THE ONE WHO CREPT IN THE PRIVATE STAIRCASE
The odd, mournful crying lost itself in the restless lament of the wind.
The thicket from which it had seemed to issue assumed in the pallid
moonlight a new unfriendliness. Instinctively the six men moved closer
together. The coroner's thin tones expressed his alarm:
"What the devil was that? I don't really believe there could be a woman
around here."
"A queer one!" the detective grunted.
The district attorney questioned Bobby and Graham.
"That's the voice you heard from the house?"
Graham nodded.
"Perhaps not so far away."
Doctor Groom, hitherto more captured than any of them by the imminence of
a spiritual responsibility for the mystery of the Cedars, was the first
now to reach for a rational explanation of this new phase.
"We mustn't let our fancies run away with us. The coroner's right for
once. No excuse for a woman hiding in that thicket. A bird, maybe, or
some animal--"
"Sounded more like a human being," Robinson objected.
The detective reasoned in a steady unmoved voice: "Only a mad woman would
wander through the woods, crying like that without a special purpose.
This man Paredes has left the house and come through here. I'd guess it
was a signal."
"Graham and I had thought of that," Bobby said.
"Howells was a sharp one," Robinson mused, "but he must have gone wrong
on this fellow. He 'phoned me the man knew nothing. Spoke of him as a
foreigner who lolled around smoking cigarettes and trying to make a fool
of him with a lot of talk about ghosts."
"Howells," Graham said, "misjudged the case from the start. He wasn't to
blame, but his mistake cost him his life."
Robinson didn't answer. Bobby saw that the man had discarded his
intolerant temper. From that change he drew a new hope. He accepted it as
the beginning of fulfilment of his prophecy last night that an accident
to Howells and the entrance of a new man into the case would give him a
fighting chance. It was clearly Paredes at the moment who filled the
district attorney's mind.
"Go after him," he said shortly to Rawlins. "If you can get away with it
bring him back and whoever you find with him."
Rawlins hesitated.
"I'm no coward, but I know what's happened to Howells. This isn't an
ordinary case. I don't want to walk into an ambush. It would be safer not
to run him down alone."
"All right," Robinson agreed, "I don't care to leave the Cedars for the
present. Perhaps Mr. Graham--"
But Graham wasn't enthusiastic. It never occurred to Bobby that he was
afraid. Graham, he guessed, desired to remain near Katherine.
"I'll go, if you like," Doctor Groom rumbled.
It was probable that Graham's instinct to stay had sprung from service
rather than sentiment. The man, it was reasonable, sought to protect
Katherine from the Cedars itself and from Robinson's too direct methods
of examination. As an antidote for his unwelcome jealousy Bobby offered
himself to Rawlins.
"Would you mind if I came, too? I've known Paredes a long time."
Robinson sneered.
"What do you think of that, Rawlins?"
But the detective stepped close and whispered in the district
attorney's ear.
"All right," Robinson said. "Go with 'em, if you want, Mr. Blackburn."
And Bobby knew that he would go, not to help, but to be watched.
The others strayed toward the house. The three men faced the entrance of
the path alone.
"No more loud talk now," the detective warned. "If he went on tiptoe
so can we."
Even with this company Bobby shrank from the dark and restless forest.
With a smooth skill the detective followed the unfamiliar path. From time
to time he stooped close to the ground, shaded his lamp with his hand,
and pressed the control. Always the light verified the presence of
Paredes ahead of them. Bobby knew they were near the stagnant lake. The
underbrush was thicker. They went with more care to limit the sound of
their passage among the trees. And each moment the physical surroundings
of the pursuit increased Bobby's doubt of Paredes. No ordinary impulse
would bring a man to such a place in this black hour before the
dawn--particularly Paredes, who spoke constantly of his superstitious
nature, who advertised a thorough-paced fear of the Cedars. The
Panamanian's decision to remain, his lack of emotion before the tragic
succession of events at the house, his attempt to enter the corridor just
before Bobby had gone himself to the old room for the evidence, his
desire to direct suspicion against Katherine, finally this excursion in
response to the eerie crying, all suggested a definite, perhaps a
dangerous, purpose in the brain of the serene and inscrutable man.
They slipped to the open space about the lake. The moon barely
distinguished for them the flat, melancholy stretch of water. They
listened breathlessly. There was no sound beyond the normal stirrings of
the forest. Bobby had a feeling, similar to the afternoon's, that he was
watched. He tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness across the
lake where he had fancied the woman skulking. The detective's keen senses
were satisfied.
