Read The Abandoned Room Page 9

  CHAPTER IX

  BOBBY'S VIGIL IN THE ABANDONED ROOM

  For a long time the little group gathered in the snow-swept cemeteryremained silent. The lamp, shaking in the district attorney's hand,illuminated each detail of the casket's interior linings. Bobby tried torealize that, except for these meaningless embellishments, the box wasempty. That was what held them all--the void, the unoccupied silken couchin which they had seen Silas Blackburn's body imprisoned. Yet the screwswhich the detective had removed, and the mass of earth, packed down andcovered with snow, must have made escape a dreadful impossibility even ifthe spark of life had reanimated its occupant. And that occupant stoodthere, trembling and haggard, sobbing from time to time in an utterabandonment to the terror of what he saw.

  To Bobby in that moment the supernatural legend of the Cedars seemed moretriumphantly fulfilled than it would have been through the immaterialreturn of his grandfather. For Silas Blackburn was a reincarnation moredifficult to accept than any ghost. Had Paredes, who all along hadoffered them a spectacle of veiled activity and thought, grasped thetruth? At first glance, indeed his gossip of oriental theories concerningthe disintegration of matter, its passage through solid substances, itsreassembly in far places, seemed thoroughly justified. Yet, granted that,who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had they buried to vanishcompletely? Who, in the semblance of Silas Blackburn, had drowsed withoutfood 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'tyou 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. MissKatherine and I found you. We had to break the door. You looked sopeaceful we thought you were asleep. But when we touched you youwere 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 librarythe 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 betteraway from it."

  "You won't go yet awhile," Robinson said gruffly. "Don't forget you'restill under bond."

  The detail no longer seemed of importance to Bobby. The mystery,centreing in the empty grave, was apparently inexplicable. He experienceda great pity for his grandfather; and, recalling that strengtheningmoment with Katherine, he made up his mind that there was only one coursefor him. It might be dangerous in itself, yet, on the other hand, hecouldn't go to Katherine while his share in the mystery of the Cedarsremained so darkly shadowed. He had no right to withhold anything, and hewouldn't ask Graham's advice. He had stepped all at once into the masteryof his own destiny. He would tell Robinson, therefore, everything heknew, from the party with Maria and Paredes in New York, through hisunconscious wanderings around the house on the night of the first murder,to the moment when Graham had stopped his somnambulistic excursion downthe 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 firesmouldered as pleasantly as it had done before they had set forth, yet aninterminable period seemed to have elapsed. Silas Blackburn went close tothe fire. He sank in a chair, trembling.

  "I'm so cold," he whined. "I've never been so cold. What is the matterwith me? For God's sake tell me what is the matter! Katherine--if--ifnothing happens, we'll close the Cedars. We'll go to the city where thereare 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 amoment's hesitation, followed him. Bobby wondered why they went. Hecaught Robinson's eye. He indicated he would like to speak to him in thelibrary. As he left the hall he saw Paredes, who had not removed his hator 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 thanever 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 timesthe crunching of Paredes's feet in the court.

  "Why does that court draw him?" Robinson asked. "Why does he keeprepeating that it is full of ghosts? He can't be trying to scare us withthat now."

  But Bobby didn't answer.

  "I've come to tell you the truth," he burst out, "everything I know. Youmay lock me up. Even that would be better than this uncertainty. I musthave an answer, if it condemns me; and how could I have had anything todo with what has happened to-night?"

  He withheld nothing. Robinson listened with an intent interest. At theend he said not unkindly:

  "If the evidence and Howells's report hadn't disappeared I'd havearrested you and considered the case closed before this miracle wasthrown at me. You've involved yourself so frankly that I don't believeyou're lying about what went on in the old room when you entered to stealthose exhibits. Can't say I blame you for trying that, either. You werein a pretty bad position--an unheard-of position. You still are, for thatmatter. But the case is put on such an extraordinary basis by what hashappened 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 andin the return of your grandfather than you can account for."

  "Thanks," Bobby said. "I hoped you'd take it this way, for, if you willlet me help, I have a plan."

  He turned restlessly to the door of the private staircase. In his memoryHowells's bold figure was outlined there, but now the face with its slowsmile 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. Whatgood 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 theevidence. You've believed it, I think."

  "There is something strange and unhealthy about the room," Robinsonagreed. "Certainly the secret of the locked doors lies there. But we'vehad sufficient warning. I'm not ashamed to say I wouldn't take such achance. 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 toknow. I shan't go near the bed. I'll watch the bed from a corner. Ifthe danger's at the bed, as we suspect, it probably won't be able toreach me, but just the same it may expose itself. And Rawlins or youcan be outside the broken door in the corridor, waiting to enter atthe first alarm."

  "Howells had no chance to give an alarm," Robinson muttered. "We'llsee later."

  But Bobby understood that he would agree, and he forced his new courageto face the prospect.

  "Maybe something will turn up," Robinson mused. "The case can't grow moremysterious indefinitely."

  But his tone held no assurance. He seemed to foresee new and difficultcomplications.

  When they returned to the hall Bobby shrank from the picture of hisgrandfather still crouched by the fire, his shoulders twitchin
g, hisfingers about the black briar pipe shaking. Groom alone had remained withhim. 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'sKatherine, Doctor?"

  "She went to the kitchen," the doctor rumbled. "I'm sure I don't knowwhat for this time of night."

  After a little Graham and Rawlins came down the stairs. Graham's face wasscarred 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 youtell me what you were doing?"

  "Only keeping Rawlins from trying to make more mischief," Grahamanswered.

  He wouldn't explain.

  "Aren't there enough riddles in this house?" Doctor Groom asked withfrank disapproval.

  Rawlins and Robinson joined them, sparing Graham a further defence. Thedistrict attorney had an air of fresh resolution. He was about to speakwhen 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 nearme again."

  Although they knew Paredes had been in the court the spell of the Cedarswas 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 Blackburnexposed. Then Rawlins sprang forward, and Bobby called:

  "Carlos!"

  Paredes stepped from one side. He lingered against the blackbackground of the doorway. It was plain enough something was wrongwith him. In the first place, although he had opened the door, he hadbeen unwilling to enter.

  "Shut the door," Silas Blackburn moaned.

  Paredes, with a quick gesture of surrender, stepped in and obeyed. Hisface was white. He had lost his immaculate appearance. His clothingshowed 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 ownwarning. 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 eyeswere 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; butthat, as you'll recall, is by no means unusual here. That's why I've comein rather against my will. It seems strange, but I, too, have beenstruck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctorhad better look at the result."

