yet Graham would grasp at the fact to support his earliersuspicion.
Paredes's arrival possessed one virtue: It diverted Bobby's thoughtstemporarily from his own dilemma, from his inability to chart a course.
Graham, on the other hand, was ill at ease. Beyond a doubt he wasdisarmed by Paredes's good humour. For him yesterday's incident was notso lightly to be passed over. Eventually his curiosity conquered. Thewords 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 Smithtownfor a while."
Paredes sipped the coffee which Jenkins had poured.
"Splendid coffee! You should have tasted what I had this morning. Simpleenough, Mr. Graham. I telephoned as soon as Rawlins got me to theBastille. I communicated with the lawyer who represents the company forwhich I once worked. He's a prominent and brilliant man. He planned itwith some local fellow. When I was arraigned at the opening of court thismorning the judge could hold me only as a material witness. He fixed apretty stiff bail, but the local lawyer was there with a bondsman, and Icame back.
My clothes are here. You don't mind, Bobby?"
That moment in the hall when Graham had awakened him urged Bobby to replywith 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 wasthe last straw. You will forgive us, Carlos?"
Paredes smiled. He put down his coffee cup and lighted a cigarette. Hesmoked with a vast contentment.
"That's better. Nothing to forgive, Bobby. Let us call it amisunderstanding."
Graham moved closer.
"Perhaps you'll tell us now what you were doing in the privatestaircase."
Paredes blew a wreath of smoke. His eyes still smiled, but his voicewas 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 oldquestion. What was the man's game? What held him here?
Robinson entered. The flesh around his eyes was puffier than it had beenyesterday. Worry had increased the incongruous discontent of his roundface. Clearly he had slept little.
"I saw you arrive," he said. "Rawlins warned me. But I must say I didn'tthink you'd use your freedom to come to us."
Paredes laughed.
"Since the law won't hold me at your convenience in Smithtown I keepmyself 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 andmoney. That fleeting, satanic impression of yesterday came back, sharper,more alarming. Paredes's clear challenge to the district attorney was themeasure of his strength. His mind was subtler than theirs. His reserveand easy daring mastered them all; and always, as now, he laughed at thefutility of their efforts to sound his purposes, to limit his freedom ofaction. Bobby didn't care to meet the uncommunicative eyes whose depthshe had never been able to explore. Was there a special power there thatcould control the destinies of other people, that might make men walkunconsciously 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 obviousfancy 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 laidaway 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 enoughwhat'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 itwas, that he had let slip his increased self-doubt. He put on his coatand hat and left the house. The raw cold, the year's first omen ofwinter, made his blood run quicker, forced into his mind a cleansingstimulation. But almost immediately even that prophylactic was deniedhim. With his direction a matter of indifference, chance led him into thethicket at the side of the house. He had walked some distance. Theunderbrush had long interposed a veil between him and the Cedars abovewhose roofs smoke wreathed in the still air like fantastic figuresweaving a shroud to lower over the time-stained, melancholy walls. Foronce he was grateful to the forest because it had forbidden him to glanceperpetually back at that dismal and pensive picture. Then he became awareof twigs hastily lopped off, of bushes bent and torn, of the uncovering,through these careless means, of an old path. Simultaneously therereached his ears the scraping of metal implements in the soft soil, thedull thud of earth falling regularly. He paused, listening. The labour ofthe men was given an uncouth rhythm by their grunting expulsions ofbreath. Otherwise the nature of their industry and its surroundings hadimposed upon them a silence, in itself beast-like and unnatural.
At last a harsh voice came to Bobby. Its brevity pointed the previousdumbness of the speaker:
"Deep enough!"
And Bobby turned and hurried back along the roughly restored path, as iffleeing from an immaterial thing suddenly quickened with the power ofaccusation.
He could picture the fresh oblong excavation in the soil of the familyburial ground. He could see where the men had had to tear bushes fromamong the graves in order to insert their tools. There was an ironicaljustice in the condition of the old cemetery. It had received nointerment since the death of Katherine's father. Like everything aboutthe Cedars, Silas Blackburn had delivered it to the swift, obliteratingfingers of time. If the old man in his selfishness had paused to gazebeyond the inevitable fact of death, Bobby reflected, he would haveguarded with a more precious interest the drapings of his final sleep.
This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket lesscongenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keenapprehension his approaching ordeal. It would, doubtless, be moredifficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's bodyin the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment of hisgrandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fallnoisily in that bleak place of silence without displaying for Robinsonthe guilt that impressed him more and more?