"Dollars to doughnuts they're not here. They've probably gone on. I'll
have to take a chance and show the light again."
Fresh footprints were revealed in the narrow circle of illumination.
Testifying to Paredes's continued stealth, they made a straight line to
the water's edge. Rawlins exclaimed:
"He stepped into the lake. How deep is it?"
The black surface of the water seemed to Bobby like an opaque glass,
hiding sinister things. Suppose Paredes, instead of coming to a
rendezvous, had been led?
"It's deep enough in the centre," he answered.
"Shallow around the edges?"
"Quite."
"Then he knew we were after him," Groom said.
Rawlins nodded and ran his light along the shore. A few yards to the
right a ledge of smooth rock stretched from the water to a grove of pine
trees. The detective arose and turned off his light.
"He's blocked us," he said. "He knew he wouldn't leave his marks on the
rocks or the pine needles. No way to guess his direction now."
Doctor Groom cleared his throat. With a hesitant manner he recited the
discovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountable
disappearances their failure to find its source.
"I was thinking," he explained, "that Paredes alone saw the light give
out. It was his suggestion that he go to the front of the house to
investigate. This path might be used as a short cut to the deserted
house. The rendezvous may have been there."
Rawlins was interested again.
"How far is it?"
"Not much more than a mile," Groom answered.
"Then we'll go," the detective decided. "Show the way."
Groom in the lead, they struck off through the woods. Bobby, who walked
last, noticed the faint messengers of dawn behind the trees in the east.
He was glad. The night cloaked too much in this neighbourhood. By
daylight the empty house would guard its secret less easily. Suddenly he
paused and stood quite still. He wanted to call to the others, to point
out what he had seen. There was no question. By chance he had
accomplished the task that had seemed so hopeless yesterday. He had found
the spot where his consciousness had come back momentarily to record a
wet moon, trees straining in the wind like puny men, and a figure in a
mask which he had called his conscience. He gazed, his hope retreating
before an unforeseen disappointment, for with the paling moon and the
bent trees survived that very figure on the discovery of whose nature he
had built so vital a hope; and in this bad light it conveyed to him an
appearance nearly human. Through the underbrush the trunk of a tree
shattered by some violent storm mocked him with its illusion. The dead
leaves at the top were like cloth across a face. Therefore, he argued,
there had been no conspiracy against him. Paredes was clean as far as
that was concerned. He had wandered about the Cedars alone. He had opened
his eyes at a point between the court and the deserted house.
Rawlins turned back suspiciously, asking why he loitered. He continued
almost indifferently. He still wanted to know Paredes's goal, but his
disappointment and its meaning obsessed him.
When they crept up the growing light exposed the scars of the deserted
house. Everything was as Bobby remembered it. At the front there was no
decayed wood or vegetation to strengthen the doctor's half-hearted theory
of a phosphorescent emanation.
The tangle of footsteps near the rear door was confusing and it was some
time before the three men straightened and glanced at each other, knowing
that the doctor's wisdom was proved. For Paredes had been there recently;
for that matter, might still be in the house. Moreover, he hadn't hidden
his tracks, as he could have done, in the thick grass. Instead he had
come in a straight line from the woods across a piece of sandy ground
which contained the record of his direction and his continued stealth.
But inside they found nothing except burnt-out matches strewn across the
floor, testimony of their earlier search. The fugitive had evidently
left more carefully than he had come. The chill emptiness of the deserted
house had drawn and released him ahead of the chase.
"I guess he knew what the light meant," the detective said, "as well as
he did that queer calling. It complicates matters that I can't find a
woman's footprints around here. She may have kept to the grass and this
marked-up path, for, since I don't believe in banshees, I'll swear
there's been a woman around, either a crazy woman, wandering at large,
who might be connected with the murders, or else a sane one who
signalled the foreigner. Let's get back and see what the district
attorney makes of it."
"It might be wiser not to dismiss the banshees, as you call them, too
hurriedly," Doctor Groom rumbled.
As they returned along the road in the growing light Bobby lost the
feeling he had had of being spied upon. The memory of such an adventure
was bound to breed something like confidence among its actors. Rawlins,
Bobby hoped, would be less unfriendly. The detective, in fact, talked as
much to him as to the doctor. He assured them that Robinson would get the
Panamanian unless he proved miraculously clever.
"He's shown us that he knows something," he went on. "I don't say how
much, because I can't get a motive to make it worth his while to commit
such crimes."
The man smiled blandly at Bobby.
