The Abandoned Room Part 3

"I didn't come from New York just now. I was evidently here last night, and I can't remember, Hartley. I remember scarcely anything."

Graham's face whitened.

"Tell us," he begged.

"You've got to remember!" Katherine cried.

Bobby as minutely as he could recited the few impressions that remained from last night.

When he had finished Graham thought for some time.

"Paredes and the dancer," he said at last, "practically forced me away from you last night. It's obvious, Bobby, you must have been drugged."

Bobby shook his head.

"I thought of that right away, but it won't do. If I had been drugged I wouldn't have moved around, and I did come out somehow, I managed to get to the empty house to sleep. It's more as if my mind had simply closed, as if it had gone on working its own ends without my knowing anything about it. And that's dreadful, because the detective has practically accused me of murdering my grandfather. How was it done? You see I know nothing. Tell me how--how he was killed. I can't believe I--I'm such a beast. Tell me. If I was in the house, some detail might start my memory."

So Katherine told her story while Bobby listened, shrinking from some disclosure that would convict him. As she went on, however, his sense of bewilderment increased, and when she had finished he burst out: "But where is the proof of murder? Where is there even a suggestion? You say the doors were locked and he doesn't show a mark."

"That's what we can't understand," Graham said. "There's no evidence we know anything about that your grandfather's heart didn't simply give out, but the detective is absolutely certain, and--there's no use mincing matters, Bobby--he believes he has the proof to convict you. He won't tell me what. He simply smiles and refuses to talk."

"The motive?" Bobby asked.

Graham looked at him curiously. Katherine turned away.

"Of course," Bobby cried with a sharpened discomfort. "I'd forgotten. The money--the new will he had planned to make. The money's mine now, but if he had lived until this morning it never would have been. I see."

"It is a powerful motive," Graham said, "for any one who doesn't know you."

"But," Bobby answered, "Howells has got to prove first that my grandfather was murdered. The autopsy?"

"Coroner's out of the county," Graham replied, "and Howells won't have an a.s.sistant. Dr. Groom's waiting in the house. We're expecting the coroner almost any time."

Bobby spoke rapidly.

"If he calls it murder, Hartley, there's one thing we've got to find out: what my grandfather was afraid of. Tell me again, Katherine, everything he said about me. I can't believe he could have been afraid of me."

"He called you," Katherine answered, "a waster. He said: 'G.o.d knows what he'll do next.' He said he'd ordered you out last night and he hadn't had a word from you, but that he'd made up his mind anyway. He was going to have his lawyer this morning and change his will, leaving all his money to the Bedford Foundation, except a little annuity for me. He grew sentimental and said he had no faith left in his flesh and blood, and that it was sad to grow old with n.o.body caring for him except to covet his money. I asked him if he were afraid of you, and all he answered was: 'You and Bobby are thicker than thieves.' Oh, yes. When I saw him for the last time in the hall he said there was nothing for me to worry about except you. That's all. I remember perfectly. He said nothing more about you."

"I wonder," Bobby muttered, "if a jury wouldn't think it enough."

Katherine shook her head.

"There seemed so much more than that behind his fear," she said. "As I've told you, he gave me a feeling of superst.i.tion. I never once was afraid of a murderer--of a man in the house. I was afraid of something queer and active, but not human."

Bobby straightened.

"Would you," he asked, "call a man going about in an asphasia quite human? Somnambulists do unaccountable things--such as overcoming locked doors--"

"Don't, Bobby! Don't!" Katherine cried.

"Sh--h! Quiet!" Graham warned.

A foot sc.r.a.ped on gravel.

"Maybe the detective," Bobby suggested.

He stared at the bend, expecting to see the stiff, plain figure of the detective emerge from the forest. Instead with a dawning amazement he watched Carlos Paredes stroll into view. The Panamanian was calm and immaculate. His Van d.y.k.e beard was neatly trimmed and combed. As he advanced he puffed in leisurely fashion at a cigarette.

Graham flushed.

