The Abandoned Room:: A Mystery Story Page 3

  “Why am I here in the woods near the Cedars?”

  And he thought the thing answered:

  “Because you hate your grandfather.”

  Bobby laughed, thinking he understood. The figure in the black mask that accompanied him was his conscience. He could understand why it went masked.

  The wind resumed its whispering. The figures, straining like puny men, fought harder. The drowning face disappeared, wet and helpless. Bobby felt himself sinking back, back into the sable pit.

  “I don’t want to go,” he moaned.

  A long time afterward he heard a whisper again, and he wondered if it was the wind or his conscience. He laughed through the blackness because the words seemed so absurd.

  “Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It is the only safe way.”

  He laughed again, thinking:

  “What a careful conscience!”

  He retained only one more impression. He was dully aware that some time had passed. He shivered. He thought the wind had grown angry with him, for it no longer whispered. It shrieked, and he could make nothing of its wrath. He struggled frantically to emerge from the pit. The quality of the blackness deepened. His fright grew. He felt himself slipping, slowly at first then faster, faster down into impossible depths, and there was nothing at all he could do to save himself.

  * * * * *

  “Go away! For God’s sake, go away!”

  Bobby thought he was speaking to the sombre figure in the mask. His voice aroused him to one more effort at escape, but he felt that there was no use. He was too deep.

  Something hurt his eyes. He opened them and for a time was blinded by a narrow shaft, of sunlight resting on his face. With an effort he moved his head to one side and closed his eyes again, at first merely thankful that he had escaped from the black hell, trying to control his sensations of physical evil. Subtle curiosity forced its way into his sick brain and stung him wide awake. This time his eyes remained open, staring about him, dilating with a wilder fright than he had experienced in the dark mazes of his nightmare adventure.

  He had never seen this place before. He lay on the floor of an empty room. The shaft of sunlight that had aroused him entered through a crack in one of the tightly drawn blinds. There were dust and grime on the wails, and cobwebs clustered in the corners.

  In the silent, deserted room the beating of his heart became audible. He struggled to a sitting posture. He gasped for breath. He knew it was very cold in here, but perspiration moistened his face. He could recall no such suffering as this since, when a boy, he had slipped from the crisis of a destructive fever.

  Had he been drugged? But he had been with friends. There was no motive.

  What house was this? Was it, like this room, empty and deserted? How had he come here? For the first time he went through that dreadful process of trying to draw from the black pit useful memories.

  He started, recalling the strange voice and its warning, for his shoes lay near by as though he might have dropped them carelessly when he had entered the room and stretched himself on the floor. Damp earth adhered to the soles. The leather above was scratched.

  “Then,” he thought, “that much is right. I was in the woods. What was I doing there? That dim figure! My imagination.”

  He suffered the agony of a man who realizes that he has wandered unawares in strange places, and retains no recollection of his actions, of his intentions. He went back to that last unclouded moment in the cafe with Maria, Paredes, and the stranger. Where had he gone after he had left them? He had looked at his watch. He had told himself he must catch the twelve-fifteen train. He must have gone from the restaurant, proceeding automatically, and caught the train. That would account for the sensation of motion in a swift vehicle, and perhaps there had been a taxicab to the station. Doubtless in the woods near the Cedars he had decided it was too late to go in, or that it was wiser not to. He had answered to the necessity of sleeping somewhere. But why had he come here? Where, indeed, was he?

  At least he could answer that. He drew on his shoes—a pair of patent leather pumps. He fumbled for his handkerchief, thinking he would brush the earth from them. He searched each of his pockets. His handkerchief was gone. No matter. He got to his feet, lurching for a moment dizzily. He glanced with distaste at his rumpled evening clothing. To hide it as far as possible he buttoned his overcoat collar about his neck. On tip-toe he approached the door, and, with the emotions of a thief, opened it quietly. He sighed. The rest of the house was as empty as this room. The hall was thick with dust. The rear door by which he must have entered stood half open. The lock was broken and rusty.

  He commenced to understand. There was a deserted farmhouse less than two miles from the Cedars. Since he had always known about it, it wasn’t unusual he should have taken shelter there after deciding not to go in to his grandfather.

  He stepped through the doorway to the unkempt yard about whose tumbled fences the woods advanced thickly. He recognized the place. For some time he stood ashamed, yet fair enough to seek the cause of his experience in some mental unhealth deeper than any reaction from last night’s folly.