"While in your case there's a motive at least--the money."
He chuckled.
"That's the easiest motive to understand in the world. It's stronger
than love."
Bobby wondered. Love had been the impulse for the last few months' folly
that had led him into his present situation. Graham, over his stern
principles of right, had already stepped outside the law in backing
Katherine's efforts to save Bobby. So he wondered how much Graham would
risk, how far he was capable of going himself, at the inspiration of
such a motive.
The sun was up when they reached the Cedars. Katherine had gone to her
room. The coroner had left. Robinson and Graham had built a fresh fire in
the hall. They sat there, talking.
"Where you been?" Robinson demanded. "We'd about decided the spooks had
done for you."
The detective outlined their failure. The district attorney listened with
a frown. At the end he arose and, without saying anything, walked to the
telephone. When he returned he appeared better satisfied.
"Mr. Paredes," he said, "will have to be a slick article to make a clean
getaway. And I'm bringing another man to keep reporters out. They'll know
from Howells's murder that Mr. Blackburn didn't die a natural death. If
reporters get in don't talk to them. I don't want that damned foreigner
reading in the papers what's going on here. I'd give my job to have him
in that chair for five minutes now."
Graham cleared his throat.
"I scarcely know how to suggest this, since it is sufficiently clear,
because of Howells's suspicions, that you have Mr. Blackburn under close
observation. But he has a fair idea of Paredes's habits, his haunts, and
his friends in New York. He might be able to learn things the police
couldn't. I've one or two matters to take me to town. I would make myself
personally responsible for his return--"
The district attorney interrupted.
"I see what you mean. Wait a minute."
He clasped his hands and rolled his fat thumbs one around the other. The
little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, became enigmatic. All at once he
glanced up with a genial smile.
"Why not? I haven't said anything about holding Mr. Blackburn as more
than a witness."
His tone chilled Bobby as thoroughly as a direct accusation would
have done.
"And," Robinson went on, "the sooner you go the better. The sooner you
get back the better."
Graham was visibly puzzled by this prompt acquiescence. He started for
the stairs, but the district attorney waved him aside.
"Coats and hats are downstairs. No need wasting time."
Graham turned to Doctor Groom.
"You'll tell Miss Perrine, Doctor?"
The doctor showed that he understood the warning Graham wished to convey.
The district attorney made a point of walking to the stable to see them
off. Graham gestured angrily as they drove away.
"It's plain as the nose on your face. I was too anxious to test their
attitude toward you, Bobby. He jumped at the chance to run us out of the
house. He'll have several hours during which to turn the place upside
down, to give Katherine the third degree. And we can't go back. We'll
have to see it through."
"Why should he give me a chance to slip away?" Bobby asked.
But before long he realized that Robinson was taking no chances. At the
junction of the road from Smithtown a car picked them up and clung to
their heels all the way to the city.
"Rawlins must have telephoned," Graham said, "while we went to the
stable. They're still playing Howells's game. They'll give you
plenty of rope."
He drove straight to Bobby's apartment. The elevator man verified their
suspicions. Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search. A
familiar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outside
Bobby's door.
"I'm through, gentlemen," he greeted them impudently.
Graham faced him in a burst of temper.
"The city may have to pay for this outrage."
The man grinned.
"I should get gray hairs about that."
He went on downstairs. They entered the apartment to find confusion in
each room. Bureau drawers had been turned upside down. The desk had been
examined with a reckless thoroughness. Graham was frankly worried.
"I wonder if he found anything. If he did you won't get out of town."
"What could he find?" Bobby asked.
"If the court was planted," Graham answered, "why shouldn't these rooms
have been?"
"After last night I don't believe the court was planted," Bobby said.
In the lower hall the elevator man handed Bobby the mail that had come
since the night of his grandfather's murder. In the car again he glanced
over the envelopes. He tore one open with a surprised haste.
"This is Maria's handwriting," he told Graham.
He read the hastily scrawled note aloud with a tone that failed
toward the end.
"DEAR BOBBY;
"You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport. You were very wicked
last night. Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty little
cocktails. Why should you threaten poor Maria? And you boasted you were
going out to the Cedars to kill your grandfather because you didn't like
him any more. So I told Carlos to take you home. I was afraid of a scene
in public. Come around. Have tea with me. Tell me you forgive me. Tell me
what was the matter with you."
"She must have written that yesterday morning," Bobby muttered. "Good
Lord, Hartley! Then it was in my mind!"