"After last night he has the nerve--"

"Be decent to him," Bobby urged. "He might help me--might clear up last night."

"I wonder," Graham mused, "to what extent he could clear it up if he wished."

Paredes threw his cigarette away as he came closer. Solemnly he shook hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy. Even then Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion. The man turned to Graham.

"Our little difference of last evening," he said suavely, "will, I hope, evaporate in this atmosphere of unexpected sorrow. If I was in the wrong I deeply regret it. My one wish now is to join you in being of use to Bobby and Miss Katherine in their bereavement. I saw the account in a paper at luncheon. I came as quickly as possible."

Graham answered this smooth effrontery with a blunt question.

"Do you know that Bobby is in very real trouble, that he may be implicated in Mr. Blackburn's death?"

Paredes flung up his hands, but Bobby, looking for emotion in the sallow face then, found none. Paredes's features, it occurred to him, were exactly like a mask.

Bobby checked himself. In his unhealthy way Paredes had been a good friend. The man's voice flowed smoothly, demanding particulars.

"But this," he said, when they had told him what they could, "changes the situation. I must stay here. I must watch that detective and learn what he has up his sleeve."

Graham turned away.

"I've tried. Maybe you'll succeed better than I."

"Then you'll excuse me," Paredes said quickly. "I should like your permission to telephone to my hotel in New York for some clothing. I want to see this through."

The three looked at each other. Katherine and Graham seemed about to speak. Bobby wouldn't let them.

"Carlos," he said, "you might help me. I'm almost afraid to ask. What happened in the cafe last night? The last thing I remember distinctly is sitting there with you and Maria and a stranger she had introduced. I didn't get his name. What did I do? Did any one leave the place with me?"

Paredes smiled a little, shaking his head.

"You behaved as if Mr. Graham's earlier fears had been accomplished. You insisted you were going to catch your train. I didn't think it wise, so I went to the cloak room with you, intending to see you home. Somehow, just the same you gave me the slip."

"You oughtn't to have let him get away," Graham said.

Paredes shrugged his shoulders.

"You weren't there. You don't know how sly Bobby was."

"I suppose it's useless to ask," Graham said. "You saw nothing put in his wine?"

Paredes laughed.

"Is it likely? Certainly not. I should have mentioned it. I should have stopped such a thing. What do you think I am, Mr. Graham?"

"Sorry," Graham said. "You must understand we can't let any lead slip. This stranger Maria brought up?"

"I didn't catch his name," Paredes answered.

"I'd never seen him before. I gathered he was a friend of hers--connected with the profession. Now I shall telephone with your permission, Miss Katherine; and don't you worry, Bobby. I will see you through; but we can't do much until the coroner comes, until the detective can be made to talk."

Katherine hesitated for a moment, then she surrendered.

"Please go with him, Hartley, and--and make him as comfortable as you can in this unhappy house."

Katherine detained Bobby with a nod. He saw the others go. He shrank, in his mental and physical discomfort, from this isolation with her. As soon as the door was closed she touched his hand. She burst out pa.s.sionately: "I don't believe it, Bobby. I'll never believe it no matter what happens."

"It's sweet of you, Katherine," he said huskily. "That helps when you don't know what to believe yourself."

"Don't talk that way. Such a crime would never have entered your head under any conditions. Only, Bobby, it ought never to have happened. You ought never to have been in this position. Why have you been friendly with people like--like that Spaniard? What can he want, forcing himself here? At any rate, you'll never lead that sort of life again?"

Her fingers sought his. He clasped them firmly.

"If I get past this," he said, "I'll always look you straight in the eye, Katherine. It was mad--silly. You don't quite understand--"

He broke off, glancing at the door through which Graham had disappeared.

"Then remember," she said softly, "I don't believe it."

She released his hand, sighing.

"That's all I can say, all I can do now. You're ill, Bobby. Go in. Rest for awhile. When you've had sleep you may remember something."

He shook his head. He walked slowly with her to the house.

As he climbed the stairs he heard Paredes telephoning. He couldn't understand the man's insistence on remaining where clearly he was an intruder.