  He glanced at his watch. It was after two o’clock. The mournful neighbourhood, the growing chill in the air, the sullen sky, urged him away. He walked down the road. Of course he couldn’t go to the Cedars in this condition. He would return to his apartment in New York where he could bathe, change his clothes, recover from this feeling of physical ill, and remember, perhaps, something more.

  It wasn’t far to the little village on the railroad, and at this hour there were plenty of trains. He hoped no one he knew would see him at the station. He smiled wearily. What difference did that make? He might as well face old Blackburn, himself, as he was. By this time the thing was done. The new will had been made. He was penniless and an outcast. But his furtive manner clung. He didn’t want Katherine to see him like this.

  From the entrance of the village it was only a few steps to the station. Several carriages stood at the platform, testimony that a train was nearly due. He prayed that it would be for New York. He didn’t want to wait around. He didn’t want to risk Katherine’s driving in on some errand.

  His mind, intent only on escaping prying eyes, was drawn by a man who stepped from behind a carriage and started across the roadway in his direction, staring at him incredulously. His quick apprehension vanished. He couldn’t recall that surprised face. There was no harm being seen, miserable as he was, dressed as he was, by this stranger. He looked at him closer. The man was plainly clothed. He had small, sharp eyes. His hairless face was intricately wrinkled. His lips were thin, making a straight line.

  To avoid him Bobby stepped aside, thinking he must be going past, but the stranger stopped and placed a firm hand on Bobby’s shoulder. He spoke in a quick, authoritative voice:

  “Certainly you are Mr. Robert Blackburn?”

  For Bobby, in his nervous, bewildered condition, there was an ominous note in this surprise, this assurance, this peremptory greeting.

  “What’s amazing about that?” he jerked out.

  The stranger’s lips parted in a straight smile.

  “Amazing! That’s the word I was thinking of. Hoped you might come in from New York. Seemed you were here all the time. That’s a good one on me—a very good one.”

  The beating of Bobby’s heart was more pronounced than it had been in the deserted house. He asked himself why he should shrink from this stranger who had an air of threatening him. The answer lay in that black pit of last night and this morning. Unquestionably he had been indiscreet. The man would tell him how.

  “You mean,” he asked with dry lips, “that you’ve been looking for me? Who are you? Please take your hand off.”

  The stranger’s grasp tightened.

  “Not so fast, Mr. Robert Blackburn. I daresay you haven’t just now come from the Cedars?”

  “No, no. I’m on my way to New York. There’s a train soon, I think.”

/>   His voice trailed away. The stranger’s straight smile widened. He commenced to laugh harshly and uncouthly.

  “Sure there’s a train, but you don’t want to take it. And why haven’t you been at the Cedars? Grandpa’s death grieved you too much to go near his body?”

  Bobby drew back. The shock robbed him for a moment of the power to reason.

  “Dead! The old man! How—”

  The stranger’s smile faded.

  “Here it is nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, and you’re all dressed up for last night. That’s lucky.”

  Bobby couldn’t meet the narrow eyes.

  “Who are you?”

  The stranger with his free hand threw back his coat lapel.

  “My name’s Howells. I’m a county detective. I’m on the case, because your grandfather died very strangely. He was murdered, very cleverly murdered. Queerest case I’ve ever handled. What do you think?”

  In his own ears Bobby’s voice sounded as remote and unreal as it had through the blackness last night.

  “Why do you talk to me like this?”

  “Because I tell you I’m on the case, and I want you to turn about and go straight to the Cedars.”

  “This is—absurd. You mean you suspect—You’re placing me under arrest?”

  The detective’s straight smile returned.

  “How we jump at conclusions! I’m simply telling you not to bother me with questions. I’m telling you to go straight to the Cedars where you’ll stay. Understand? You’ll stay there until you’re wanted—Until you’re wanted.”

  The merciless repetition settled it for Bobby. He knew it would be dangerous to talk or argue. Moreover, he craved an opportunity to think, to probe farther into the black pit. He turned and walked away. When he reached the last houses he glanced back. The detective remained in the middle of the road, staring after him with that straight and satisfied smile.

  Bobby walked on, his shaking hands tightly clenched, muttering to himself:

  “I’ve got to remember. Good God! I’ve got to remember. It’s the only way I can ever know he’s not right, that I’m not a murderer.”

  CHAPTER II. THE CASE AGAINST BOBBY

  Bobby hurried down the road in the direction of the Cedars. Always he tried desperately to recall what had occurred during those black hours last night and this morning before he had awakened in the empty house near his grandfather’s home. All that remained were his sensation of travel in a swift vehicle, his impression of standing in the forest near the Cedars, his glimpse of the masked figure which he had called his conscience, the echo in his brain of a dream-like voice saying: “Take off your shoes and carry them in your hand. Always do that. It’s the only safe way.”

  These facts, then, alone were clear to him: He had wandered, unconscious, in the neighbourhood. His grandfather had been strangely murdered. The detective who had met him in the village practically accused him of the murder. And he couldn’t remember.

  He turned back to his last clear recollections. When he had experienced his first symptoms of slipping consciousness he had been in the cafe in New York with Carlos Paredes, Maria, the dancer, and a strange man whom Maria had brought to the table. Through them he might, to an extent, trace his movements, unless they had put him in a cab, thinking he would catch the train, of which he had talked, for the Cedars.

  Already the forest crowded the narrow, curving road. The Blackburn place was in the midst of an arid thicket of stunted pines, oaks, and cedars. Old Blackburn had never done anything to improve the estate or its surroundings. Steadily during his lifetime it had grown more gloomy, less habitable.

  With the silent forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot might have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. He saw no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly it was the detective, Howells, who followed him, hoping, perhaps, that he would make some mad effort at escape.

  “That,” he muttered, “is probably the reason he didn’t arrest me at the station.”

  Bobby, however, had no thought of escape. He was impatient to reach the Cedars where he might learn all that Howells hadn’t told him about his grandfather’s death.

  A high wooden fence straggled through the forest. The driveway swung from the road through a broad gateway. The gate stood open. Bobby remembered that it had been old Blackburn’s habit to keep it closed. He entered and hurried among the trees to the edge of the lawn in the centre of which the house stood.

  Feeling as guilty as the detective thought him, he paused there and examined the house for some sign of life. At first it seemed as dead as the forest stripped by autumn—almost as gloomy and arid as the wilderness which straggled close about it. He had no eye for the symmetry of its wings which formed the court in the centre of which an abandoned fountain stood. He studied the windows, picturing Katherine alone, surrounded by the complications of this unexpected tragedy.

  His feeling of an inimical watchfulness persisted. A clicking sound swung him back to the house. The front door had been opened, and in the black frame of the doorway, as he looked, Katherine and Graham appeared, and he knew the resolution of his last doubt was at hand.

  Katherine had thrown a cloak over her graceful figure. Her sunny hair strayed in the wind, but her face, while it had lost nothing of its beauty, projected even at this distance a sense of weariness, of anxiety, of utter fear.

  Bobby was grateful for Graham’s presence. It was like the man to assume his responsibilities, to sacrifice himself in his service. He straightened. He must meet these two. Through his own wretched appearance and position he must develop for Katherine more clearly than ever Graham’s superiority. He stepped out, calling softly:

  “Katherine!”

  She started. She turned in his direction and came swiftly toward him. She spread her hands.

  “Bobby! Bobby! Where have you been?”

  There were tears in her eyes. They were like tears that have been too long coming. He took her hands. Her fingers were cold. They twitched in his.

  “Look at me, Katherine,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

  Graham came up. He spoke with apparent difficulty.

  “You’ve not been home. Then what happened last night? Quick! Tell us what you did—everything.”

  “I’ve seen the detective,” he answered. “He’s told you, too? Be careful. I think he’s back there, watching and listening.”

  Katherine freed her hands. The tears had dried. She shook a little.

  “Then you were at the station,” she said. “You must have come from New York, but I tried so hard to get you there. For hours I telephoned and telegraphed. Then I got Hartley. Come away from the trees so we can talk without—without being overheard.”

  As they moved to the centre of the open space Graham indicated Bobby’s evening clothes.

  “Why are you dressed like that, Bobby? Youdid come from town? You can tell us everything you did last night after I left you, and early this morning?”

  Bobby shook his head. His answer was reluctant.

  “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 assistant. 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: ‘God 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 nobody 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.”