  With a motion of repugnance he moved his left hand from behind his backand stretched it to the light. The coat below the elbow was torn. Theslender 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 mesee how badly he's hurt. There'll be plenty of time for questionsafterward."

  Paredes lay back in one of the chairs and extended his arm. He kept hiseyes closed while the doctor stooped, examining the wound. All at oncehis nearly perpetual sleeplessness since coming to the Cedars hadrecorded itself in his face. His nerves at last confessed theirvulnerability as he fumbled for a cigarette with his good hand, as heplaced 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 daresayit's nothing."

  Doctor Groom glanced up.

  "Nothing serious with a little luck. It's only torn through a muscle. Itmight have pierced the large vein."

  His forehead beneath the shaggy black hair was deeply lined. He turned toRobinson doubtfully.

  "Maybe you'll tell us," Robinson said, "what made the wound."

  "No use shirking facts," the doctor rumbled. "Mr. Paredes has beenwounded just as he said, by something sharp and slender."

  "You mean," Robinson said, "by an instrument that could have caused deathin 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 thisarm. There must be an antiseptic in the house. Where is Katherine? See ifyou can find her, Bobby."

  As Bobby started to cross the dining room he heard the slight scraping ofthe door leading to the kitchen. He knew there was someone in the roomwith him. He touched a cold hand.

  "Bobby!" Katherine breathed in his ear.

  He understood why the little light from the hall had failed to discloseher when she had come from the kitchen. She wore the black cloak. Againstthe darkness at the end of the room she had made no silhouette. When heput 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 justcome in from the falling snow.

  "Where have you been?" he asked.

  "Looking outside," she answered frankly. "I couldn't sit still. Iwondered if the woman in black would be around the house to-night. ThenI 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 ofcoincidence.

  "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. Thedetective came directly to them; nor was the coincidence lost on him, andit was his business to advertise rather than to conceal it. Withoutceremony he took the cloak from Bobby. He draped it over his arm.

  "The doctor," he said to Katherine, "wants a basin of warm water, someold linen, carbolic acid, if you have it."

  She nodded and went back to the kitchen while Bobby returned with thedetective 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 itin. At least it's still wet from the snow."

  Paredes opened his eyes. He looked for a moment at the black cloak. Heclosed 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 thatit 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 Paredeswouldn't answer. Under those conditions Robinson's failure to press thequestion was as disturbing as the detective's matter-of-fact capture ofthe cloak.

  Paredes glanced at Katherine once. There was no softness in her attitudeas she knelt beside his chair. Neither, Bobby felt, was there theslightest uneasiness. With a facile grace she helped the doctor bathe andbandage t
he 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 withoutthe use of both my hands."

  "You ought to congratulate yourself that you still keep it," thedoctor 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 themherself and so give Paredes an opportunity to speak. This new developmentmade him wonder about Graham's theories as to Paredes. If it was Mariawho had struck the man there had either been a quarrel among thieves orelse no criminal connection had ever existed between the two. Paredes,however, aping the gestures of an invalid, was less to Bobby's taste thanhis satanic appearance when he had come from the private staircase.

  Rawlins still held the cloak. After Jenkins had removed the doctor'sparaphernalia, everyone seemed to wait. It was Silas Blackburn whofinally 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 detectiveand the district attorney the opportunity they craved. She walked up thestairs, turning at the landing. Her farewell seemed pointed at thePanamanian 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 hehad caught the coincidence, too, and the trouble he had confessed alittle 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 thegraveyard. At a point very close to it I felt the presence of thiscreature in black. I spoke. I took my courage in my hands. I reachedout. I touched nothing." He raised his injured hand. "I got this formy 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." Hepointed to Silas Blackburn. "It frightened me that this man should comeback through the court from his grave with all the evidence pointing toan astral magic. I wanted to retrace his journey. I thought at the grave,if I were alone, something might expose itself that had naturallyremained 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 thatlooks like ghosts, but leave us a few flesh-and-blood clues. This womanin black is one of them, although she's been slippery as an eel. It looksto me as if you went to the grave to meet her alone exactly as you wentto the deserted house to talk quietly with her night before last. Maybeshe 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 wouldsuggest that she is guilty of the crimes in the old room. Why not go outand arrest her then? She might explain everything except the return tolife 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 sowe'd have caught her long before. We're not blind, and we haven't missedthe nerve with which she helped the doctor fix you up. We haven't caughther before because her headquarters have been right in this house all thetime. You remember the other night, Mr. Robinson. You'd just questionedher in the court and had threatened to question him, too, when she camein here ahead of us and slipped out the back way. She must have told himto follow because they had to talk, undisturbed by us. They went bydifferent 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 youdidn't see her when you first came in."

  Robinson shook his head.

  "Mr. Graham kept me busy, and I rather waited for your report beforepushing things. I didn't see her or question her until after Mr. Grahamand 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 allafternoon. It won't do."

  "Katy's a good girl," Silas Blackburn quavered.

  With a growing discomfort Bobby realized that when the woman had criednear the graveyard he had reached out for Katherine and had failed tofind her. Moreover, the night Graham and he had heard the crying in theold room she had stood alone in the corridor. It was easily conceivablethat the turn of events after Robinson's arrival should have made itnecessary for conspirators to consult free from any danger ofdisturbance. But Katherine, he told himself, was assuredly the victim ofcoincidence. He couldn't picture her entangled in any of Paredes'spurposes. Her dislike of the man was complete and open. But he saw thatRawlins out of the mass of apparently inexplicable clues had extractedthis material one and would follow it desperately no matter who was hurt;and Robinson was behind him. That accounted for their frequent excursionsupstairs during the afternoon, for Rawlins's ascent as soon as they hadreturned from the grave. They had evidently found something to sharpentheir 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 startedafter 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. "Ihaven't cared to talk about it. I had hoped to hold them off. They intendto search Katherine's room. I think they believe she has somethingimportant hidden there. I've been wondering if they've got track ofHowells'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 wasdevoted 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 gazingthrough the door of the private staircase.

  "We could go up this way," he was saying, "and across the old room sothat 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 togive you a chance. We are about to search your cousin's room. We hope tofind 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 tohave 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 shecould plan an escape from the grave and bring back to life a man threedays dead?"

  "Give me a human being that caused death," Robinson answered, "and I'lltackle the ghosts later. You're wrong if you think I'm going to quit coldbecause your grandfather looks like a dead thing that moves about andtalks. I shan't give up to that madness until I've done everything in mypower. 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 theassumption that your confession was honest. I want you to get MissPerrine out of her room. I want you to see that she stays downstairswhile 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. Evenyou'll acknowledge it's significant that all day when she has beendownstairs her door has been locked."