A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. Hisblack clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs between thesleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony intothe landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to theCedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliagebetween himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emergedfrom the forest and saw again the leisurely weaving of the smoke shroudabove the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of apair of horses, standing in the shafts of a black wagon at the courtentrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass which offers no likelypath 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 hasDoctor Groom. Everything's about ready."
"Doctor Groom?"
"Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enoughhe should be here."
Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Grahammade 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?" heasked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in theCedars again."
"I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlosgave me the creeps."
Graham glanced at him curiously. He spoke with pronounced deliberation,startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought thatParedes's arrival had driven into his own mind.
"Gave me the creeps, too. Makes me surer than ever that he has anabominably deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggestsresources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the oldroom. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence overyou--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 inNew York?"
"I won't blame Carlos for that," Bobby muttered.
"He influenced you against your better judgment," Graham persisted, "torefuse 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, "ifthere'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 i
t, acquired sufficient influence to direct yourbody when your mind no longer controlled it. It's a nasty thought, butI've heard of such things."
"You mean Carlos may have made me go to the hall last night, perhaps sentme to the old room those other times?"
Now that another had expressed the idea Bobby fought it with allhis might.
"No. I won't believe it. I've been weak, Hartley, but not that weak. AndI tell you I did feel Howells's body move under my hand."
"Don't misunderstand me," Graham said gently. "I must consider everypossibility. You were excited and imaginative when you went to the oldroom 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. Imean, 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 itsbulging shape. We know now that Paredes is capable of sneaking aroundthe 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 whathappened, and you don't. Paredes has no such influence over me. I won'tthink of it."
"If it's so far-fetched," Graham asked quietly, "why do you revolt fromthe idea?"
Bobby turned on him.
"And why do you fill my mind with such thoughts? If you think I'm guiltysay so. Go tell Robinson so."
He glanced away while the angry colour left his face. He was a littledazed by the realization that he had spoken to Graham as he might havedone to an enemy, as he had spoken to Howells in the old bedroom. Hefelt the touch of Graham's hand on his shoulder.
"I'm only working in your service," Graham said kindly. "I'm sorry ifI've troubled you by seeking physical facts in order to escape theghosts. For Groom has brought the ghosts back with him. Don't make anymistake about that. You want the truth, don't you?"
"Yes," Bobby said, "even if it does for me. But I want it quickly. Ican't go on this way indefinitely."
Yet that flash of temper had given him courage to face the ordeal. Alingering resentment at Graham's suggestion lessened the difficulty ofhis 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 abland curiosity. Robinson sat near by, glowering at Paredes. ThePanamanian had changed his clothing. He, too, was sombrely dressed,and, instead of the vivid necktie he had worn from the courthouse, ajet-black scarf was perfectly arranged beneath his collar. He loungedopposite the district attorney, his eyes studying the fire. His fingerson 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 ofthe doctor was ill at ease. From his thickly bearded face his reddisheyes gleamed forth with a fresh instability.
The clergyman shook hands with Bobby. "We need not delay. Your cousin isupstairs." 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 phaseof 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 Paredesat 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 doorof Silas Blackburn's room. He stepped aside, beckoning. He had an air ofa showman craving approbation for the surprise he has arranged.
Bobby went in with the others. Automatically through the dim light hecatalogued remembered objects, all intimate to his grandfather, eachoddly entangled in his mind with his dislike of the old man. The ironbed; the chest of drawers, scratched and with broken handles; the closedcolonial desk; the miserly rag carpet--all seemed mutely asking, asBobby did, why their owner had deserted them the other night anddelivered himself to the ghostly mystery of the old bedroom.
Reluctantly Bobby's glance went to the centre of the floor where thecasket rested on trestles. From the chest of drawers two candles, theonly light, played wanly over the still figure and the ashen face. So forthe second time the living met the dead, and the law watched hopefully.
Robinson stood opposite, but he didn't look at Silas Blackburn who couldno longer accuse. He stared instead at Bobby, and Bobby kept repeatingto 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 chillthought, not without excuse under the circumstances and in this vaguelight, raced along his nerves. Silas Blackburn had moved once since hisdeath. If the power to move and speak should miraculously return to himnow! In this house there appeared to be no impossibilities. The coldcontrol of death had been twice broken.