"Unless that letter's a plant, too," Graham said. "Yet how could she know
there'd be a search? Why shouldn't she have addressed it to the Cedars
where there was a fair chance of its being opened and read by the police?
Why hasn't my man made any report on her? We've a number of questions to
ask Maria."
But word came down from the dancer's apartment that Maria wasn't at home.
"When did she go out?" Graham asked the hall man.
"Not since I came on duty at six o'clock."
Graham slipped a bill in the man's hand.
"We've an important message for her. We'd better leave it with the maid."
When they were alone in the upper hall he explained his purpose to Bobby.
"We must know whether she's actually here. If she isn't, if she hasn't
been back for the last twenty-four hours--don't you see? It was
yesterday afternoon you thought you saw a woman at the lake, and last
night a woman cried about the Cedars--"
"That's going pretty far, Hartley."
"It's a chance. A physical one."
A pretty maid opened the door. Her face was troubled. She studied them
with frank disappointment.
"I thought--" she began.
"That your mistress was coming back?" Graham flashed.
There was no concealment in the girl's manner. It was certain that Maria
was not in the apartment.
"You remember me?" Bobby asked.
"Yes. You have been here. You are a friend of mademoiselle's. You can,
perhaps, tell me where she is."
Bobby shook his head. The girl spread her hands. She burst out excitedly:
"What is one to do? I have telephoned the theatre. There was no one there
who knew anything at all, except that mademoiselle had not appeared at
the performance last night."
Graham glanced at Bobby.
"When," he asked, "did you see her last?"
"It was before luncheon yesterday."
"Did she leave no instructions? Didn't she say when she would be back?"
The girl nodded.
"That's what worries me, for she said she would be back after the
performance last night."
"She left no instructions?" Graham repeated.
"Only that if any one called or telephoned I was to make no appointments.
What am I to do? Perhaps I shouldn't be talking to you. She would never
forgive me for an indiscretion."
"For the present I advise you to do nothing," Graham said. "You can
safely leave all that to her managers. I am going to see them now. I
will tell them what you have said."
The girl's eyes moistened.
"Thank you, sir. I have been at my wits' end."
Apparently she withheld nothing. She played no part to confuse the
dancer's friends.
On the way to the managers' office, with the trailing car behind them,
Graham reasoned excitedly:
"For the first time we seem to be actually on the track. Here's a
tangible clue that may lead to the heart of the case. Maria pulled the
wool over the maid's eyes, too. She didn't want her to know her plans,
but her instructions show that she had no intention of returning last
night. She probably made a bee line for the Cedars. It was probably she
that you saw at the lake, probably she who cried last night. If only she
hadn't written that note! I can't get the meaning of it. It's up to her
managers now. If they haven't heard from her it's a safe guess she's
playing a deep game, connected with the crying, and the light at the
deserted house, and the disappearance of Paredes before dawn. You must
realize the connection between that and your condition the other evening
after you had left them."
Bobby nodded. He began to hope that at the managers' office they would
receive no explanation of Maria's absence destructive to Graham's theory.
Early as it was they found a bald-headed man in his shirt sleeves pacing
with an air of panic a blantantly furnished office.
"Well!" he burst out as they entered. "My secretary tells me you've come
about this temperamental Carmen of mine. Tell me where she is. Quick!"
Graham smiled at Bobby. The manager ran his fingers across his bald and
shining forehead.
"It's no laughing matter."
"Then she has definitely disappeared?" Graham said.
"Disappeared! Why did I come down at this ungodly hour except on the
chance of getting some word? She didn't even telephone last night. I had
to show myself in front of the curtain and give them a spiel about a
sudden indisposition. And believe me, gentlemen, audiences ain't what
they used to be. Did these ginks sit back and take the show for what it
was worth? Not by a darn sight. Flocked to the box office and howled for
their money back. If she doesn't appear to-night I might as well close
the house. I'll be ruined."
"Unless," Graham suggested, "you get your press agent to make capital out
of her absence. The papers would publish her picture and thousands of
people would look her up for you."
The manager ceased his perplexed massage of his forehead. He shook
hands genially.
"I'd thought of that with some frills. 'Has beautiful dancer met foul
play? Millions in jewels on her person when last seen.' Old stuff, but
they rise to it."
"That will help," Graham said to Bobby when they were in the car again.