  "
It's only significant," Bobby flashed, "in view of your treatment of heryesterday."

  Robinson grinned.

  "That will hardly go down. Rawlins has hesitated to break in. I'veinstructed him to do it now, if necessary. For the last time, will youbring your cousin down? Will you go through and unlock the door leadingfrom 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 Iknow 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 herDoctor Groom wishes to speak to her about Mr. Blackburn. I'll warn himto keep her downstairs for a quarter of an hour. That should give youplenty 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 hadbecome clear that Katherine had never really loved him.

  "It's the best way to satisfy them," Graham said. "I have, perhaps, morefaith than you in Katherine."

  He left them to carry out Robinson's instructions. They waited at theentrance of the private staircase.

  "I may witness this outrage?" Bobby asked.

  "I'd rather you didn't speak of it in such harsh terms," Robinsonsmiled.

  Bobby didn't know what to expect. The whole thing might be a trick ofParedes, in line with his hints the night of Howells's death, to involveKatharine. The quiet confidence of the two officials was disturbing. Whathad Rawlins seen?

  After a long time Graham descended the private staircase, carrying alighted candle. He beckoned and they followed him back through theprivate hall into the wide and mournful bedroom. It encouraged Bobby tosee the district attorney and the detective hurry across it. After all,they were really without confidence of solving its ghostly riddle. Whatthey were about to do, he argued, was a last chance. They would findnothing. They would acknowledge themselves beaten.

  When they entered the farther wing he noticed that Katherine's doorstood wide.

  "You see," he said.

  "When I called her," Graham explained, "she thought something hadhappened 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 thecorridor he could see the interior of the room and all that went on thereduring the next few moments. A candle burned on the bureau, exposing thefeminine neatness and delicacy of the furnishings. The presence of thethree men was a desecration; what they were about to do, an unforgivableact of vandalism.

  Rawlins went to a work table while Robinson rummaged in the closet.Graham, meantime, bent against the footboard of the bed, watching withanxious eyes. Bobby's anger was increased by this picture. He resisted animpulse to run to the stairs and call Katherine up. That would simplyincrease Robinson's suspicions. There was nothing she could do, nothinghe could do.

  Rawlins had clearly been unsuccessful at the work table. He glided to thebureau. One after the other he opened the drawers, fumbling within,lifting the contents out, replacing them with a rough haste while Bobby'sfutile rage increased.

  Suddenly he saw Graham's attitude alter. Rawlins's back stiffened. Hepulled the bottom drawer altogether from the bureau and thrust it to oneside. 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 theopening. Abruptly everything altered for him. He wondered that hisphysical surroundings should remain the same, that the eager faces besidehim should retain their familiar lines.

  Against the back-board of the bureau, where it would fit neatly when thedrawer was in place, lay a plaster cast of a footmark. Near by was arumpled 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 nevermake me believe that Katherine knows it."

  "I've guessed," Rawlins said, "that the stuff was hidden here ever sincethis 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 wasbrought here."

  "I'll admit that," Rawlins answered, "but she wasn't far away, and shegot here before I could investigate, and she's kept the door locked eversince until just now."

  He lifted the exhibits out. The shape of the cast, the monogram on thehandkerchief 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 yourcousin's an accessory. But why the devil did you come to me and make aclean breast of it?"

  "Because," Bobby cried, "I didn't know anything about these things beinghere. Can't you see that?"

  "That's the trouble," Robinson answered uncertainly, "I think I do seeit."

  "Besides," Graham said, "you're still without the instrument thatcaused death."

  "I expect to land it in this room," Rawlins answered grimly.

  He replaced the drawer and continued to fumble among the clothing itcontained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On theforefinger 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 andthrew 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 andthrough 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 thetrick in both cases, and it's what scratched Mr. Paredes. Maybe younoticed 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. Idisagree with Rawlins. If she had been working with Paredes, which isunthinkable, she'd never have made such a mistake. She wouldn't havestruck him. I have seen her wear such a pin."

  "If she didn't cut him with it," Rawlins reasoned, "who else couldhave got it out of here and put it back to-night when she kept herdoor locked?"

  "There's no getting around it," Robinson said. "Take charge of thesethings, 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 haveto arrest you both. One of you used this pin in the old room. It doesn'tmake much difference which one. You've been working together, and we'llfind out about Paredes later."

  "You're making a terrible mistake," Bobby muttered. "You don't knowKatherine or you couldn't
suspect her of any share in such crimes. Giveme 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, howthe 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 oldroom as Howells and my grandfather did. Your case is no good unless youcan explain the miracle to-night. Give us this chance. Then in themorning, 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 windswept in, carrying a multitude of icy flakes.

  "The storm is worse," he said. "No one is likely to try to escape fromthis 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 pursuitof Paredes through the forest.

  "He's right, Mr. Robinson. You could lock up a dozen people. You mightsend 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 anyjail I know of. I mean one of us would be in the library and the other inthe corridor outside the broken door. How could he reasonably get out? Ifthere 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 anychance 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 likelyenough a put-up job. I don't know about the girl. Go ahead, anyway, andtell us, if you can, how the locked room was entered. Explain the mysteryof that old man who looks as if he were dead, but who moves around andtalks 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 yourcousin and yourself if you can. You have until daylight to-morrow."

  Bobby's gratitude was sufficiently eloquent in his eyes, but he saidnothing. He hurried from the room to find Katherine. As soon as he hadstepped 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'toverhear them.

  "Then you suspected what they were about?" he asked her.

  "Uncle Silas," she answered, "seemed just as he had been when I wentupstairs, 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 hadsearched so thoroughly before. It was an humiliation I couldn't bear toface again."

  "You don't know," he asked, "who took that stuff from Howells; who hid itin your bureau?"

  The trembling of her slender body became more pronounced. She spokethrough chattering teeth:

  "Bobby! Why do you ask such things? You believe I am guilty as youthought I was the woman in black. You think now, because those thingswere 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, andthen this! It's the Cedars forcing us apart as it did when we had ourquarrel. Only this time it is definite. Do you think I'm guilty of theseatrocious 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 nolonger chattered.

  "My dear," he said, "even if you had hidden that evidence I'd have knownit was to protect me."

  Then she cried a little, and for a moment, even in the unmerciful graspof their trouble, they were nearly happy. The footsteps of the others inthe corridor recalled them. Katherine leaned against the table, dryingher 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 youheard 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 andsecreted 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 rushedback to her face. Her eyes blazed. Bobby had never guessed her capableof such anger. His wonder grew that her outburst should be directedagainst Graham.

