The Abandoned Room

— II —-3

Bobby glanced at the detective who bent over the bed watching him out of his narrow eyes.

“Why,” he asked simply, “do you say he was murdered?”

“He was murdered,” the detective answered. “Murdered in cold blood, and, look you here, young fellow, I know who did it. I’m going to strap that man in the electric chair. He’s got just one chance — if he talks out, if he makes a clean breast of it.”

Across the body he bent closer. He held the candle so that its light searched Bobby’s face instead of the dead man’s, and the uncertain flame was like an ambush for his eyes.

In response to those intolerable words Bobby’s sick nerves stretched too tight. No masquerade remained before this huntsman who had his victim trapped, and calmly studied his agony. The horror of the accusation shot at him across the body of the man he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t murdered, robbed him of his last control. He cried out hysterically:

“Why don’t you do something? For God’s sake, why don’t you arrest me?”

A chuckle came from the man in ambush behind the yellow flame.

“Listen to the boy! What’s he talking about? Grief for his grandfather. That’s what it is — grief.”

“Stop!” Bobby shouted. “It’s what you’ve been accusing me with ever since you stopped me at the station.” He indicated the silent form of the old man. “You keep telling me I murdered him. Why don’t you arrest me then? Why don’t you lock me up? Why don’t you put the case on a reasonable basis?”

He waited, trembling. The flame continued to flicker, but the hand holding the candlestick failed to move, and Bobby knew that the eyes didn’t waver, either. He forced his glance from the searching flame. He managed to lower and steady his voice.

“You can’t. That’s the trouble. He wasn’t murdered. The coroner will tell you so. Anybody who looks at him will tell you so. Since you haven’t the nerve to arrest me. I’m going. I’m glad to have had this out with you. Understand. I’m my own master. I do what I please. I go where I please.”

At last the candle moved to one side. The detective straightened and walked to Bobby. The multitude of small lines in his face twitched. His voice was too cold for the fury of his words.

“That’s just what I want you to do, damn you — anything you please. I’m accusing nobody, but I’m getting somebody. I’ve got somebody right now for this old man’s murder. My man’s going to writhe and burn in the chair, confession or no confession. Now get out of this room since you’re so anxious, and don’t come near it again.”

Bobby went. At the end of the corridor he heard the closing of the door, the scraping of the key. He was afraid the detective might follow him to his room to heckle him further. To avoid that he hurried to the lower floor. He wanted to be alone. He must have time to accustom himself to this degrading fate which loomed in the too-close future. Unless they could demolish the detective’s theory he, Bobby Blackburn, would go to the death house.

A fire blazed in the big hall fireplace. Paredes stood with his back to it, smoking and warming his hands. A man sat in the shadow of a deep leather chair, his rough, unpolished boots stretched toward the flaming logs. As he came down the stairs Bobby heard the heavy, rumbling voice of the man in the chair:

“Certainly it’s a queer case, but not the way Howells means. I daresay the old fool died what the world will call a natural death. If you smoke so much you will, too, before long.”

Bobby tried to slip past, but Paredes saw him.

“Feeling better, Bobby?”

The boots were drawn in. From the depths of the chair arose a figure nearly gigantic in the firelight. The man’s face, at first glance, appeared to be covered with hair. Black and curling, it straggled over his forehead. It circled his mouth, and fell in an unkempt beard down his waistcoat. The huge man must have been as old as Silas Blackburn, but he showed no touch of gray. His only concession to age was the sunken and bloodshot appearance of his eyes.

Bobby and Katherine had always been afraid of this great, grim country practitioner who had attended their childish illnesses. That sense of an overpowering and incomprehensible personality had lingered. Even through his graver fear Bobby felt a sharp discomfort as he surrendered his hand to the other’s absorbing grasp.

“I’m afraid you came too late this time, Doctor Groom.”

The doctor looked him up and down.

“Not for you, I guess,” he grumbled. “Don’t you know you’re sick, boy?”

Bobby shook his head.

“I’m very tired. That’s all. I’m on my way to the library to try to rest.”

He freed his hand. The big man nodded approvingly.

“I’ll send you a dose,” he promised, “and don’t you worry about your grandfather’s having been murdered by any man. I’ve seen the body. Stuff and nonsense! Detective’s an ass. Waiting for coroner, although I know he’s one, too.”

“I pray,” Bobby answered listlessly, “that you’re right.”

“If there’s any little thing I can do,” Paredes offered formally.

“No, no. Thanks,” Bobby answered.