"The reporters will find Maria quicker than any detective I can put my
hand on. My man evidently fell down because she had gone before I got him
on the case." At his office they learned that was the fact. The private
detective had been able to get no slightest clue as to Maria's
whereabouts. Moreover, Bobby's description of the stranger who had
entered the cafe with her merely suggested a type familiar to the
Tenderloin. For purposes of identification it was worthless. Always
followed by the car from Smithtown, they went to the hotel where Paredes
had lived, to a number of his haunts. Bobby talked with men who knew him,
but he learned nothing. Paredes's friends had had no word since the man's
departure for the Cedars the day before. So they turned their backs on
the city, elated by the significance of Maria's absence, yet worried by
the search and the watchful car which never lost sight of them. When they
were in the country Graham sighed his relief. "You haven't been stopped.
Therefore, nothing was found at your apartment, but if that wasn't
planted why should Maria have sent an incriminating note there?"
"Unless," Bobby answered, "she told the truth. Unless she was sincere
when she mailed it. Unless she learned something important between the
time she wrote it and her disappearance from her home."
"Frankly, Bobby," Graham said, "the note and the circumstances under
which it came to you are as damaging as the footprints and the
handkerchief, but it doesn't tell us how any human being could have
entered that room to commit the murders and disturb the bodies. At least
we've got one physical fact, and I'm going to work on that."
"If it is Maria prowling around the Cedars," Bobby said, "she's amazingly
slippery, and with Paredes gone what are you going to do with your
physical fact? And how does it explain the friendly influence that wiped
out my footprints? Is it a friendly or an evil influence that snatched
away the evidence and that keeps it secreted?"
"We'll see," Graham said. "I'm going after a flesh-and-blood criminal who
isn't you. I'm going to try to find out what your grandfather was afraid
of the night of his murder."
After a time he glanced up.
"You've known Paredes for a long time, Bobby, but I don't think you've
ever told me how you met him."
"A couple of years ago I should think," Bobby answered. "Somebody brought
him to the club. I've forgotten who. Carlos was working for a big Panama
importing firm. He was trying to interest this chap in the New York end.
I saw him off and on after that and got to like him for his quiet manner
and a queer, dry wit he had in those days. Two or three months ago he--he
seemed to fit into my humour, and we became pretty chummy as you know.
Even after last night I hate to believe he's my enemy."
"He's your enemy," Graham answered, "and last night's the weak joint in
his armour. I wonder if Robinson didn't scare him away by threatening to
question him. Paredes isn't connected with that company now, is he? I
gather he has no regular position."
"No. He's picked up one or two temporary things with the fruit companies.
More than his running away, the thing that worries me about Carlos is his
ridiculous suspicion of Katherine."
He told Graham in detail of that conversation. Graham frowned. He opened
the throttle wider. Their anxiety increased to know what had happened at
the Cedars since their departure. The outposts of the forest imposed
silence, closed eagerly about them, seemed to welcome them to its dead
loneliness. There was a man on guard at the gate. They hurried past. The
house showed no sign of life, but when they entered the court Bobby saw
Katherine at her window, doubtless attracted by the sounds of their
arrival. Her face brightened, but she raised her arms in a gesture
suggestive of despair.
"Does she mean the evidence has been found?" Bobby asked.
Graham made no attempt to conceal his real interest, the impulse at the
back of all his efforts in Bobby's behalf.
"More likely Robinson has worried the life out of her since we've been
gone. I oughtn't to have left her. I set the trap myself."
When they were in the house their halting curiosity was lost in a vast
surprise. The hall was empty but they heard voices in the library.
They hurried across the dining room, pausing in the doorway, staring
with unbelieving eyes at the accustomed picture they had least
expected to see.
Paredes lounged on the divan, smoking with easy indifference. His
clothing and his shoes were spotless. He had shaved, and his beard had
been freshly trimmed. Rawlins and the district attorney stood in front of
the fireplace, studying him with perplexed eyes. The persistence of their
regard even after Bobby's entrance suggested to him that the evidence
remained secreted, that the officers, under the circumstances, were
scarcely interested in his return. He was swept himself into an explosive
amazement:
"Carlos! What the deuce are you doing here?"
The Panamanian expelled a cloud of smoke. He smiled.
"Resting after a fatiguing walk."
In his unexpected presence Bobby fancied a demolition of the hope Graham
and he had brought back from the city. He couldn't imagine guilt lurking
behind that serene manner.
"Where did you come from? What were you up to last night?"
There was no accounting for Paredes's daring, he told himself, no
accounting for his easy gesture now as he drew again at his cigarette
and tossed it in the fireplace.