  "Keep quiet!" she cried hysterically. "Don't speak to me again. I hateyou! 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'smaterialistic 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 abarrier 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 chatteringteeth. She turned to Robinson. "I am going to my room. You needn't beafraid. 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 questionsof Paredes and the doctor he told of the discovery of the evidence and ofthe stout hat-pin that had, unquestionably, caused death. The man made itclear enough, however, that he didn't care to have Paredes know ofBobby's plan to spend the night in the old room, and Rawlins, Bobby, andGraham indicated that they understood.

  "It's quite absurd that any one should think Katherine guilty," thedoctor said to Robinson. "This evidence and its presence in her room aredetails that don't approach the heart of the mystery. That's to be foundonly 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 knowwhat happened to Howells when he tried. Silas Blackburn went there, andnone of us can understand the change that's taken place. I have beenwatching 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 cameback from the grave the man--if we can call him a man--seems tohave--shrunk."

  "Yes," Paredes said. "Perhaps we shouldn't have left him alone. Let us goback. 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'schair they could be sure of nothing until they had reached the lowerfloor and approached the fireplace. Then they saw. It was as
if Paredes'sfar-fetched fear had been realized. Blackburn was not in his chair, norwas 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 thehall; since he couldn't have gone upstairs, unobserved by them, he mustbe 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 satin the kitchen, still shaken by the discovery at the grave, said hehadn't moved for the last half hour, was entirely sure no one had comethrough from the front part of the house.

  They returned to the hall and stood in a half circle about the emptychair, where a little while ago Silas Blackburn had cowered, mouthingsnatches of his fear--"I'm not dead! I tell you I'm not dead! They can'tmake 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 theemptiness in the burial ground. Paredes spoke gropingly.

  "What would we find," he whispered, "if we went to the cemetery andlooked 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 inand out. It showed no fresh marks.

  "Silas Blackburn has not gone that way in the body," Doctor Groomrumbled.

  The storm was more violent. It discouraged the idea of examining thegraveyard again before morning.

  Robinson glanced at his watch. He led Bobby and the detective tothe library.

  "Then try your scheme if you want," he said, "but understand I assume noresponsibility. Honestly, I doubt if it amounts to anything. You'll shoutout if you are attacked, or the moment you suspect any real cause forfear. Rawlins will be in the corridor, and I'll be in the library orwandering about the house--always within call. Rawlins will guard thebroken 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 doctordidn't suspect what you are going to do. Change your mind before it's toolate, if you want."

  Bobby walked on without replying.

  "You can't dissuade him," Graham said, "because of what will happento-morrow unless the truth is discovered to-night."

  In the upper hall they found Katherine waiting. Her endeavours werehard 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 andthe 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 andslipped the key in his pocket.

  "Nobody will get through there any more than they will through the otherdoor which I'll watch."

  With Graham's help he made a quick inspection of the room, searching theclosets and glancing beneath the bed and behind the furniture.

  "There's no one," he said, preparing to depart. "I tell you there's nochance of a physical attack."

  His unimaginative mind cried out.

  "I tell you you'll find nothing, learn nothing, for there's nothing hereto find, nothing to learn."

  "Just the same," Graham urged, "you'll call out, won't you, Bobby, atthe first sign of anything out of the way? For God's sake take nofoolish chances."

  "I don't want the light," Bobby forced himself to say. "My grandfatherand Howells both put their candles out. I want everything as it was whenthey were attacked."

  Rawlins nodded and, followed by Graham, carried the candle from the roomand 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 thecandle, tore across the blackness, confusing him. He felt his way to thewall 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 hisfancy, stimulated by Silas Blackburn's story, against the black screenof the night. He understood at last what the old man had meant. Thedarkness did appear to possess a physical resistance, and as the minuteslengthened it seemed to encase all the suffering the room had everharboured. 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 hismind, in spite of his will, pictured, lying there, still forms withbandaged heads. He wouldn't close his eyes even when those fanciedshapes commenced to struggle in grotesque and impotent motion, like antswhose hill has been demolished. Nor could he drive from his ears theechoes of delirium that seemed to have lingered in the old room. Hecontinued to watch the darkness until the outlines of the room and ofits furniture dimly detached themselves from the black pall. The snowapparently caught what feeble light the moon forced through, reflectingit with a disconsolate inefficiency. He could see after a time thepallid frames of the windows, the pillow on the bed, and the wall aboveit. He fancied the dark stain, the depression in the mattress where thetwo bodies had rested. Those physical objects forced on him theprobability of his guilt. Then he recalled that both men, dead for manyhours, had moved apparently of their own volition; and his grandfatherhad come back from the grave and then had disappeared, leaving no trace;and he comforted himself with the thought that the explanation, if itcame at all, must arise from a force outside himself, whether of theliving or the dead.

  Because of that very assurance his fear of the room was incited. Couldany subtle change overcome him here as it evidently had the others? Couldthere be repeated in his case a return and a disappearance like hisgrandfather's? There was, as Rawlins had said, no way in or out for anattack. Therefore the danger must emerge from the dead, and he washelpless before their incomprehensible campaign.

  The whole illogical, abominable course of events warned him to bring hisvigil to an end before it should be too late; urged him to escape fromthe restless revolt of the dead who had dwelt in this room. And he wantedto respond. He wanted to go to the corridor and confess to Rawlins andRobinson that he was beaten. Yet he had begged so hard for this chance!That course, moreover, meant the arrest of Katherine and himself in themorning. For a few hours he could suffer here for her sake. Daylight, ifhe could persist until then, would bring release, and surely it couldn'tbe long now.

  He shrank back. Steadily it had grown colder in the old room. Heshivered. He drew his coat closer about him. What temerity to invade thedomain of death, as Paredes had called it, to seek the secrets ofunquiet souls!

  He ceased shivering. He waited, tensely quiet. Without calculation herealized that the moment for which he had hoped was at hand. The old roomwas about to disclose its secret, but would it permit him to depart withhis knowledge? He forgot to call. He waited, helpless and terrified,against the wall. He heard a moaning cry, faint and distant--the voicethey had heard in the forest and at the grave. But it was more than thatthat held him. He knew now what Katherine had heard across the court,heralding each tragedy and mystery. He caught a formless stirring. Yet onthe bed there was no one. Fortunately he had not gone there.

  He tried to call out, realizing that the danger could find him if itchose, but his throat was tight and it permitted no response.

