He forced his glance from the shadows which seemed
more active along the walls. He raised his candle
and stared at the dead man. The cast was undoubtedly
there. The coat, stretched tightly across the
breast, outlined it. He stood at the side of
the bed. He had only to bend and place his hand
in the pocket which the cast filled awkwardly.
The wind alone, he saw, wasn’t responsible for
the shaking of the candle. His hand shook as
the shadows shook, as the thing on the bed shook.
The sense of loneliness grew upon him until it became
complete, appalling. For the first time he understood
that loneliness can possess a ponderable quality.
It was, he felt, potent and active in the room—a
thing he couldn’t understand, or challenge,
or overcome.
His hand tightened. He thought of Katherine guarding
the corridor; of Paredes and Doctor Groom, held downstairs
by Graham; of the county authorities hurrying to seize
this evidence that would convict him; and he realized
that his duty and his excuse were clear. He understood
that just now he had been captured by a force undefinable
in terms of the world he knew. For a moment he
eluded the stealthy fleshless hands of its impalpable
skirmishers. He reached impulsively out to the
dead man. He was about to place his fingers in
the pocket, which, after all was said and done, held
his life.
In the light of the candle the face seemed alive and
more menacing than it had ever done in life.
About the straight smile was a wider, more triumphant
quality.
The candle flickered sharply. It expired.
The conquering blackness took his breath.
He told himself it was the draft from the window which
was strong, but the companionship of the night was
closer and more numerous. The darkness wreathed
itself into mocking and tortuous bodies whose faces
were hidden.
In an agony of revolt against these incorporeal, these
fanciful horrors, he reached in the pocket.
He sprang back with a choked, inaudible cry, for the
dead thing beneath his hand was stirring. The
dead, cold thing with a languid and impossible rebuke,
moved beneath his touch. And the pocket he had
felt was empty. The coat, a moment ago bulging
and awkward, was flat. There sprang to his mind
the mad thought that the detective, malevolent in life,
had long after death snatched from his hand the evidence,
carefully gathered, on which everything for him depended.
CHAPTER V
THE CRYING THROUGH THE WOODS
Bobby’s inability to cry out alone prevented
his alarming the others and announcing to Paredes
and Doctor Groom his unlawful presence in the room.
During the moment that the shock held him, silent,
motionless, bent in the darkness above the bed, he
understood there could have been no ambiguity about
his ghastly and loathsome experience. The dead
detective had altered his position as Silas Blackburn