Katherine's entrance swung his thoughts and released him for a momentfrom Robinson's watchfulness. He found he could turn from the wrinkledface that had fascinated him, that had seemed to question him with a calmand complete knowledge, to the lovely one that was active with a littlesmile of encouragement. He was grateful for that. It taught him that inthe heavy presence of death and from the harsh trappings of mourning themagnetism of youth is unconquerable. So in affection he found an antidotefor fear. Even Graham's quick movement to her side couldn't make herpresence less helpful to Bobby. He looked at his grandfather again. Heglanced 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 agrotesquely 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 andstepped 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, downthe stairs, and into the dull autumn air. He followed at the side ofKatherine across the clearing and into the overgrown path. He was awareof 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 oneunderstood him. We are the only mourners."
Bobby, as they threaded the path behind the stumbling bearers, found agrim justice in that also. Because of his selfishness Silas Blackburn hadlived alone. Because of it he must go to his long rest with no othermourners 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 theirburden down beside it, glancing at each other with relief. Across theheap of earth Bobby saw the waiting excavation. In his ears vibrated thememory of the harsh voice:
"It's deep enough!"
Another voice droned. It was soft and unctuous. It seemed to take apleasure in the terrible words it loosed to stray eternally through thedecaying forest.
Bobby glanced at bent stones, strangled by the underbrush; at otherslabs, cracked and brown, which lay prone, half covered by creepingvines. The tones of the clergyman were no longer revolting in his ears.He scarcely heard them. He imagined a fantasy. He pictured theinhabitants of these forgotten, narrow houses straying to the greatdwelling where they had lived, punishing this one, bringing him to sufferwith them the degradation of their neglect. So Robinson became lessimportant in his mind. Through such fancies the ordeal was made bearable.
A wind sprang up, rattling through the trees and disturbing the vines onthe fallen stones. Later, he thought, it would snow, and he shivered fort
hose left helpless to sleep in the sad forest.
The dark-clothed men strained at ropes now. They glanced at Katherineand Bobby as at those most to be impressed by their skill. They loweredSilas Blackburn's grimly shaped casing into the sorrel pit. It passedfrom Bobby's sight. The two roughly dressed labourers came from thethicket where they had hidden, and with their spades approached thegrave. The sound from whose imminence Bobby had shrunk rattled in hisears. The yellow earth cut across the stormy twilight of the cemetery andscattered in the trench. After a time the response lost its metallicpetulance.
Katherine pulled at Bobby's hand. He started and glanced up. One of theblack-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 ofthe little company; and Bobby, staring back at the district attorney,took a sombre pride in facing it out until even the men with the spadeshad gone. The ordeal, he reflected, had lost its poignancy. His mind wasintent on the empty trappings he had witnessed. He wondered if therewas, after all, no justice against his grandfather in this unkemptburial. The place might have something to tell him. If it could onlymake him believe that beyond the inevitable fact nothing mattered. Ifhe were sure of that it would offer a way out at the worst; perhaps thehappiest 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. Theyseemed to penetrate Bobby's thought. Then they glanced at the excavation,appearing to intimate that Silas Blackburn's earthy blanket could hidenothing from the closed eyes it sheltered. At his age he faced the nearapproach 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 broughtthe ghosts back with him. It was as if the cemetery had recalled the olddoctor to answer his presumptuous question.
"There's no use your staying here."
The resonance of the deep voice jarred through the woods. The broadshoulders 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 andtrim the graves. You couldn't blame them, could you, if these old peoplewere restless and tried to go abroad?"
For Bobby, in spite of himself, the man on whose last shelter the earthcontinued to fall became once more a potent thing, able to appraise thepenalty of his own carelessness.
"Come," Katherine whispered.
But Bobby lingered, oddly fascinated, supporting the ordeal to its finalmoment. The blows of the backs of the spades on the completed mound beatinto his brain the end. The workmen wandered off through the woods. Froma 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 deadthere."
Robinson tried to laugh.
"That man's wise," he said to the doctor. "If Paredes spoke of thiscemetery 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 feltit myself. The Cedars and the forest are full of things that seem towhisper, things that one never sees. Such things might have an excusefor evil."
"Let's get out of it," Robinson said gruffly.
Katherine withdrew her hand. Bobby reached for it again, but she seemednot to notice. She walked ahead of him along the path, her shoulders atrifle 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 hercheeks. Her lips were strange to him in the distortion of a grief thatseeks 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 forSilas Blackburn after all. He blamed himself because his own eyes werenot moist.
