THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS
Straightway Bobby repented the alarm he had, perhaps too impulsively,
given. For the hand protruding from the wall was, indeed, flesh and
blood, and with the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine,
conquering his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him. He remembered
the evidence found in Katherine's room, and her refusal to answer
questions. Could Paredes and the officers have been right? Was it
conceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp?
The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins burst through. Graham
ran after him. From the private stairway arose the sound of the district
attorney's hurrying footsteps.
"What is it? What have you got?" Rawlins shouted.
Graham cried out:
"You're all right, Bobby?"
The candle which the detective carried gleamed on the slender fingers,
showing Bobby that they had been inserted through an opening in the
wall. He couldn't understand, for time after time each one of the
panels had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could see dimly the
dark clothing of the person who, with a stealth in itself suggestive of
abnormal crime, had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried up he
wondered if it wouldn't be the better course to free his prisoner, to
cry out, urging an escape.
Already it was too late. The detective and Graham had seen, and clearly
they had no doubt that he held the one responsible for two brutal murders
and for the confusing mysteries that had capped them.
"Looks like a lady's hand," Rawlins called. "Don't let go, young fellow."
He unlocked the door to the private hallway. Graham and he dashed out. In
Bobby's uncertain grasp the hand twitched.
Robinson's voice reached him through the opening.
"Let go, Mr. Blackburn. You've done your share, the Lord knows. You've
caught the beast with the goods."
Bobby released the slender fingers. He saw them vanish through the
opening. He left the bed and reluctantly approached the door to the
private hall. Excited phrases roared in his ears. He scarcely dared
listen because of their possible confirmation of his doubt. The fingers,
he repeated to himself, had been too slender. The moment that had freed
him from fear of his own guilt had constructed in its place an
uncertainty harder to face. Yet there was nothing to be gained by
waiting. Sooner or later he must learn whether Katherine had hidden the
evidence, whether she had used the stout and deadly hatpin, whether she
struggled now in the grasp of vindictive men.
A voice from the corridor arrested him.
"Bobby!"
With a glad cry he swung around. Katherine stood in the opposite doorway.
Her presence there, beyond a doubt, was her exculpation. He crossed the
sombre room. He grasped her hands. He smiled happily. After all, the hand
he had held was not as slender as hers.
"Thank heavens you're here."
In a word he recited the result of his vigil.
"It clears you," she said. "Quick! We must see who it is."
But he lingered, for he wanted that ugly fear done with once for all.
"You can tell me now how the evidence got in your room."
"I can't," she said. "I don't know."
The truth of her reply impressed him. He looked at her and wondered that
she should be fully dressed.
"Why are you dressed?" he asked.
She was puzzled.
"Why not? I don't think any one had gone to bed."
"But it must be very late. I supposed it was the same
time--half-past two."
She started to cross the room. She laughed nervously.
"It isn't eleven."
He recalled his interminable anticipation among the shadows of the old
room.
"I've watched there only a little more than an hour!"
"Not much more than that, Bobby."
"What a coward! I'd have sworn it was nearly daylight."
She pressed his hand.
"No. Very brave," she whispered. "Let us see if it was worth it."
They stepped through the doorway. Half way down the hall Robinson,
Graham, and Rawlins held a fourth, who had ceased struggling. Bobby
paused, yet, since seeing Katherine step from the corridor, his reason
had taught him to expect just this.
The fourth man was Paredes, nearly effeminate, slender-fingered.
"Carlos!" Bobby cried. "You can't have done these unspeakable things!"
The Panamanian stared without answering. Evidently he had had time to
control his chagrin, to smother his revolt from the future; for the thin
face was bare of emotion. The depths of the eyes as usual turned back
scrutiny. The man disclosed neither guilt nor the outrage of an assumed
innocence; neither confession nor denial. He simply stared, straining a
trifle against the eager hands of his captors.
Rawlins grinned joyously.
"You ought to have a medal for getting away with this, young fellow.
Things didn't look so happy for you an hour or so ago."
"And I had half a mind," Robinson confessed, "to refuse you the chance.
Glad I didn't. Glad as I can be you made good."
With the egotism any man is likely to draw from his efforts in the
detection of crime he added easily:
"Of course I've suspected this spigotty all along. I don't have to remind
you of that."
"Sure," Rawlins said. "And didn't I put it up to him strong enough
to-night?"
Paredes laughed lightly.
"All credit where it is due. You also put it up to Miss Perrine."
"The details will straighten all that out," Robinson said. "I don't
pretend to have them yet."
"I gather not," Paredes mused, "with old Blackburn's ghost still in
the offing."
"That talk," Rawlins said, "won't go down from you any more. I daresay
you've got most of the details in your head."
"I daresay," Paredes answered dryly.
He fought farther back against the detaining hands.
"Is there any necessity for this exhibition of brute strength? You must
find it very exhausting. You may think me dangerous, and I thank you; but
I have no gun, and I'm no match for four men and a woman. Besides, you
hurt my arm. Bobby was none too tender with that. I ought to have used my
good arm. You'll get no details from me unless you take your hands off."