"These gentlemen," he said, "have been asking just that question. I'm
honoured. I had no idea my movements were of such interest. I've told
them that I took a stroll. The night was over. There was no point in
going to bed, and all day I had been without exercise."
"Yet," Graham said harshly, "you have had practically no sleep since you
came here."
Paredes nodded.
"Very distressing, isn't it?"
"Maybe," Rawlins sneered, "you'll tell us why you went on tiptoe, and I
suppose you didn't hear a woman crying in the woods?"
"That's just it," Paredes answered. "I did hear something like that, and
it occurred to me to follow such a curious sound. So I went on tiptoe, as
you call it."
"Why," Robinson exclaimed angrily, "you walked in the lake to hide
your tracks!"
Paredes smiled.
"It was very dark. That was chance. Quite silly of me. My feet got wet."
"I gather," Rawlins said, "it was chance that took you to the
deserted house."
Paredes shook his head.
"Don't you think I was as much puzzled as the rest by that strange,
disappearing light? It was as good a place to walk as any."
"Where have you been since?" Graham asked.
"When I had got there I was tired," Paredes answered. "Since it wasn't
far to the station I thought I'd go on into Smithtown and have a bath and
rest. But I assure you I've trudged back from the station just now."
Suddenly he repeated the apparently absurd formula he had used
with Howells.
"You know the court seems full of unfriendly things--what the ignorant
would call ghosts. I'm Spanish and I know." After a moment he added: "The
woods, too. I shouldn't care to wander through them too much after dark."
Robinson stared, but Rawlins brushed the question aside.
"What hotel did you go to in Smithtown?"
"It's called the 'New.' Nothing could be farther from the fact."
"Shall I see if that's straight, sir?"
The district attorney agreed, and Rawlins left the room. Paredes laughed.
"How interesting! I'm under suspicion. It would be something, wouldn't
it, to commit crimes with the devilish ingenuity of these? No, no, Mr.
District Attorney, look to the ghosts. They alone are sufficiently
clever. But I might say, since you take this attitude, that I don't care
to answer any more questions until you discover something that might give
you the right to ask them."
He lay back on the divan, languidly lighting another cigarette. Graham
beckoned Robinson. Bobby followed them out, suspecting Graham's purpose,
unwilling that action should be taken too hastily against the Panamanian;
for even now guilty knowledge seemed incompatible with Paredes's polished
reserve. When he joined the others, indeed, Graham with an aggressive air
was demanding the district attorney's intentions.
"If he could elude you so easily last night, it's common sense to put him
where you can find him in case of need. He's given you excuse enough."
"The man's got me guessing," Robinson mused, "but there are other
elements."
"What's happened since we left?" Graham asked quickly. "Have you got any
trace of Howells's evidence?"
Robinson smiled enigmatically, but his failure was apparent.
"I'm like Howells," he said. "I'd risk nearly anything myself to learn
how the room was entered, how the crimes were committed, how those poor
devils were made to alter their positions."
"So," Bobby said, "you had my rooms in New York searched. You had me
followed to-day. It's ridiculous."
Robinson ignored him. He stepped to the front door, opened it, and looked
around the court.
"What did the sphinx mean about ghosts in the court?"
They walked out, gazing helplessly at the trampled grass about the
fountain, at the melancholy walls, at the partly opened window of the
room of mystery.
"He knows something," Robinson mused. "Maybe you're right, Mr. Graham,
but I wonder if I oughtn't to go farther and take you all."
Graham smiled uncomfortably, but Bobby knew why the official failed to
follow that radical course. Like Howells, he hesitated to remove from the
Cedars the person most likely to solve its mystery. As long as a chance
remained that Howells had been right about Bobby he would give Silas
Blackburn's grandson his head, merely making sure, as he had done this
morning, that there should be no escape. He glanced up.
"I wonder if our foreigner's laughing at me now."
Graham made a movement toward the door.
"We might," he said significantly, "find that out without disturbing
him."
Robinson nodded and led the way silently back to the house. Such a method
was repugnant to Bobby, and he followed at a distance. Then he saw from
the movements of the two men ahead that the library had again offered the
unexpected, and he entered. Paredes was no longer in the room. Bobby was
about to speak, but Robinson shook his head angrily, raising his hand in
a gesture of warning. All three strained forward, listening, and Bobby
caught the sound that had arrested the others--a stealthy scraping that
would have been inaudible except through such a brooding silence as
pervaded the old house.
Bobby's interest quickened at this confirmation of Graham's theory.
There was a projection of cold fear, moreover, in its sly allusion. It
gave to his memory of Paredes, with his tall, graceful figure, his lack
of emotion, his inscrutable eyes, and his pointed beard, a suggestion
nearly satanic. For the stealthy scraping had come from behind the closed
door of the private staircase. Howells had gone up that staircase. None
of them could forget for a moment that it led to the private hall outside
the room in which the murders had been committed.
It occurred to Bobby that the triumph Graham's face expressed was out of
keeping with the man. It disturbed him nearly as thoroughly as Paredes's
stealthy presence in that place.
"We've got him," Graham whispered.
Robinson's bulky figure moved cautiously toward the door. He grasped the
knob, swung the door open, and stepped back, smiling his satisfaction.
Half way down the staircase Paredes leaned against the wall, one foot
raised and outstretched, as though an infinitely quiet descent had been
interrupted. The exposure had been too quick for his habit. His face
failed to hide its discomfiture. His laugh rang false.
"Hello!"
"I'm afraid we've caught you, Paredes," Graham said, and the triumph
blazed now in his voice.
What Paredes did then was more startling, more out of key than any of his
recent actions. He came precipitately down. His eyes were dangerous. As
Bobby watched the face whose quiet had at last been tempestuously
destroyed, he felt that the man was capable of anything under sufficient
provocation.
"Got me for what?" he snarled.
"Tell us why you were sneaking up there. In connection with your little
excursion before dawn it suggests a guilty knowledge."
Paredes straightened. He shrugged his shoulders. With an admirable effort
of the will he smoothed the rage from his face, but for Bobby the satanic
suggestion lingered.
"Why do you suppose I'm here?" he said in a restrained voice that
scarcely rose above a whisper. "To help Bobby. I was simply looking
around for Bobby's sake."
That angered Bobby. He wanted to cry out against the supposed friend who
had at last shown his teeth.
"That," Graham laughed, "is why you sneaked, why you didn't make any
noise, why you lost your temper when we caught you at it? What about it,
Mr. District Attorney?"
Robinson stepped forward.
"Nothing else to do, Mr. Graham. He's too slippery. I'll put him in a
safe place."
"You mean," Paredes cried, "that you'll arrest me?"
"You've guessed it. I'll lock you up as a material witness."
Paredes swung on Bobby.
"You'll permit this, Bobby? You'll forget that I am a guest in your
house?"
Bobby flushed.
"Why have you stayed? What were you doing up there? Answer those
questions. Tell me what you want."
Paredes turned away. He took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it.
His fingers were not steady. For the first time, it became evident to
Bobby, Paredes was afraid. Rawlins came back from the telephone. He took
in the tableau.
"What's the rumpus?"
"Run this man to Smithtown," Robinson directed. "Lock him up, and tell
the judge, when he's arraigned in the morning, that I want him held as a
material witness."
"He was at the hotel in Smithtown all right," Rawlins said.
He tapped Paredes's arm.
"You coming on this little joy ride like a lamb or a lion? Say, you'll
find the jail about as comfortable as the New Hotel."
Paredes smiled. The evil and dangerous light died in his eyes. He became
all at once easy and impervious again.
"Like a lamb. How else?"
"I'm sorry, Carlos," Bobby muttered. "If you'd only say something! If
you'd only explain your movements! If you'd only really help!"
Again Paredes shrugged his shoulders.
"Handcuffs?" he asked Rawlins.
Rawlins ran his hands deftly over the Panamanian's clothing.
"No armed neutrality for me," he grinned. "All right. We'll forget the
bracelets since you haven't a gun."
Puffing at his cigarette, Paredes got his coat and hat and followed the
detective from the house.
Robinson and Graham climbed the private staircase to commence another
systematic search of the hall, to discover, if they could, the motive for
Paredes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily this
opportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what had
happened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of her
despairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her door
and stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been an
expression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face of
Robinson's harsh determination.
"He questioned me for an hour," she said, "principally about the heel
mark in the court. They cling to that, because I don't think they've
found anything new at the lake."
"You don't know anything about it, do you, Katherine? You weren't there?
You didn't do that for me?"
"I wasn't there, Bobby. I honestly don't know any more about it
than you do."
"Carlos was in the court," he mused. "Did you know they'd taken him? We
found him creeping down the private stairway."
There was a hard quality about her gratitude.
"I am glad, Bobby. The man makes me shudder, and all morning they
seemed more interested in you than in him. They've rummaged every
room--even mine."
She laughed feverishly.
"That's why I've been so upset. They seemed--" She broke off. She picked
at her handkerchief. After a moment she looked him frankly in the eyes
and continued: "They seemed almost as doubtful of me as of you."
He recalled Paredes's suspicion of the girl.
"It's nonsense, Katherine. And I'm to blame for that, too."
She put her finger to her lips. Her smile was wistful.
"Hush! You mustn't blame yourself. You mustn't think of that."
Again her solicitude, their isolation in a darkened place, tempted him,
aroused impulses nearly irresistible. Her slender figure, the pretty
face, grown familiar and more desirable through all these years, swept
him to a harsher revolt than he had conquered in the library. In the face
of Graham, in spite of his own intolerable position he knew he couldn't
fight that truth eternally. She must have noticed his struggle without
grasping its cause, for she touched his hand, and the wistfulness of her
expression increased.
"I wish you wouldn't think of me, Bobby. It's you we must all think of."
He accepted with a cold dismay the sisterly anxiety of her attitude. It
made his renunciation easier. He walked away.
"Why do you go?" she called after him.
He gestured vaguely, without turning.
He didn't see her again until dinner time. She was as silent then as she
had been the night before when Howells had sat with them, his moroseness
veiling a sharp interest in the plan that was to lead to his death.
Robinson's mood was very different. He talked a great deal, making no
effort to hide his irritation. His failure to find any clue in the
private staircase after Paredes's arrest had clearly stimulated his
interest in Bobby. The sharp little eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, held
a threat for him. Bobby was glad when the meal ended.
Howells's body was taken away that night. It was a relief for all of them
to know that the old room was empty again.
"I daresay you won't sleep there," Graham said to Robinson.
Robinson glanced at Bobby.
"Not as things stand," he answered. "The library lounge is plenty good
enough for me tonight."
Graham went upstairs with Bobby. There was no question about his
purpose. He wouldn't repeat last night's mistake.
"At least," he said, when the door was closed behind them, "I can see if
you do get up and wander about in your sleep. I'd bet a good deal that
you won't."
"If I did it would be an indication?"
"Granted it's your custom, what is there to tempt you to-night?"
Bobby answered, half jesting:
"You've not forgotten Robinson on the library sofa. The man isn't exactly
working for me. Tonight he seems almost as unfriendly as Howells was."
He yawned.
"I ought to sleep now if ever. I've seldom been so tired. Two such
nights!"
He hesitated.
"But I am glad you're here, Hartley. I can go to sleep with a more
comfortable feeling."
"Don't worry," Graham said. "You'll sleep quietly enough, and we'll all
be better for a good rest."
For only a little while they talked of the mystery. While Graham
regretted his failure to find any trace of Maria, their voices dwindled
sleepily. Bobby recalled his last thought before losing himself last
night. He tried to force from his mind now the threat in Robinson's eyes.
He told himself again and again that the man wasn't actually unfriendly.
Then the blackness encircled him. He slept.
Almost at once, it seemed to him, he was fighting away, demanding
drowsily:
"What's the matter? Leave me alone."
He heard Graham's voice, unnaturally subdued and anxious.
"What are you doing, Bobby?"
Then Bobby knew he was no longer in his bed, that he stood instead in
a cold place; and the meaning of his position came with a rush of
sick terror.
"Get hold of yourself," Graham said. "Come back."
Bobby opened his eyes. He was in the upper hall at the head of the
stairs. Unconsciously he had been about to creep quietly down, perhaps to
the library. Graham had awakened him. It seemed to offer the answer to
everything. It seemed to give outline to a monstrous familiar that
drowned his real self in the black pit while it conducted his body to the
commission of unspeakable crimes.
He lurched into the bedroom and sat shivering on the bed. Graham entered
and quietly closed the door.
"What time is it?" Bobby asked hoarsely.
"Half-past two. I don't think Robinson was aroused."
The damp moon gave an ominous unreality to the room.
"What did I do?" Bobby whispered.
"Got softly out of bed and went to the hall. It was uncanny. You were
like an automaton. I didn't wake you at once. You see, I--I thought you
might go to the old room."
Bobby shook again. He drew a blanket about his shoulders.
"And you believed I'd show the way in and out, but the room was empty, so
I was going downstairs--"
He shuddered.
"Good God! Then it's all true. I did it for the money. I put Howells out
to protect myself. I was going after Robinson. It's true. Hartley! Tell
me. Do you think it's true?"
Graham turned away.
"Don't ask me to say anything to help you just now," he answered huskily,
"for after this I don't dare, Bobby. I don't dare."