Back of him he heard the murmuring conversation of the doctor and thedistrict attorney. Strangely it made him sorry that Robinson should havebeen 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 darkerclouds the house had a stark appearance. It was like a frame from whichthe flesh has fallen.
The black wagon had gone. The Cedars was left alone to the solution ofits mystery.
Paredes, Graham, and Rawlins waited for them in the hall. There wasnothing to say. Paredes placed with a delicate accuracy fresh logs uponthe fire. He arose, flecking the wood dust from his hands.
"How cold it will be here," he mused, "how impossible of entrance whenthe 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 herface 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 foottoward the fresh blaze.
"It will snow," she said. "It is very early for that."
No one answered. The strain tightened. The flames leapt, throwingevanescent pulsations of brilliancy about the dusky hall. They welcomedJenkins's announcement that luncheon was ready, but they scarcelydisturbed the hurriedly prepared dishes, and afterward they gatheredagain in the hall, silent and depressed, appalled by the long, drearyafternoon, which, however, possessed the single virtue of dividing themfrom another night.
For long periods the district attorney and the detective were closeted inthe library. Now and then they passed upstairs, and they could be heardmoving about, but no one, save Graham, seemed to care. Already theofficers had had every opportunity to search the house. The old room nolonger held an inhabitant to set its fatal machinery in motion. Yet Bobbyrealized in a dull way that at any moment the two men might come down tohim, saying:
"We have found something. You are guilty."
The heavy atmosphere of the house crushed such forecasts, made them seema little trivial. Bobby fancied it gathering density to cradle newmysteries. 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 hisintention.
Graham wandered off. Bobby thought he had joined Rawlins and Robinson inthe library.
The only daylight entered the hall through narrow slits of windows oneither side of the front door. Bobby, watching these, was, even with theproblems night brought to him now, glad when they grew paler.
Paredes, who had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, arose andbrought his card table. Drawing it close to him, he arranged the cards inneat piles. The uncertain firelight made it barely possible to identifytheir numbers. Doctor Groom gestured his disgust. Katherine stoopedforward, 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 inthis 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 glidesoftly across the face of the table and flutter to the floor. The tablehad lifted slowly toward the Panamanian. It stood now on two legs.
"What is it?" Katherine said. "It's moving. I can feel it move beneathmy fingers."
Her words recalled to Bobby unavoidably his experience in the old room.
"Don't do t
hat!" 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 quicklythe 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? Theymay wish to speak. See!"
The table settled softly down without any noise. It commenced to riseagain. Katherine lifted her hands with a visible effort, as if the tablehad tried to hold them against her will. She covered her face and sattrembling.
"I won't! I--"
Paredes shrugged his shoulders, appealing to the doctor. The huge, shaggyhead shook determinedly.
"I'm not so sure I don't agree with you. I'm not so sure the dead aren'tin this hall. That is why I'll have nothing to do with such dangerousplay. It has shown us, at least, that you are psychic, Mr. Paredes."
"I have a gift," Paredes murmured. "It would be useful to speak withthem. They see so much more than we do."
He lifted his hands. He waved them dejectedly. He stooped and commencedpicking 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 firelightgrew more eccentric. The court was colder and damper, and even beyondthe chill was more penetrating than it had been at the grave thatnoon. Uneven flakes of snow sifted from the swollen sky, heralds of awhite invasion.
"No more sleep-walking?" the doctor asked when he had taken the blanketfrom his horse and climbed into the buggy.
Bobby leaned against the wall of the stable and told how Graham hadbrought him back the previous night from the stairhead, to which he hadgone 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 placeyourself 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 knowsnothing of this habit which seems to have commenced the night of thefirst murder?"
"No, and I think Paredes alone of those who know about that first nightwould be likely to tell him."
"See that he doesn't," the doctor said shortly. "I've been watchingRobinson. If he doesn't make an arrest pretty soon with something back ofit 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 casesto look after. I ought to return before dinner. I'll take Graham's placefor to-night. It's time your reactions were better diagnosed. I'll shareyour 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 thesubject. I'll read them while you sleep. Perhaps I can learn the impulsethat 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 thedoctor's promise. To an extent the dread of the night fell from himlike a smothering garment. This old man, who had always filled him withdiscomfort, had become a capable support in his difficult hour. He sawhim drive away. He studied his watch, computing the time that mustelapse before he could return. He wanted him at the Cedars even thoughthe doctor believed more thoroughly than any one else in the spiritualsurvival of old passions and the power of the dead to project aphysical evil.
