The Abandoned Room Part 14

"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 pa.s.sage 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 superst.i.tious 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s, 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 phosph.o.r.escent 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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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 d.a.m.ned 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 att.i.tude 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 c.o.c.ktails. 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?"