  His glance hadn't wavered from the wall above the stained pillow. Therewas movement there. Then he saw. A hand protruded from the blackness ofthe panelling where they had sounded and measured without success. In theashen, unnatural light from the snow the long fingers of the hand werelike the feelers of a gigantic reptile. They wavered feebly, and hebecame convinced that the hand was immaterial, that it was unattached toany body. If that was so it couldn't be the hand of Katherine. At leasthe had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had been wrong about her. Th
atsense of victory stripped him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tightband about his throat. He called. He could prove the immaterial nature ofthe repulsive hand wavering from the wall.

  Crying out, he sprang to his feet. He flung himself across the bed. Withboth of his own hands he grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers whichwavered above the stained pillow, and once more his throat tightened. Hecouldn'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 andblood, and with the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine,conquering his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him. He rememberedthe evidence found in Katherine's room, and her refusal to answerquestions. Could Paredes and the officers have been right? Was itconceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp?

  The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins burst through. Grahamran after him. From the private stairway arose the sound of the districtattorney'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 thewall. He couldn't understand, for time after time each one of thepanels had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could see dimly thedark clothing of the person who, with a stealth in itself suggestive ofabnormal crime, had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried up hewondered if it wouldn't be the better course to free his prisoner, tocry out, urging an escape.

  Already it was too late. The detective and Graham had seen, and clearlythey had no doubt that he held the one responsible for two brutal murdersand 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. InBobby'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'vecaught the beast with the goods."

  Bobby released the slender fingers. He saw them vanish through theopening. He left the bed and reluctantly approached the door to theprivate hall. Excited phrases roared in his ears. He scarcely daredlisten because of their possible confirmation of his doubt. The fingers,he repeated to himself, had been too slender. The moment that had freedhim from fear of his own guilt had constructed in its place anuncertainty harder to face. Yet there was nothing to be gained bywaiting. Sooner or later he must learn whether Katherine had hidden theevidence, whether she had used the stout and deadly hatpin, whether shestruggled 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 thesombre room. He grasped her hands. He smiled happily. After all, the handhe 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 thatshe 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 sametime--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 oldroom.

  "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. Bobbypaused, yet, since seeing Katherine step from the corridor, his reasonhad 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 tocontrol his chagrin, to smother his revolt from the future; for the thinface was bare of emotion. The depths of the eyes as usual turned backscrutiny. The man disclosed neither guilt nor the outrage of an assumedinnocence; neither confession nor denial. He simply stared, straining atrifle 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 thedetection of crime he added easily:

  "Of course I've suspected this spigotty all along. I don't have to remindyou of that."

  "Sure," Rawlins said. "And didn't I put it up to him strong enoughto-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'tpretend to have them yet."

  "I gather not," Paredes mused, "with old Blackburn's ghost still inthe offing."

  "That talk," Rawlins said, "won't go down from you any more. I daresayyou'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 mustfind it very exhausting. You may think me dangerous, and I thank you; butI have no gun, and I'm no match for four men and a woman. Besides, youhurt my arm. Bobby was none too tender with that. I ought to have used mygood arm. You'll get no details from me unless you take your hands off."

  Robinson's hesitation was easily comprehensible. If Paredes wereresponsible for the abnormalities they had experienced at the Cedars hemight find it simple enough to trick them now, but the man's mockingsmile 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. Helighted a cigarette. He drew back the coat sleeve of his left arm andreadjusted the bandage. He glanced up as heavy footsteps heraldedDoctor Groom.

  "Hello, Doctor," he called cheerily. "I was afraid you'd nap through theshow. It seems the bloodhounds of the law left us out of theirconfidence."

  "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 positionto 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 youmiss this?"

  Robinson ran his fingers through his hair.

  "That's
what I've been asking myself," he said. "I went over thatpanelling a dozen times myself."

  Bobby and Katherine went closer. Bobby had been from the first puzzled byParedes's easy manner. He had a quick hope. He saw the man watch with anamused tolerance while the district attorney bent over, examining theface of the panel.

  "An entire section," Robinson said--"the thickness of the wall--has beenshifted to one side. No wonder we didn't see any joints or get a hollowsound from this panel any more than from the others. But why didn't westumble 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 inthis hall myself. The reason you didn't find any mechanism is that therewasn't any. You looked for something most cautiously concealed, notrealizing that the best concealment is no concealment at all. It'sfundamental. I don't know how it slipped my own mind. No grooves showbecause the door is an entire panel. There isn't even a latch. You merelypush hard against its face. Such arrangements are common enough incolonial houses, and there was more than the nature of the crimes to tellyou there was some such thing here. I mean if you will examine thefarther door closer than you have done you will find that it has fewercoats of paint than the one leading to the corridor, that its frame is ofnewer wood. In other words, it was cut through after the wing was built.This panel was the original door, designed, with the private stairway andthe hall, for the exclusive use of the master of the house. Try it."

  Robinson braced himself and shoved against the panel. It moved in itsgrooves 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 agesture of revulsion.

  "That gives the nasty game away."

  "Naturally," Paredes said, "and you must admit the game is as beautifullysimple as the panel. The instrument of death wasn't inserted through thebedding as you thought inevitable, Doctor. Suppose you were lying in thatbed, asleep, or half asleep, and you were aroused by such a sound asthat in the wall behind you? What would you do? What would any man dofirst of all?"

  Robinson nodded.

  "I see what you mean. I'd get up on my elbow. I'd look around as quicklyas I could to see what it was. I'd expose myself to a clean thrust. I'ddrop back on the bed, more thoroughly out of it than though I'd beenstruck 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 planfor 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 usedagainst 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'sno 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 fancythere are plenty in this house. I'm afraid we must look on SilasBlackburn 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 thingsstraight. These men, Bobby, I really believe, think me capable of thecrimes in this house. I want to know if you accept such a theory. Do youthink 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'dhave 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 willtell you so. If I had been planning to kill Bobby, why didn't I bringthe weapon? Why did I put my hand through the opening before I was readyto strike? Why did I use my left hand--my injured hand? I was likeHowells. I couldn't consider the case finished until I had solved themystery of the locked doors. I supposed the room was empty. When I foundthe secret to-night, I reached through to see how far my hand would befrom the pillow."

  Bobby's assurance of Paredes's innocence clouded his own situation; madeit, in a sense, more dangerous than it had ever been. His wanderingsabout the Cedars remained unexplained, and they knew now it had neverbeen 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 orBobby. I think I can tell you how the evidence got in your room. I cananswer nearly everything. There's one point--"

  He broke off, glancing at his watch.

  "Extraordinary courage!" he mused enigmatically. "I scarcelyunderstand 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 openedthis door?"

  "Yes. It sounded like the voice we heard at the grave."

  "I thought I heard it from the library," Robinson put in. "Then therumpus up here started, and I forgot about it."