Robinson's hesitation was easily comprehensible. If Paredes were
responsible for the abnormalities they had experienced at the Cedars he
might find it simple enough to trick them now, but the man's mocking
smile brought the anger to Robinson's face.
"Of course he can't get away. See if there's anything on his clothes,
Rawlins. He ought to have the hatpin. Then let him go."
The detective, however, failed to find the hatpin or any other weapon.
"You see," Paredes smiled. "That's something in my favour."
He stepped back, brushing his clothing with his uninjured hand. He
lighted a cigarette. He drew back the coat sleeve of his left arm and
readjusted the bandage. He glanced up as heavy footsteps heralded
Doctor Groom.
"Hello, Doctor," he called cheerily. "I was afraid you'd nap through the
show. It seems the bloodhounds of the law left us out of their
confidence."
"What's all this?" the doctor rumbled.
Paredes waved his hand.
"I am a prisoner."
The doctor gaped.
"You mean you--"
"Young Blackburn caught him," Robinson explained. "He was in a position
to finish him just as he did Howells."
"Except that I had no hatpin," Paredes yawned.
The doctor's uneasy glance sought the opening in the wall.
"I thought you had examined all these walls," he grumbled. "How did you
miss this?"
Robinson ran his fingers through his hair.
"That's what I've been asking myself," he said. "I went over that
panelling a dozen times myself."
Bobby and Katherine went closer. Bobby had been from the first puzzled by
Paredes's easy manner. He had a quick hope. He saw the man watch with an
amused tolerance while the district attorney bent over, examining the
face of the panel.
"An entire section," Robinson said--"the thickness of the wall--has been
shifted to one side. No wonder we didn't see any joints or get a hollow
sound from this panel any more than from the others. But why didn't we
stumble on the mechanism? Maybe you'll tell us that, Paredes."
The Panamanian blew a wreath of smoke against the ancient wall.
"Gladly, but you will find it humiliating. I have experienced humility in
this hall myself. The reason you didn't find any mechanism is that there
wasn't any. You looked for something most cautiously concealed, not
realizing that the best concealment is no concealment at all. It's
fundamental. I don't know how it slipped my own mind. No grooves show
because the door is an entire panel. There isn't even a latch. You merely
push hard against its face. Such arrangements are common enough in
colonial houses, and there was more than the nature of the crimes to tell
you there was some such thing here. I mean if you will examine the
farther door closer than you have done you will find that it has fewer
coats of paint than the one leading to the corridor, that its frame is of
newer wood. In other words, it was cut through after the wing was built.
This panel was the original door, designed, with the private stairway and
the hall, for the exclusive use of the master of the house. Try it."
Robinson braced himself and shoved against the panel. It moved in its
grooves with a vibrant stirring.
"Rusty," he said.
Katherine started.
"That's what I heard each time," she cried.
Above his heavy black beard the doctor's cheeks whitened. Robinson made a
gesture of revulsion.
"That gives the nasty game away."
"Naturally," Paredes said, "and you must admit the game is as beautifully
simple as the panel. The instrument of death wasn't inserted through the
bedding as you thought inevitable, Doctor. Suppose you were lying in that
bed, asleep, or half asleep, and you were aroused by such a sound as
that in the wall behind you? What would you do? What would any man do
first of all?"
Robinson nodded.
"I see what you mean. I'd get up on my elbow. I'd look around as quickly
as I could to see what it was. I'd expose myself to a clean thrust. I'd
drop back on the bed, more thoroughly out of it than though I'd been
struck through the heart."
"Exactly," Paredes said, with the familiar shrug of his shoulders.
"You're sensible to give up this way," Robinson said. "It's the best plan
for you. What about Mr. Blackburn?"
Graham interfered.
"After all," he said thoughtfully. "I'm a lawyer, and it isn't fair,
Robinson. It's only decent to tell him that anything he says may be used
against him."
"Keep your mouth shut," Robinson shouted.
But Paredes smiled at Graham.
"It's very good of you, but I agree with the district attorney. There's
no point in being a clam now."
"Can you account for Silas Blackburn's return?" the doctor asked eagerly.
"That's right, Doctor," Paredes said. "Stick to the ghosts. I fancy
there are plenty in this house. I'm afraid we must look on Silas
Blackburn as dead."
"You don't mean we've been talking to a dead man?" Katherine whispered.
"Before I answer," Paredes said, "I want to have one or two things
straight. These men, Bobby, I really believe, think me capable of the
crimes in this house. I want to know if you accept such a theory. Do you
think I had any idea of killing you?"
Bobby studied the reserved face which even now was without emotion.
"I can't think anything of the kind," he said softly.
"That's very nice," Paredes said. "If you had answered differently I'd
have let these clever policemen lay their own ghosts."
He turned to Robinson.
