His glance hadn’t wavered from the wall above
the stained pillow. There was movement there.
Then he saw. A hand protruded from the blackness
of the panelling where they had sounded and measured
without success. In the ashen, unnatural light
from the snow the long fingers of the hand were like
the feelers of a gigantic reptile. They wavered
feebly, and he became convinced that the hand was
immaterial, that it was unattached to any body.
If that was so it couldn’t be the hand of Katherine.
At least he had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had
been wrong about her. That sense of victory stripped
him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tight
band about his throat. He called. He could
prove the immaterial nature of the repulsive hand
wavering from the wall.
Crying out, he sprang to his feet. He flung himself
across the bed. With both of his own hands he
grasped the slender, inquisitive fingers which wavered
above the stained pillow, and once more his throat
tightened. He couldn’t cry out again.
CHAPTER X
THE CEDARS IS LEFT TO ITS SHADOWS
Straightway Bobby repented the alarm he had, perhaps
too impulsively, given. For the hand protruding
from the wall was, indeed, flesh and blood, and with
the knowledge came back his fear for Katherine, conquering
his first relief. A sick revulsion swept him.
He remembered the evidence found in Katherine’s
room, and her refusal to answer questions. Could
Paredes and the officers have been right? Was
it conceivably her hand struggling weakly in his grasp?
The door from the corridor crashed open. Rawlins
burst through. Graham ran after him. From
the private stairway arose the sound of the district
attorney’s hurrying footsteps.
“What is it? What have you got?”
Rawlins shouted.
Graham cried out:
“You’re all right, Bobby?”
The candle which the detective carried gleamed on
the slender fingers, showing Bobby that they had been
inserted through an opening in the wall. He couldn’t
understand, for time after time each one of the panels
had been sounded and examined. Beyond, he could
see dimly the dark clothing of the person who, with
a stealth in itself suggestive of abnormal crime,
had made use of such a device. As Rawlins hurried
up he wondered if it wouldn’t be the better
course to free his prisoner, to cry out, urging an
escape.
Already it was too late. The detective and Graham
had seen, and clearly they had no doubt that he held
the one responsible for two brutal murders and for
the confusing mysteries that had capped them.
“Looks like a lady’s hand,” Rawlins
called. “Don’t let go, young fellow.”
He unlocked the door to the private hallway.
Graham and he dashed out. In Bobby’s uncertain
grasp the hand twitched.
Robinson’s voice reached him through the opening.
“Let go, Mr. Blackburn. You’ve done
your share, the Lord knows. You’ve caught
the beast with the goods.”