  "The woman in black is very brave," Paredes mused. "We should have had avisit from her long before this."

  "Do you know who she is?" Robinson asked. "And as Rawlins says, notricks. We haven't let you go yet."

  "I thought," Paredes mocked, "that you had identified the woman in blackas Miss Katherine. She hasn't had anything to do with the mysterydirectly. 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 hehad told it in the library yesterday when they had caught him prowling inthe private staircase. All along he had told it while they had tried toconvict him of under-handed and unfriendly intentions.

  "I saw," Paredes was saying, "that Howells wouldn't succeed, and it wasobvious you and Rawlins would do worse, while Graham's blundering fromthe start left no hope. Somebody had to rescue Bobby."

  "Then why did you give us the impression," Graham asked, "that you werenot a friend?"

  Paredes held up his hand.

  "That's going rather far, Mr. Graham. Never once have I given such animpression. I have time after time stated the fact that I was here inBobby's service. That has been the trouble with all of you. As mostdetectives do, you have denied facts, searching always for something moresubtle. You have asked for impossibilities while you blustered that theycouldn't exist. Still every one is prone to do that when he fancieshimself in the presence of the supernatural. The facts of this case havebeen within your reach as well as mine. The motive has been an easy oneto 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 physicalexplanation they shrank from the keening that barely survived the heavyatmosphere 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 ofimminence. Even in the private staircase the pounding that had followedthe cry reached them with harsh reverberations. Its echoes filled thehouse as they dashed across the library and the dining room. In the hallthey realized that it came
from the front door. It had attained afeverish, 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 stoodbraced against the door. Rawlins caught her and held her upright. Theflakes whirled from the court in vicious pursuit. Bobby slammed thedoor shut.

  "Maria!" he cried. "You were right, Hartley!"

  Yet at first he could scarcely accept this pitiful creature as thebrilliant and exotic dancer with whom he had dined the night of the firstmurder. As he stared at her, her features twisted. She burst intoretching sobs. She staggered toward Paredes. As she went the snow meltedfrom her hat and cloak. She became a black figure again. With anappearance 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 slightaccent from which all the music had fled. "I couldn't stand it anotherminute. I couldn't get to the station, and I--I wanted to knowwhich--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. Noone 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 herfeet, encased in torn stockings. The dancer wore no shoes, and Bobbyguessed 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. Marialooked up at her with a dumb gratitude. Then Rawlins came back withJenkins. The butler was bent and haggard. His surrender to fear was morepronounced than it had been at the grave or when they had last seen himin the kitchen. He grasped a chair and, breathing heavily, looked fromone to the other, moistening his lips.

  Paredes faced the man, completely master of the situation. Through theold butler, it became clear, he would make his revelation and announcethat 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 anaccessory."

  Maria started to rise. She shrank back again, shivering close to thefire.

  "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 youfind 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 triedto stop him, but he pushed me away and ran out." His voice rose. "I tellyou 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 couldhave made."

  Maria struggled to her feet. Her eyes were the eyes of a person withoutreason. That familiar, hysterical quality which they had heard before ata distance vibrated in her voice.

  "Then he was the one! I wanted to kill him, I couldn't kill him because Inever 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 anddown the path to the lake. I--I tried to catch him, but my feet werefrozen, and the snow was slippery, and I couldn't find my shoes. But Icalled and he wouldn't stop. I had to know, because I wanted to kill himif it was Silas Blackburn. And I saw him run to the lake and splash inuntil the water was over his head."

  She flung her clenched hands out. Her voice became a scream, shot withall her suffering, all her doubt, all her fury.

  "You don't understand. He can't be punished. I tell you he's at thebottom of the lake with the man he murdered. And I can't pay him. I triedto 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 beput to bed and taken care of. She has been terribly exposed. You've heardher. 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 herupstairs. Katherine went with them. Almost immediately the doctor andRawlins hurried down.

  "I have told Katherine what to do," Doctor Groom said. "The woman may beall right in the morning. What's she been up to here?"

  "Then," Bobby cried, "there was a connection between the dinner party andthe murders. But what about my coming here unconscious? What about myhandkerchief?"

  "I can see no answer yet," Graham said.

  Paredes smiled.

  "Not when you've had the answer to everything? I have shown you thatSilas 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 guiltseem impossible. And I'm not sure you're right now, for there is no otherBlackburn he could have murdered, and Blackburns look alike. You wouldn'tmistake another man for one of them."

  "This house," Paredes smiled, "has all along been full of the presence ofthe other Blackburn. There has been evidence enough for you all to haveknown he was here."

  He stretched himself in an easy chair. He lighted a cigarette and blewthe smoke toward the ceiling.

  "I shall tell you the simple facts, if only to save my skin from thisblood-thirsty district attorney."

  "Rub it in," Robinson grinned. "I'll take my medicine."

  They gathered closer about the Panamanian. Jenkins sidled to the back ofhis 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 theafternoon of that ghastly dinner. She asked me to get hold of Bobby. Shewas 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 uswith your puritan watchfulness. Even you guessed that she had druggedBobby. I suspected it when I saw him go to pieces in the cafe. He gave methe slip, as I told you, in the coat room when I was trying to get himhome, so I went back and asked Maria what her idea was. She laughed in myface, denying everything. I, too, suspected the stranger, but I'veconvinced myself that he simply happened along by chance.

  "Now here's the first significant point: Maria by drugging Bobby defeatedher own purpose. He had been drinking more than the Band of Hope wouldapprove of, and on top of that he got an overdose of a powerful drug. Thedoctor can tell you better than I of the likely effect of such acombination."

  "What I told you in the court, Bobby," the doctor answered, "much thesame symptoms as genuine aphasia. Your brain was unquestionably dulled byan overdose on top of all that alcohol, while your mechanical reflexeswere stimulated. Automatically you followed your ruling impulse.Automatically at the last minute you revolted from exposing yourself insuch a condition to your cousin and your grandfather. Your lucid periodin the woods just before you reached the deserted house and went to sleepshowed that your exercise was overcoming the effect of the drug. Thatmoment, you'll remember, was coloured by the fanciful ideas such a drugwould induce."

  "So, Bobby," Paredes said, "althou
gh you were asleep when the body movedand when Howells was murdered, you can be sure you weren't anywhere nearthe 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 itfrightened us. It's plain. This sleep-walking had been suggested to youand you had brooded upon the suggestion until you were bound to respond.Graham's presence in your room, watching for just that reaction, was aperpetual, an unescapable stimulation. It would have been a miracle initself 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 tome. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria haddrugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an elementof trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understandingbetween her and old Blackburn--perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby awayfrom the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburnmurdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion onBobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me ofhis innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for Ihad dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get outhere by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was thekey, and I began to speculate about her.