"Even you must begin to see that I'm not guilty. Your common sense will
tell you so. If I had been planning to kill Bobby, why didn't I bring
the weapon? Why did I put my hand through the opening before I was ready
to strike? Why did I use my left hand--my injured hand? I was like
Howells. I couldn't consider the case finished until I had solved the
mystery of the locked doors. I supposed the room was empty. When I found
the secret to-night, I reached through to see how far my hand would be
from the pillow."
Bobby's assurance of Paredes's innocence clouded his own situation; made
it, in a sense, more dangerous than it had ever been. His wanderings
about the Cedars remained unexplained, and they knew now it had never
been necessary for the murderer to enter the room, Katherine, too,
evidently realized the menace.
"Do you think I--" she began.
Paredes bowed.
"You dislike me, Miss Katherine, but don't be afraid for yourself or
Bobby. I think I can tell you how the evidence got in your room. I can
answer nearly everything. There's one point--"
He broke off, glancing at his watch.
"Extraordinary courage!" he mused enigmatically. "I scarcely
understand it."
Rawlins looked at him suspiciously.
"All this explaining may be a trick, Mr. Robinson. The man's slippery."
"I've had to be slippery to work under your noses," Paredes laughed.
"By the way, Bobby, did you hear a woman crying about the time I opened
this door?"
"Yes. It sounded like the voice we heard at the grave."
"I thought I heard it from the library," Robinson put in. "Then the
rumpus up here started, and I forgot about it."
"The woman in black is very brave," Paredes mused. "We should have had a
visit from her long before this."
"Do you know who she is?" Robinson asked. "And as Rawlins says, no
tricks. We haven't let you go yet."
"I thought," Paredes mocked, "that you had identified the woman in black
as Miss Katherine. She hasn't had anything to do with the mystery
directly. Neither has Bobby. Neither have I."
"Then what the devil have you been doing here?" Robinson snapped.
"Seeing your job through," Paredes answered, "for Bobby's sake."
With a warm gratitude Bobby knew that Paredes had told the truth. Then he
had told it in the library yesterday when they had caught him prowling in
the private staircase. All along he had told it while they had tried to
convict him of under-handed and unfriendly intentions.
"I saw," Paredes was saying, "that Howells wouldn't succeed, and it was
obvious you and Rawlins would do worse, while Graham's blundering from
the start left no hope. Somebody had to rescue Bobby."
"Then why did you give us the impression," Graham asked, "that you were
not a friend?"
Paredes held up his hand.
"That's going rather far, Mr. Graham. Never once have I given such an
impression. I have time after time stated the fact that I was here in
Bobby's service. That has been the trouble with all of you. As most
detectives do, you have denied facts, searching always for something more
subtle. You have asked for impossibilities while you blustered that they
couldn't exist. Still every one is prone to do that when he fancies
himself in the presence of the supernatural. The facts of this case have
been within your reach as well as mine. The motive has been an easy one
to understand. Money! And you have consistently turned your back."
Robinson spread his hands.
"All right. Prove that I'm a fool and I'll acknowledge it."
Doctor Groom interrupted sharply.
"What was that?"
They bent forward, listening. Even with Paredes offering them a physical
explanation they shrank from the keening that barely survived the heavy
atmosphere of the old house.
"You see the woman in black isn't Miss Perrine," Paredes said.
He ran down the stairs. They followed, responding to an excited sense of
imminence. Even in the private staircase the pounding that had followed
the cry reached them with harsh reverberations. Its echoes filled the
house as they dashed across the library and the dining room. In the hall
they realized that it came from the front door. It had attained a
feverish, a desperate insistence.
Paredes walked to the fireplace.
"Open the door," he directed Rawlins.
Rawlins stepped to the door, unlocked it, and flung it wide.
"The woman!" Katherine breathed.
A feminine figure, white with snow, stumbled in, as if she had stood
braced against the door. Rawlins caught her and held her upright. The
flakes whirled from the court in vicious pursuit. Bobby slammed the
door shut.
"Maria!" he cried. "You were right, Hartley!"
Yet at first he could scarcely accept this pitiful creature as the
brilliant and exotic dancer with whom he had dined the night of the first
murder. As he stared at her, her features twisted. She burst into
retching sobs. She staggered toward Paredes. As she went the snow melted
from her hat and cloak. She became a black figure again. With an
appearance of having been immersed in water she sank on the hearth,
swaying back and forth, reaching blindly for Paredes's hand.
"Do what you please with me, Carlos," she whimpered with her slight
accent from which all the music had fled. "I couldn't stand it another
minute. I couldn't get to the station, and I--I wanted to know
which--which--"
Paredes watched her curiously.
"Get Jenkins," he said softly to Rawlins.
He faced Maria again.
"I could have told you, I think, when you fought me away out there. No
one wants to arrest you. Jenkins will verify my own knowledge."
"This is dangerous," the doctor rumbled. "This woman shouldn't wait here.
She should have dry clothing at once."
Maria shrank from him. For the first time her wet skirt exposed her
feet, encased in torn stockings. The dancer wore no shoes, and Bobby
guessed why she had been so elusive, why she had left so few traces.
