The Abandoned Room Part 16

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, "princ.i.p.ally 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 grat.i.tude.

"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 att.i.tude. 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 hoa.r.s.ely.

"Half-past two. I don't think Robinson was aroused."

The damp moon gave an ominous unreality to the room.

"What did I do?" Bobby whispered.

"Got softly out of bed and went to the hall. It was uncanny. You were like an automaton. I didn't wake you at once. You see, I--I thought you might go to the old room."

Bobby shook again. He drew a blanket about his shoulders.

"And you believed I'd show the way in and out, but the room was empty, so I was going downstairs--"

He shuddered.

"Good G.o.d! Then it's all true. I did it for the money. I put Howells out to protect myself. I was going after Robinson. It's true. Hartley! Tell me. Do you think it's true?"

Graham turned away.

"Don't ask me to say anything to help you just now," he answered huskily, "for after this I don't dare, Bobby. I don't dare."

CHAPTER VII.

THE AMAZING MEETING IN THE SHADOWS OF THE OLD COURTYARD.

Bobby returned to his bed. He lay there still shivering, beneath the heavy blankets. "I don't dare!" He echoed Graham's words. "There's nothing else any one can say. I must decide what to do. I must think it over."

But, as always, thought brought no release. It merely insisted that the case against him was proved. At last he had been seen slipping unconsciously from his room--and at the same hour. All that remained was to learn how he had accomplished the apparent miracles. Then no excuse would remain for not going to Robinson and confessing. The woman at the lake and in the courtyard, the movement of the body and the vanishing of the evidence under his hand, Paredes's odd behaviour, all became in his mind puzzling details that failed to obscure the chief fact. After this something must be done about Paredes's detention.

He hadn't dreamed that his weariness could placate even momentarily such reflections, but at last he slept again. He was aroused by the tramping of men around the house, and strange, harsh voices. He raised himself on his elbow and glanced from the window. It had long been daylight. Two burly fellows in overalls, carrying pick and spade across their shoulders, pushed through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. He turned. Graham, fully dressed, stood at the side of the bed.

"Those men?" Bobby asked wearily.

"The grave diggers," Graham answered. "They are going to work in the old cemetery to prepare a place for Silas Blackburn with his fathers. That's why I've come to wake you up. The minister's telephoned Katherine. He will be here before noon. Do you know it's after ten o'clock?"

For some time Bobby stared through the window at the desolate, ragged landscape. It was abnormally cold even for the late fall. Dull clouds obscured the sun and furnished an illusion of crowding earthward.

"A funereal day."

The words slipped into his mind. He repeated them.

"When your grandfather's buried," Graham answered softly, "we'll all feel happier."

"Why?" Bobby asked. "It won't lessen the fact of his murder."

"Time," Graham said, "lessens such facts--even for the police."

Bobby glanced at him, flushing.

"You mean you've decided to stand by me after what happened last night?"

Graham smiled.

"I've thought it all over. I slept like a top last night. I heard nothing. I saw nothing."

"Ought I to want you to stand by me?" Bobby said. "Oughtn't I to make a clean breast of it? At least I must do something about Paredes."

Graham frowned.

"It's hard to believe he had any connection with your sleep-walking last night, yet it's as clear as ever that Maria and he are up to some game in which you figure."

"He shouldn't be in jail," Bobby persisted.

"Get up," Graham advised. "Bathe, and have some breakfast, then we can decide. There's no use talking of the other thing. I've forgotten it. As far as possible you must."

Bobby sprang upright.

"How can I forget it? If it was hard to face sleep before, what do you think it is now? Have I any right--"

"Don't," Graham said. "I'll be with you again to-night. If I were satisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt I'd advise you to confess, but I can't be until I know what Maria and Paredes are doing."

When Bobby had bathed and dressed he found, in spite of his mental turmoil, that his sleep had done him good. While he breakfasted Graham urged him to eat, tried to drive from his brain the morbid aftermath of last night's revealing moment.

"The manager took my advice, but Maria's still missing. Her pictures are in most of the papers. There have been reporters here this morning, about the murders."

He strolled over and handed Bobby a number of newspapers.

"Where's Robinson?" Bobby asked.

"I saw him in the court a while ago. I daresay he's wandering around--perhaps watching the men at the grave."