  "She had told me something of her history. You might have had as muchfrom her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was achild, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother andan American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been inPanama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possibleunderstanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documentsabout Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papersexisted, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searchedthere a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to getupstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowingsomething, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I found what I wanted--acarefully hidden packet of accounts and letters and newspaper clippings.They're at your service, Mr. District Attorney. They told me that SilasBlackburn had been in Panama. They proved that Maria, instead of everhaving been his accomplice, was his enemy. They explained the source ofhis wealth and the foundation of that enmity. Certainly you remember thedoctor told us Silas Blackburn started life with nothing; and hadn'tyou ever wondered why with all his money he buried himself in thislonely 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 thefoundation of his fortune in Panama during the hideous scandals of theold French canal company. We knew he was a selfish tyrant. That discoveryshowed me how selfish, how merciless he was, for to succeed in Panamaduring those days required an utter contempt for all the standards of lawand decency. The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful ofcoppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of theghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, histrip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of theother Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly. Why had it beenforgotten here, Doctor, that Silas Blackburn had a brother--his partnerin those wretched and profitable contract scandals?"

  "You mean," the doctor answered, "Robert Blackburn. He was a year youngerthan Silas. This boy was named in memory of him. Why should any one haveremembered? He died in South America more than a quarter of a centuryago, 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 wantedto, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own--thecash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handlein that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, andwhen 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 likea restless spirit myself that night. You had just told your story aboutthe woman crying. If there was a strange woman around here it was almostcertainly Maria. As Rawlins deduced, she must either be hysterical orsignalling some one. Why should she come unless something had gone wrongthe night she drugged Bobby to keep him in New York? She wasn't hisenemy, because that very night she did him a good turn by trampling outhis 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 shehad made you drink too much or had drugged you. She really wanted you tocome to tea that afternoon. It was after writing that that she found outwhat had gone wrong. In other words, she read in the paper of SilasBlackburn's death, and in a panic she put on plain clothes and hurriedout to see what had happened. The fact that she forgot her managers, herprofessional reputation, everything, testified to her anxiety, and Ibegan to sense the truth. She had been born in Panama of a Spanish motherand an American father. She had some stealthy interest in the Cedars andthe Blackburns. She was about the right age. Ten to one she was SilasBlackburn's niece. So for me, many hours before Silas Blackburn walked inhere, the presence of the other Blackburn about the Cedars became atragic and threatening inevitability. Had Silas Blackburn been murderedor had his brother? Where was the survivor who had committed that brutalmurder? Maria had come here hysterically to answer those questions. Shemight know. The light in the deserted house! She might be hiding him andtaking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which henever answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. Ithought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I wouldtrap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we hadseen 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 cellarexplained also how she had turned her flashlight off and slipped throughthe hall and out while we searched the rooms. She hadn't gone back. Icouldn't find her. So I went on into Smithtown and sent a costly cableto my father. His answer came to-night just before Silas Blackburn walkedin. He had talked with several of the survivors of those evil days. Hegave me a confirmation of everything I had gathered from the papers. TheBlackburns had quarrelled over a contract. Robert had been struck overthe head. He wandered about the isthmus, half-witted, forgetting hisname, nursing one idea. Someone had robbed him, and he wanted his moneyback or a different kind of payment, but he couldn't remember who, and hetook it out in angry talk. Then he disappeared, and people said he hadgone to Spain. Of course his wife suspected a good deal. In Blackburn'sdesk are pitiful and threatening letters from her which he ignored. Thenshe died, and Blackburn thought he was safe. But he took no chances. Somesurvivor of those days might turn up and try blackmail. It was safer tobury himself here."

  "Then," Bobby said, "Maria must have brought her father with her when shecame from Spain last summer."

  "Brought him or sent for him," Paredes answered. "She's made most of hermoney on this side, you know. And she's as loyal and generous as she isimpulsive. Undoubtedly she had the doctors do what they could for herfather, and when she got track of Silas Blackburn through you, Bobby, shenursed in the warped brain that dominant idea with her own Latin desirefor justice and payment."

  "Then," Graham said, "that's what Silas Blackburn was afraid of insteadof Bobby, as he tried to convince us to-night to cover himself."

  "One minute, Mr. Paredes," Robinson broke in. "Why did you maintain thisextraordinary secrecy? Nobody would have hurt you if you had put us onthe right track
and asked for a little help. Why did you throw sand inour eyes? Why did you talk all the time about ghosts?"

  "I had to go on tiptoe," Paredes smiled. "I suspected there was at leastone spy in the house. So I gave the doctor's ghost talk all the impetus Icould. I was like Howells, as I've told you, in believing the casecouldn't be complete without the discovery of the secret entrance of theroom of death. My belief in the existence of such a thing made me leanfrom the first to Silas Blackburn rather than Robert. It's a tradition inmany 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 hadnever 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 didthe first letter that frightened your master come?"

  "The day he went to Smithtown and talked to the detective," thebutler quavered.

  "You can understand his reflections," Paredes mused. "Money was his god.He distrusted and hated his own flesh and blood because he thought theycoveted it. He was prepared to punish them by leaving it to a publiccharity. Now arises this apparition from the past with no claim in acourt 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 wasinevitable. He probably knew nothing whatever about Maria. If all theworld thought his brother dead, his brother's murder now wouldn't alteranything. I'll wager, Doctor, that at that time he talked over wounds atthe base of the brain with you."

  The doctor moved restlessly.

  "Yes. But he was very superstitious. We talked about it in connectionwith 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 todefend himself. But Maria had made sure that there should be no help forhim. When the man came did you take him upstairs, Jenkins?"

  "No, sir. I watched that Miss Katherine didn't leave the library, but Ithink she must have caught Mr. Silas in the upper hall after he hadpretended to give up and had persuaded his brother to spend the night."

  Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from hispocket. 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 ofusing candles in this house. There was never more than one candle in theold bedroom. There were only two when we looked at the murdered man inhis coffin. And in death there are no familiar facial expressions, noeccentricities of speech. So you can imagine my feelings when I tried topicture the drama that had gone on in that room. You can imagine poorMaria's. Which one? And Maria didn't know about the panel, or the use ofMiss Katherine's hat-pin, or the handkerchief. All of those detailsindicated 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 anumber of your handkerchiefs in your grandfather's bureau. Thehandkerchief furnished me with an important clue. It explains, I think,Jenkins will tell you, the moving of the body. It was obviously the causeof Howells's death."