"I won't go," she cried, "until he tells me."
Katherine got a cloak and threw it across the woman's shoulders. Maria
looked up at her with a dumb gratitude. Then Rawlins came back with
Jenkins. The butler was bent and haggard. His surrender to fear was more
pronounced than it had been at the grave or when they had last seen him
in the kitchen. He grasped a chair and, breathing heavily, looked from
one to the other, moistening his lips.
Paredes faced the man, completely master of the situation. Through the
old butler, it became clear, he would make his revelation and announce
that simple fact they all had missed.
"It was Mr. Silas, of course, who came back?"
"Oh my God!" the butler moaned, "What do you mean?"
"I know everything, Jenkins," Paredes said evenly.
The butler collapsed against the chair. Paredes grasped his arm.
"Pull yourself together, man. They won't want you as more than an
accessory."
Maria started to rise. She shrank back again, shivering close to the
fire.
"Is your master hiding," Paredes asked, "or has he left the house?"
Jenkins's answer came through trembling lips.
"He's gone! Mr. Silas is gone! How did you find out? My God! How did you
find out?"
"He said nothing to you?" Paredes asked.
Jenkins shook his head.
"Tell me how he was dressed."
The old servant covered his face.
"Mr. Silas stumbled through the kitchen," he answered hoarsely. "I tried
to stop him, but he pushed me away and ran out." His voice rose. "I tell
you he ran without a coat or a hat into the storm."
Paredes sighed.
"The Cedars's final tragedy, yet it was the most graceful exit he could
have made."
Maria struggled to her feet. Her eyes were the eyes of a person without
reason. That familiar, hysterical quality which they had heard before at
a distance vibrated in her voice.
"Then he was the one! I wanted to kill him, I couldn't kill him because I
never was sure."
"Did you see him go out an hour or so ago?" Paredes asked.
"I saw him," she cried feverishly, "run from the back of the house and
down the path to the lake. I--I tried to catch him, but my feet were
frozen, and the snow was slippery, and I couldn't find my shoes. But I
called and he wouldn't stop. I had to know, because I wanted to kill him
if it was Silas Blackburn. And I saw him run to the lake and splash in
until the water was over his head."
She flung her clenched hands out. Her voice became a scream, shot with
all her suffering, all her doubt, all her fury.
"You don't understand. He can't be punished. I tell you he's at the
bottom of the lake with the man he murdered. And I can't pay him. I tried
to go after him, but it--it was too cold."
She sank in one of the chairs, shaking and sobbing.
"Unless we want another tragedy," the doctor said, "this woman must be
put to bed and taken care of. She has been terribly exposed. You've heard
her. She's delirious."
"Not so delirious that she hasn't told the truth," Paredes said.
The doctor lifted her in his arms and with Rawlins's help carried her
upstairs. Katherine went with them. Almost immediately the doctor and
Rawlins hurried down.
"I have told Katherine what to do," Doctor Groom said. "The woman may be
all right in the morning. What's she been up to here?"
"Then," Bobby cried, "there was a connection between the dinner party and
the murders. But what about my coming here unconscious? What about my
handkerchief?"
"I can see no answer yet," Graham said.
Paredes smiled.
"Not when you've had the answer to everything? I have shown you that
Silas Blackburn was the murderer. The fact stared you in the face.
Everything that has happened at the Cedars has pointed to his guilt."
"Except," the doctor said, "his own apparent murder which made his guilt
seem impossible. And I'm not sure you're right now, for there is no other
Blackburn he could have murdered, and Blackburns look alike. You wouldn't
mistake another man for one of them."
"This house," Paredes smiled, "has all along been full of the presence of
the other Blackburn. There has been evidence enough for you all to have
known he was here."
He stretched himself in an easy chair. He lighted a cigarette and blew
the smoke toward the ceiling.
"I shall tell you the simple facts, if only to save my skin from this
blood-thirsty district attorney."
"Rub it in," Robinson grinned. "I'll take my medicine."
They gathered closer about the Panamanian. Jenkins sidled to the back of
his chair.
"I don't see how you found it out," he muttered.
"I had only one advantage over you or the police, Graham," Paredes began,
"and you were in a position to overcome that. Maria did telephone me the
afternoon of that ghastly dinner. She asked me to get hold of Bobby. She
was plainly anxious to keep him in New York that night, and, to be frank,
I was glad enough to help her when you turned up, trying to impress us
with your puritan watchfulness. Even you guessed that she had drugged
Bobby. I suspected it when I saw him go to pieces in the cafe. He gave me
the slip, as I told you, in the coat room when I was trying to get him
home, so I went back and asked Maria what her idea was. She laughed in my
face, denying everything. I, too, suspected the stranger, but I've
convinced myself that he simply happened along by chance.
"Now here's the first significant point: Maria by drugging Bobby defeated
her own purpose. He had been drinking more than the Band of Hope would
approve of, and on top of that he got an overdose of a powerful drug. The
doctor can tell you better than I of the likely effect of such a
combination."
"What I told you in the court, Bobby," the doctor answered, "much the
same symptoms as genuine aphasia. Your brain was unquestionably dulled by
an overdose on top of all that alcohol, while your mechanical reflexes
were stimulated. Automatically you followed your ruling impulse.
Automatically at the last minute you revolted from exposing yourself in
such a condition to your cousin and your grandfather. Your lucid period
in the woods just before you reached the deserted house and went to sleep
showed that your exercise was overcoming the effect of the drug. That
moment, you'll remember, was coloured by the fanciful ideas such a drug
would induce."
"So, Bobby," Paredes said, "although you were asleep when the body moved
and when Howells was murdered, you can be sure you weren't anywhere near
the old room."
"But I walked in my sleep last night," Bobby reminded him.
The doctor slapped his knee.
"I understand. It was only when we thought that was your habit that it
frightened us. It's plain. This sleep-walking had been suggested to you
and you had brooded upon the suggestion until you were bound to respond.
Graham's presence in your room, watching for just that reaction, was a
perpetual, an unescapable stimulation. It would have been a miracle in
itself if your brain had failed to carry it out."
Bobby made a swift gesture of distaste.
"If you hadn't come, Carlos, where would I have been?"
"Why did you come?" Graham asked.
"Bobby was my friend," the Panamanian answered. "He had been very good to
me. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria had
drugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an element
of trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understanding
between her and old Blackburn--perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby away
from the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburn
murdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion on
Bobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me of
his innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for I
had dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get out
here by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was the
key, and I began to speculate about her.
"She had told me something of her history. You might have had as much
from her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was a
child, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother and
an American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been in
Panama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possible
understanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documents
about Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papers
existed, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searched
there a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to get
upstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowing
something, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I found what I wanted--a
carefully hidden packet of accounts and letters and newspaper clippings.
They're at your service, Mr. District Attorney. They told me that Silas
Blackburn had been in Panama. They proved that Maria, instead of ever
having been his accomplice, was his enemy. They explained the source of
his wealth and the foundation of that enmity. Certainly you remember the
doctor told us Silas Blackburn started life with nothing; and hadn't
you ever wondered why with all his money he buried himself in this
lonely hole?"
"He returned from South America, rich, more than twenty-five years ago,"
the doctor said. "Why should we bother about his money?"
"I wish you had bothered about several things besides your ghosts,"
Paredes said. "You'd have found it significant that Blackburn laid the
foundation of his fortune in Panama during the hideous scandals of the
old French canal company. We knew he was a selfish tyrant. That discovery
showed me how selfish, how merciless he was, for to succeed in Panama
during those days required an utter contempt for all the standards of law
and decency. The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful of
coppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of the
ghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, his
trip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of the
other Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly. Why had it been
forgotten here, Doctor, that Silas Blackburn had a brother--his partner
in those wretched and profitable contract scandals?"
"You mean," the doctor answered, "Robert Blackburn. He was a year younger
than Silas. This boy was named in memory of him. Why should any one have
remembered? He died in South America more than a quarter of a century
ago, before these children were born."
"That's what Silas Blackburn told you when he came back," Paredes said.
"He may have believed it at first or he may not have. I daresay he wanted
to, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own--the
cash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handle
in that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, and
when he ran from Panama he knew she was about to become a mother.
"That brings me to the other feature that made me wander around here like
a restless spirit myself that night. You had just told your story about
the woman crying. If there was a strange woman around here it was almost
certainly Maria. As Rawlins deduced, she must either be hysterical or
signalling some one. Why should she come unless something had gone wrong
the night she drugged Bobby to keep him in New York? She wasn't his
enemy, because that very night she did him a good turn by trampling out
his tracks in the court."
Bobby took Maria's letter from his pocket and handed it to Paredes.
"Then how would you account for this?"
The Panamanian read the letter.
"Her way of covering herself," he explained, "in case you suspected she
had made you drink too much or had drugged you. She really wanted you to
come to tea that afternoon. It was after writing that that she found out
what had gone wrong. In other words, she read in the paper of Silas
Blackburn's death, and in a panic she put on plain clothes and hurried
out to see what had happened. The fact that she forgot her managers, her
professional reputation, everything, testified to her anxiety, and I
began to sense the truth. She had been born in Panama of a Spanish mother
and an American father. She had some stealthy interest in the Cedars and
the Blackburns. She was about the right age. Ten to one she was Silas
Blackburn's niece. So for me, many hours before Silas Blackburn walked in
here, the presence of the other Blackburn about the Cedars became a
tragic and threatening inevitability. Had Silas Blackburn been murdered
or had his brother? Where was the survivor who had committed that brutal
murder? Maria had come here hysterically to answer those questions. She
might know. The light in the deserted house! She might be hiding him and
taking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which he
never answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. I
thought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I would
trap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we had
seen proved that it had come through the cobwebbed windows of the cellar,
which are set in little wells below the level of the ground. The cellar
explained also how she had turned her flashlight off and slipped through
the hall and out while we searched the rooms. She hadn't gone back. I
couldn't find her. So I went on into Smithtown and sent a costly cable
to my father. His answer came to-night just before Silas Blackburn walked
in. He had talked with several of the survivors of those evil days. He
gave me a confirmation of everything I had gathered from the papers. The
Blackburns had quarrelled over a contract. Robert had been struck over
the head. He wandered about the isthmus, half-witted, forgetting his
name, nursing one idea. Someone had robbed him, and he wanted his money
back or a different kind of payment, but he couldn't remember who, and he
took it out in angry talk. Then he disappeared, and people said he had
gone to Spain. Of course his wife suspected a good deal. In Blackburn's
desk are pitiful and threatening letters from her which he ignored. Then
she died, and Blackburn thought he was safe. But he took no chances. Some
survivor of those days might turn up and try blackmail. It was safer to
bury himself here."
"Then," Bobby said, "Maria must have brought her father with her when she
came from Spain last summer."
"Brought him or sent for him," Paredes answered. "She's made most of her
money on this side, you know. And she's as loyal and generous as she is
impulsive. Undoubtedly she had the doctors do what they could for her
father, and when she got track of Silas Blackburn through you, Bobby, she
nursed in the warped brain that dominant idea with her own Latin desire
for justice and payment."
"Then," Graham said, "that's what Silas Blackburn was afraid of instead
of Bobby, as he tried to convince us to-night to cover himself."
"One minute, Mr. Paredes," Robinson broke in. "Why did you maintain this
extraordinary secrecy? Nobody would have hurt you if you had put us on
the right track and asked for a little help. Why did you throw sand in
our eyes? Why did you talk all the time about ghosts?"
"I had to go on tiptoe," Paredes smiled. "I suspected there was at least
one spy in the house. So I gave the doctor's ghost talk all the impetus I
could. I was like Howells, as I've told you, in believing the case
couldn't be complete without the discovery of the secret entrance of the
room of death. My belief in the existence of such a thing made me lean
from the first to Silas Blackburn rather than Robert. It's a tradition in
many families to hand such things down to the head of each generation.
Silas Blackburn was the one most likely to know. Such a secret door had
never been mentioned to you, had it, Bobby?"
Bobby shook his head. Paredes turned and smiled at the haggard butler.
"I'm right so far, am I not, Jenkins?"
Jenkins bobbed his head jerkily.
"Then," Paredes went on, "you might answer one or two questions. When did
the first letter that frightened your master come?"
"The day he went to Smithtown and talked to the detective," the
butler quavered.
"You can understand his reflections," Paredes mused. "Money was his god.
He distrusted and hated his own flesh and blood because he thought they
coveted it. He was prepared to punish them by leaving it to a public
charity. Now arises this apparition from the past with no claim in a
court of law, with an intention simply to ask, and, in case of a refusal,
to punish. The conclusion reached by that selfish and merciless mind was
inevitable. He probably knew nothing whatever about Maria. If all the
world thought his brother dead, his brother's murder now wouldn't alter
anything. I'll wager, Doctor, that at that time he talked over wounds at
the base of the brain with you."
The doctor moved restlessly.
"Yes. But he was very superstitious. We talked about it in connection
with his ancestors who had died of such wounds in that room."
"Everything was ready when he made the rendezvous here," Paredes went on.
"He expected to have Bobby at hand in case his plan failed and he had to
defend himself. But Maria had made sure that there should be no help for
him. When the man came did you take him upstairs, Jenkins?"
"No, sir. I watched that Miss Katherine didn't leave the library, but I
think she must have caught Mr. Silas in the upper hall after he had
pretended to give up and had persuaded his brother to spend the night."
Paredes smiled whimsically. He took two faded photographs from his
pocket. They were of young men, after the fashion of Blackburns,
remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating marks of old age.
"I found these in the family album," he said.
"We should have known the difference just the same," the doctor grumbled.
"Why didn't we know the difference?"
"I've complained often enough," Paredes smiled, "of the necessity of
using candles in this house. There was never more than one candle in the
old bedroom. There were only two when we looked at the murdered man in
his coffin. And in death there are no familiar facial expressions, no
eccentricities of speech. So you can imagine my feelings when I tried to
picture the drama that had gone on in that room. You can imagine poor
Maria's. Which one? And Maria didn't know about the panel, or the use of
Miss Katherine's hat-pin, or the handkerchief. All of those details
indicated Silas Blackburn."
"How could my handkerchief indicate anything of the kind?" Bobby asked,
"How did it come there?"
"What," Paredes said, "is the commonest form of borrowing in the world,
particularly in a climate where people have frequent colds? I found a
number of your handkerchiefs in your grandfather's bureau. The
handkerchief furnished me with an important clue. It explains, I think,
Jenkins will tell you, the moving of the body. It was obviously the cause
of Howells's death."