He went on to the library. He glanced with an unpleasant shrinking from the door of the enclosed staircase leading to the private hall just outside the room in which his grandfather lay dead. There was no fire here, but he wrapped himself in a rug and lay on the broad, high-backed lounge which was drawn close to the fireplace, facing it. His complete weariness conquered his premonitions, his feeling of helplessness. The entrance of Jenkins barely aroused him.

“Where are you, Mr. Robert?”

“Here,” Bobby answered sleepily.

The butler walked to the lounge and looked over the back.

“To be sure, sir. I didn’t see you here.”

He held out a glass.

“Doctor Groom said you were to drink this. It would make you sleep, sir.”

Bobby closed his eyes again.

“Put it on the table where I can reach it when I want it.”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Robert! The policeman? Did he say anything, if I might make so bold as to ask?”

“Go away,” Bobby groaned. “Leave me in peace.”

And peace for a little time came to him. It was the sound of voices in the room that aroused him. He lay for a time, scarcely knowing where he was, but little by little the sickening truth came back, and he realized that it was Graham and the detective, Howells, who talked close to the window, and Graham had already fulfilled his promise.

Bobby didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it was patent he would embarrass Graham by disclosing himself now, and it was likely Graham would be glad of a witness to anything the detective might say.

It was still light. A ray from the low sun entered the window and rested on the door of the enclosed staircase.

Graham’s anxious demand was the first thing Bobby heard distinctly — the thing that warned him to remain secreted.

“I think now with the coroner on his way it’s time you defined your suspicions a trifle more clearly. I am a lawyer. In a sense I represent young Mr. Blackburn. Please tell me why you are so sure his grandfather was murdered.”

“All right,” the detective’s level voice came back. “Half an hour ago I would have said no again, but now I’ve got the evidence I wanted. I appreciate, Mr. Graham, that you’re a friend of that young rascal, and what I have to say isn’t pleasant for a friend to hear. But first you want to know why I’m so sure the case is murder, in spite of the doctor who made his diagnosis without really looking.”

“Go on,” Graham said softly.

Bobby waited — his nerves as tense as they had grown in the presence of the dead man.

“Two days ago,” the detective went on quietly, “old Mr. Blackburn came to the courthouse in Smithtown and asked for the best detective the district attorney could put his hand on. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I’ve got away with one or two pretty fair jobs. I’ve had good offers from private firms in New York. So they turned him over to me. It was easy to see the old man was scared, just as his niece says he was last night. The funny part was he wouldn’t say definitely what he was afraid of. I thought he might be shielding somebody until he was a little surer of his ground. He told me he was afraid of being murdered, and he wanted a good man he could call on to come out here to the Cedars if things got too hot for him. I can hear his voice now as distinctly as if he was standing where you are.

“‘My heart’s all right,’ he said. ‘It won’t stop awhile yet unless it’s made to. So if I’m found cold some fine morning you can be sure I was put out of the way.’

“I tried to pump him, naturally, but he wouldn’t say another word except that he’d send for me if there was time. He didn’t want any fuss made, and he gave me a handsome present to keep my mouth shut and not to bother him with any more questions. I figured — you can’t blame me, Mr. Graham — that the old boy was a little cracked. So I took his money and let it go at that. I didn’t think much more about it until they told me early this morning he lay dead here under peculiar circumstances.”

“Odd!” Graham commented. “It does make it more like murder, Howells. But he doesn’t look like a murdered man.”

“When you know as much about crime as I do, Mr. Graham, you’ll realize that murders which are a long time planning are likely to take on one of two appearances — suicide or natural death.”

“All right,” Graham said. “For the purpose of argument let us agree it’s murder. Even so, why do you suspect young Blackburn?”

“Without a scrap of evidence it’s plain as the nose on your face,” the detective answered. “If old Blackburn had lived until this morning our young man would have been a pauper. As it is, he’s a millionaire, but I don’t think he’ll enjoy his money. The two had been at sword’s points for a long time. Robert hated the old man — never made any bones about it. You couldn’t ask for a more damaging motive.”

“You can’t convict a man on motive,” Graham said shortly. “You spoke of evidence.”

“More,” the detective replied, “than any jury in the land would ask.”

Bobby held his breath, shrinking from this information, which, however, he realized it was better he should know.

“When I got here,” the detective said, “I decided on the theory of murder to make a careful search as soon as day broke. I didn’t have to wait for day, though, to find one crying piece of evidence. For a long time I was alone in the room with the body. Queer feeling about that room, Mr. Graham. Don’t know how to describe it except to say it’s uncomfortable. Too old, maybe. Maybe it was just being there alone with the dead man before the dawn, although I thought I was hardened to that sort of thing. Anyway, I didn’t like it. To keep my spirits up, as well as to save time, I commenced searching the place with a candle. Nothing about the bed. Nothing in the closets or the bureau.”