  "Yes, sir," Jenkins quavered. "Mr. Silas thought he had dropped his ownhandkerchief in the room with the body. I don't know how you've foundthese things out."

  "By adding two and two," Paredes laughed. "In the first place, you mustall realize that we might have had no mystery at all if it hadn't beenfor Miss Katherine. For I don't know that Maria could have done much in alegal way. Silas Blackburn had intended to dispose of the bodyimmediately, but Miss Katherine heard the panel move and ran to thecorridor. She made Jenkins break down the door, and she sent for thepolice. Silas Blackburn was helpless. He was beaten at that moment, buthe did the best he could. He went to Waters, hoping, at the worst, toestablish an alibi through the book-worm who probably wouldn't rememberthe exact hour of his arrival. Waters's house offered him, too, astrategic advantage. You heard him say the spare room was on the groundfloor. You heard him add that he refused to open his door, either askingto be left alone or failing to answer at all. And he had to return to theCedars the next day, for he missed his handkerchief, and he picturedhimself, since he thought it was his own, in the electric chair. I'mright, Jenkins?"

  "Yes, sir. I kept him hidden and gave him his chance along in theafternoon. He wanted me to try to find the handkerchief, but I didn'thave the courage. He couldn't find it. He searched through the panel allabout the body and the bed."

  "That was when Katherine heard," Bobby said, "when we found the body hadbeen moved."

  "It put him in a dreadful way," Jenkins mumbled, "for no one had botheredto 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 anarrest in the morning, he thought about the handkerchief and knew he wasdone 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 takethe evidence when he killed Howells."

  "Didn't you know you prevented that, sir?" Jenkins asked. "I heard youcome 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 youcould 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. Grahamwere 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 toturn 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 amistake he'd made. Howells didn't give me that report I showed you. Itwas in his pocket with the other things. We got it open withouttearing the envelope and Mr. Silas read it. He wouldn't destroyanything. He never dreamed of anybody's suspecting Miss Katherine, sohe told me to hide the things in her bureau. I think he figured onusing the evidence to put the blame on Mr. Robert in case it was theonly 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 showhimself to-night," Rawlins said.

  "That's the beautiful justice of the whole thing," Paredes answered, "forthere was nothing else whatever for him to do. There never had beenanything 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 tohide the truth or face the electric chair. If he disappeared he wasinfinitely worse off than though he had settled with his brother--a manwithout a home, without a name, without a penny."

  Jenkins nodded.

  "He had to come back," he said slowly, "and he knew how scared you wereof the old room."

  "The funeral and the snow," Paredes said, "gave him his chance. Jenkinswill 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 thecoffin and covered it again. Of course the snow effaced every one oftheir tracks. He came in, naturally scare
d to death, and told us thatstory based on the legends of the Cedars and the doctor's supernaturaltheories. And you must admit that he might, as you call it, have got awaywith it. He did create a mystification. The body of the murdered man haddisappeared. 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. Shewent to sleep crying. May I come down?"

  The doctor nodded. She walked down, glancing from one to the otherquestioningly.

  "Poor Maria!" Paredes mused. "She's the one I pity most. She's been attimes, I think, what Rawlins suspected--an insane woman, wandering andcrying 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 herfather was dead. I begged her to come in. I told her we were friends. Butshe fought. She wouldn't answer my questions. She struck me finally whenI tried to force her to come out of the storm. Robinson, I want you tolisten to me for a moment. I honestly believe, for everybody's sake, Idid a good thing when I asked Silas Blackburn just before he disappearedwhy he had thrown his brother's body in the lake. I'd hoped it wouldsimply make him run for it. I prayed that we would never hear from himagain, and that Miss Katherine and Bobby could be spared the uglyscandal. Doesn't this do as well? Can't we get along without muchpublicity?"

  "You've about earned the right to dictate," Robinson said gruffly.

  "Thanks."

  "For everybody's sake!" Bobby echoed. "You're right, Carlos. Maria mustbe considered now. She shall have what was taken from her father, withinterest. I know Katherine will agree."

  Katherine nodded.

  "I doubt if Maria will want it or take it," Paredes said simply. "She hasplenty 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 athing of which we of Spanish blood are rather proud--a desire forjustice, 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'venever 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 andmy common sense."

  He yawned again. He arranged the card table in front of the fire. He gotthe cards and piled them in neat packs on the green cloth. He placed abox of cigarettes convenient to his right hand. He smoked.

  "I'm very sleepy, but I've been so stupid over this solitaire since I'vebeen at the Cedars that I must solve it in the interest of myself-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 todisappear because then you'd have a claim on me."

  Katherine touched his hand. There were tears in her eyes. It wasn'tnecessary for her to speak. Paredes indicated two chairs.

  "If you aren't too tired, sit here and help me for a while. Perhapsbetween us we'll get somewhere. I wonder why I have been so stupid withthe 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 aperfectly simple play staring me in the face I nearly made the mistake ofchoosing a difficult one. That would have got me in trouble while thesimple one gives me the game. Why are people like that?"

  As he moved the cards with a deft assurance to their desired combinationhe smiled drolly at Graham, Rawlins, and Robinson.

  "I guess it must be human nature. Don't you think so, Mr. DistrictAttorney?"

  * * * * *

  The condition Paredes had more than once foreseen was about to shroud theCedars in loneliness and abandonment. After the hasty double burial inthe old graveyard the few things Bobby and Katherine wanted from thehouse had been packed and taken to the station. At Katherine's suggestionthey had decided to leave last of all and to walk. Paredes with a tendersolicitude 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 thePanamanian'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 ghostsaren'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 embarrassmentmade them all uncomfortable.

  "You have not said much to me, Katherine," he began. "Is it because Ipractically 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 didthe other night in the hall, but I thought, because you saw Bobby andI had come together, that you had spied on me, had deliberatelytricked me, knowing the evidence was in my room. Of course you did tryto help Bobby."

  "Yes," he said, "and I tried to help you that night. I was sure youwere innocent. I believed the best way to prove it to them was to letthem search. The two of you have nothing worse than jealousy toreproach me with."

  In a sense it pleased Bobby that Graham, who had always made himfeel unworthy in Katherine's presence, should confess himself notbeyond 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 theautomobile. As they drove off Paredes turned. His face, as he waved alanguid 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 thetime-stained, melancholy walls. At the curve of the driveway they pausedand looked back. The shroud of loneliness and abandonment descending uponthe Cedars became for them nearly ponderable. So they turned from thatbrooding picture, and hand in hand walked out of the forest into thefriendly and welcoming sunlight.

  THE END

  Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends