The Abandoned Room, Charles Wadsworth Camp [best book clubs .txt] 📗

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.