"Yes, sir," Jenkins quavered. "Mr. Silas thought he had dropped his own
handkerchief in the room with the body. I don't know how you've found
these things out."
"By adding two and two," Paredes laughed. "In the first place, you must
all realize that we might have had no mystery at all if it hadn't been
for Miss Katherine. For I don't know that Maria could have done much in a
legal way. Silas Blackburn had intended to dispose of the body
immediately, but Miss Katherine heard the panel move and ran to the
corridor. She made Jenkins break down the door, and she sent for the
police. Silas Blackburn was helpless. He was beaten at that moment, but
he did the best he could. He went to Waters, hoping, at the worst, to
establish an alibi through the book-worm who probably wouldn't remember
the exact hour of his arrival. Waters's house offered him, too, a
strategic advantage. You heard him say the spare room was on the ground
floor. You heard him add that he refused to open his door, either asking
to be left alone or failing to answer at all. And he had to return to the
Cedars the next day, for he missed his handkerchief, and he pictured
himself, since he thought it was his own, in the electric chair. I'm
right, Jenkins?"
"Yes, sir. I kept him hidden and gave him his chance along in the
afternoon. He wanted me to try to find the handkerchief, but I didn't
have the courage. He couldn't find it. He searched through the panel all
about the body and the bed."
"That was when Katherine heard," Bobby said, "when we found the body had
been moved."
"It put him in a dreadful way," Jenkins mumbled, "for no one had bothered
to tell me it was young Mr. Robert the detective suspected, and when Mr.
Silas heard the detective boast that he knew everything and would make an
arrest in the morning, he thought about the handkerchief and knew he was
done for unless he took Howells up. And the man did ask for trouble, sir.
Well! Mr. Silas gave it to him to save himself."
"I've never been able to understand," Paredes said, "why he didn't take
the evidence when he killed Howells."
"Didn't you know you prevented that, sir?" Jenkins asked. "I heard you
come in from the court. I thought you'd been listening. I signalled Mr.
Silas there was danger and to get out of the private stairway before you
could trap him. And I couldn't give him another chance for a long time.
Some of you were in the room after that, or Miss Katherine and Mr. Graham
were sitting in the corridor watching the body until just before Mr.
Robert tried to get the evidence for himself. Mr. Silas had to act then.
It was his last chance, for he thought Mr. Robert would be glad enough to
turn him over to the law."
"Why did you ever hide that stuff in Miss Katherine's room?" Bobby asked.
Jenkins flung up his hands.
"Oh, he was angry, sir, when he knew the truth and learned what a
mistake he'd made. Howells didn't give me that report I showed you. It
was in his pocket with the other things. We got it open without
tearing the envelope and Mr. Silas read it. He wouldn't destroy
anything. He never dreamed of anybody's suspecting Miss Katherine, so
he told me to hide the things in her bureau. I think he figured on
using the evidence to put the blame on Mr. Robert in case it was the
only way to save himself."
"Why did you show the report to me?" Bobby asked.
"I--I was afraid to take all that responsibility," the butler quavered.
"I figured if you were partly to blame it might go easier with me."
Paredes shrugged his shoulders.
"You were a good mate for Silas Blackburn," he sneered.
"Even now I don't see how that old scoundrel had the courage to show
himself to-night," Rawlins said.
"That's the beautiful justice of the whole thing," Paredes answered, "for
there was nothing else whatever for him to do. There never had been
anything else for him to do since Miss Katherine had spoiled his scheme,
since you all believed that it was he who had been murdered. He had to
hide the truth or face the electric chair. If he disappeared he was
infinitely worse off than though he had settled with his brother--a man
without a home, without a name, without a penny."
Jenkins nodded.
"He had to come back," he said slowly, "and he knew how scared you were
of the old room."
"The funeral and the snow," Paredes said, "gave him his chance. Jenkins
will doubtless tell you how they uncovered the grave late this afternoon,
took that poor devil's body, and threw it in the lake, then fastened the
coffin and covered it again. Of course the snow effaced every one of
their tracks. He came in, naturally scared to death, and told us that
story based on the legends of the Cedars and the doctor's supernatural
theories. And you must admit that he might, as you call it, have got away
with it. He did create a mystification. The body of the murdered man had
disappeared. There was no murdered Blackburn as far as you could tell.
Heaven knows how long you might have struggled with the case of Howells."
He glanced up.
"Here is Miss Katherine."
She stood at the head of the stairs.
"I think she's all right," she said to the doctor. "She's asleep. She
went to sleep crying. May I come down?"
The doctor nodded. She walked down, glancing from one to the other
questioningly.