He didn't care to go back to the hall. It would do him good to walk, toforce as far as he could from his mind the memory of the ordeal at thegrave, the grim, impending atmosphere of the house. And suppose heshould accomplish something useful? Suppose he should succeed whereGraham 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. Ifthis weather continued the woods would cease to be habitable for thatdark feminine figure through which they had accounted for the mournfulcrying after Howells's death, which Graham had tried to identify with thedancer, Maria.
As he passed the neighbourhood of the cemetery; he walked faster. Manyyards of underbrush separated him from the little time-devastated city ofthe 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 ofwhich the lake brooded. The water received with a destructiveindifference the fluttering caresses of the snowflakes. Bobby paused witha quick expectancy. He saw nothing of the woman who had startled him thatfirst evening, but he heard from the thicket a sound like muffledsobbing, 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 thewhispers of the snow and the grief of the wind. When he had rounded thelake and was some distance beyond it, however, the moaning reached himagain, and through the fast-deepening twilight he saw, as indistinctly ashe had before, a black feminine figure flitting among the trees in thedirection of the lake. Graham's theory lost its value. It was impossibleto fancy the brilliant, colourful dancer in this black, shadowy thing. Hecommenced 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 figuredisappeared. 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 theCedars. He paused. His triumph was not unmixed with fear. A black figurestood in the open, quite close to him, gazing over the stagnant waterthat was like a veil for sinister things. He knew now that the woman wasflesh and blood, for she did not glide away, and the snow made pallidscars 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 aboutthe Cedars."
The woman swung around with a cry. He stepped back, abashed, not knowingwhat to say, for there was still enough light to disclose to him thetroubled face of Katherine, and there were tears in her eyes as if shemight recently have expressed an audible grief.
"You frightened me, Bobby."
Without calculation he spoke his swift thought: "Was it you I saw herebefore? But surely you didn't cry in the house the other night andafterward when we followed Carlos!"
The tranquil beauty of her face was disturbed. When she answered hervoice had lost something of its music:
"What do you mean?"
"It was you who cried just now? It was you I saw running throughthe woods?"
"What do you mean?" she asked again. "I have not run. I--I am not yourwoman in black, if that's what you think. I happened to pick up thiscloak. 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. Ihoped 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 intimateone of his heart. There was a thrill in her desire to find him in thesolitude of the forest.
Only the faintest gray survived in the sky above the trees. The shadowswere thick about them. The whispering snow urged him to use this momentfor 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 anew element silenced him and bound his eager hands. His awakening at thehead of the stairs raised an obstacle to self-revelation around whichthere 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 beenbefore. Has something happened I know nothing of?"
He shook his head. He couldn't increase her own trouble by tellingher of that.
The woods seemed to receive an ashy illumination from the passage of thesnowflakes. Katherine walked a little faster.
"Don't be discouraged, Bobby," she begged him. "Everything will come outstraight. You must keep telling yourself that. You must fight until youbelieve it."
The nearness of her dusk-clothed, slender figure filled him with a newcourage, obscured to an extent his real situation. He burst outimpulsively:
"Don't worry. I'll fight. I'll make myself believe. If necessary I'lltell 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 beforgotten. Why should you keep it active and dangerous by trying to findwho is guilty?"
"Katherine!" he cried, surprised. "Why do you say that?"
Her hand left his arm. She walked on without answering. Paredes came backto him--Paredes serenely calling attention to the fact that Katherine hadalarmed the household and had led it to the discovery of the Cedars'ssuccessive mysteries. He shrank from asking her any more.
They left the thicket. In the open space about the house the snow hadspread 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 ofthe court. The curtains of the room of death, they saw, had beenraised. A dim, unhealthy light slipped from the small-paned windowsacross the court, staining the snow. Robinson and Rawlins wereprobably 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 againstthe 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 sheturned, and Bobby stopped, too, with a sudden fear. For the thing he hadcalled a shadow was moving. He stared at it with a hypnotic belief thatthe Cedars was at last disclosing its supernatural secret. He knew itcould be no illusion, since Katherine swayed, half-fainting, against him.The moving shadow assumed the shape of a stout figure, slightly bent atthe shoulders. A pipe protruded from the bearded mouth. One hand waved acareless welcome.
Bobby's first instinct was to cry out, to command this old man they hadseen buried that day to return to his grave. For there wasn't theslightest doubt. The unhealthy candlelight from the room of death shonefull on the gray and wrinkled face of Silas Blackburn.