The Abandoned Room Part 28

"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 ca.n.a.l 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 h.e.l.l. 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? n.o.body 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 G.o.d. 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 superst.i.tious. 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 fas.h.i.+on of Blackburns, remarkably alike even without the gray, obliterating marks of old age.

"I found these in the family alb.u.m," 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. a.s.suredly 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-cla.s.s 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 a.s.surance 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 embarra.s.sment 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.