He entered his bedroom which he had occupied only once or twice during the last few months. The place seemed unfamiliar. As he bathed and dressed his sense of strangeness grew, and he understood why. The last time he had been here he had stood in no personal danger. There had been no black parenthesis in his life during the stretch of which he might have committed an unspeakable crime. For he couldn't believe as firmly as Katherine did. Since he couldn't remember, he might have done anything.

"Come!" he called in response to a stealthy rapping at the door.

Stealth, it occurred to him, had, since last night, become a stern condition of his life.

Graham entered and noiselessly closed the door.

"I had a chance to slip in," he explained. "Paredes is wandering about the place. I'd give a lot to know what he's after at the Cedars. Katherine is in her room, trying to rest after last night, I fancy."

"And," Bobby asked, "the detective--Howells?"

"If he's back from the station," Graham answered, "he's keeping low. I wonder if it was he or Paredes who followed you through the woods?"

"Why should Carlos have followed me?" Bobby asked. "I've been thinking it over, Hartley. It isn't a bad scheme having him here, since you think he hasn't told all he knows."

"I don't say that," Graham answered. "I don't know what to think about Paredes. I've come to talk about just that. I'm a lawyer, and I've had some criminal practice. Since this detective will be satisfied with you for a victim, I'm going to take your case, if you'll have me. I'll be your detective as well as your lawyer."

Bobby was a good deal touched.

"That's kind of you--more than I deserve, for I have resented you at times."

Graham, it was clear, didn't guess he referred to his friendship for Katherine, for he answered quickly: "I must have seemed a nuisance, but I was only trying to get you back on the straight path where you've always belonged. I can't believe you did this thing, even unconsciously, until I'm shown proof without a single flaw. Until the autopsy the only thing we have to work on is that party last night. I've telephoned to New York and put a trustworthy man on the heels of Maria and the stranger. Meantime I think I'd better watch developments here."

"Please," Bobby agreed. "Stay with me, Hartley, until this man takes some definite action."

He picked at the fringe of the window curtain. "If the autopsy shows that my grandfather was murdered," he said, "either I killed him, or else some one has deliberately tried to throw suspicion on me, for with only a motive to go on this detective wouldn't be so sure. Why in the name of heaven should any one kill the old man, place all this money in my hands, and at the same time send me to the electric chair? Don't you see how absurd it is that Carlos, Maria, or any one else should have had a hand in it? There was nothing for them to gain from his death. I've thought and thought in such circles until I am almost convinced of the logic of my guilt."

He drew the curtain farther back and gazed across the court at the room where his grandfather lay dead. One of the two windows of the room was a little raised, but the blinds were closely drawn.

"I did hate him," he mused. "There's that. Ever since I can remember he did things to make me despise him. Have--have you seen him?"

Graham nodded.

"Howells took me in. He looked perfectly normal--not a mark."

"I don't want to see him," Bobby said.

He drew back from the window, pointing. The detective, Howells, had strolled into the court. His hands hung at his sides. They didn't swing as he walked. His lips were stretched in that thin, straight smile. He paused by the fountain, glancing for a moment anxiously downward. Then he came on and entered the house.

"He'll be restless," Graham said, "until the coroner comes, and proves or disproves his theory of murder. If he questions you, you'd better say nothing for the present. From his point of view what you remember of last night would be only damaging."

"I want him to leave me alone," Bobby said. "If he doesn't arrest me I won't have him bullying me."

Jenkins knocked and entered. The old butler was as white-faced as Bobby, more tremulous.

"The policeman, sir! He's asking for you."

"Tell him I don't wish to see him."

The detective, himself, stepped from the obscurity of the hall, smiling his queer smile.

"Ah! You are here, Mr. Blackburn! I'd like a word with you."

He turned to Graham and Jenkins.

"Alone, if you please."

Bobby mutely agreed, and Graham and the butler went out. The detective closed the door and leaned against it, studying Bobby with his narrow eyes.