"Poor Maria!" Paredes mused. "She's the one I pity most. She's been at
times, I think, what Rawlins suspected--an insane woman, wandering and
crying through the woods. Assuredly she was out of her head to-night,
when I found her finally at the grave. I tried to tell her that her
father was dead. I begged her to come in. I told her we were friends. But
she fought. She wouldn't answer my questions. She struck me finally when
I tried to force her to come out of the storm. Robinson, I want you to
listen to me for a moment. I honestly believe, for everybody's sake, I
did a good thing when I asked Silas Blackburn just before he disappeared
why he had thrown his brother's body in the lake. I'd hoped it would
simply make him run for it. I prayed that we would never hear from him
again, and that Miss Katherine and Bobby could be spared the ugly
scandal. Doesn't this do as well? Can't we get along without much
publicity?"
"You've about earned the right to dictate," Robinson said gruffly.
"Thanks."
"For everybody's sake!" Bobby echoed. "You're right, Carlos. Maria must
be considered now. She shall have what was taken from her father, with
interest. I know Katherine will agree."
Katherine nodded.
"I doubt if Maria will want it or take it," Paredes said simply. "She has
plenty of her own. It isn't fair to think it was greed that urged her.
You must understand that it was a bigger impulse than greed. It was a
thing of which we of Spanish blood are rather proud--a desire for
justice, for something that has no softer name than revenge."
Suddenly Rawlins stooped and took the Panamanian's hand.
"Say! We've been giving you the raw end of a lot of snap judgments. We've
never got acquainted until to-night."
"Glad to meet you, too," Robinson grinned.
Rawlins patted the Panamanian's shoulder.
"At that, you'd make a first-class detective."
Paredes yawned.
"I disagree with you thoroughly. I have no equipment beyond my eyes and
my common sense."
He yawned again. He arranged the card table in front of the fire. He got
the cards and piled them in neat packs on the green cloth. He placed a
box of cigarettes convenient to his right hand. He smoked.
"I'm very sleepy, but I've been so stupid over this solitaire since I've
been at the Cedars that I must solve it in the interest of my
self-respect before I go to bed."
Bobby went to him impulsively.
"I'm ashamed, Carlos. I don't know what to say. How can I say anything?
How can I begin to thank you?"
"If you ever tell me I saved your life," Paredes yawned, "I shall have to
disappear because then you'd have a claim on me."
Katherine touched his hand. There were tears in her eyes. It wasn't
necessary for her to speak. Paredes indicated two chairs.
"If you aren't too tired, sit here and help me for a while. Perhaps
between us we'll get somewhere. I wonder why I have been so stupid with
the thing."
After a time, as he manipulated the cards, he laughed lightly.
"The same thing--the thing I've been scolding you all for. With a
perfectly simple play staring me in the face I nearly made the mistake of
choosing a difficult one. That would have got me in trouble while the
simple one gives me the game. Why are people like that?"
As he moved the cards with a deft assurance to their desired combination
he smiled drolly at Graham, Rawlins, and Robinson.
"I guess it must be human nature. Don't you think so, Mr. District
Attorney?"
* * * * *
The condition Paredes had more than once foreseen was about to shroud the
Cedars in loneliness and abandonment. After the hasty double burial in
the old graveyard the few things Bobby and Katherine wanted from the
house had been packed and taken to the station. At Katherine's suggestion
they had decided to leave last of all and to walk. Paredes with a tender
solicitude had helped Maria to the waiting automobile. He came back,
trying to colour his good-bye with cheerfulness.
"After all, you may open the place again and let me visit you."
"You will visit us perpetually," Bobby said, while Katherine pressed the
Panamanian's hand, "but never here again. We will leave it to its ghosts,
as you have often prophesied."
"I am not sure," Paredes said thoughtfully, "that the ghosts
aren't here."
It was evident that Graham wished to speak to Bobby and Katherine alone,
so the Panamanian strolled back to the automobile. Graham's embarrassment
made them all uncomfortable.
"You have not said much to me, Katherine," he began. "Is it because I
practically lied to Bobby, trying to keep you apart?"
She tried to smile.
"I, too, must ask forgiveness. I shouldn't have spoken to you as I did
the other night in the hall, but I thought, because you saw Bobby and
I had come together, that you had spied on me, had deliberately
tricked me, knowing the evidence was in my room. Of course you did try
to help Bobby."
"Yes," he said, "and I tried to help you that night. I was sure you
were innocent. I believed the best way to prove it to them was to let
them search. The two of you have nothing worse than jealousy to
reproach me with."
In a sense it pleased Bobby that Graham, who had always made him
feel unworthy in Katherine's presence, should confess himself not
beyond reproach.
"Come, Hartley," he cried, "I was beginning to think you were perfect.
We'll get along all the better, the three of us, for having had it out."
Graham murmured his thanks. He joined Paredes and Maria in the
automobile. As they drove off Paredes turned. His face, as he waved a
languid farewell, was quite without expression.
Bobby and Katherine were left alone to the thicket and the old house.
After a time they walked through the court and from the shadow of the
time-stained, melancholy walls. At the curve of the driveway they paused
and looked back. The shroud of loneliness and abandonment descending upon
the Cedars became for them nearly ponderable. So they turned from that
brooding picture, and hand in hand walked out of the forest into the
friendly and welcoming sunlight.
THE END