He paused again, looking around with a more defiant glare in his bloodshot eyes.  He appeared to be surprised not to find them laughing at him.

“What’s the matter with you all?” he cried.  “Why ain’t you making me out a fool?  You seen something in that room, too?”

“Go on,” Robinson urged.  “What happened then?  What did you do?”

Blackburn’s voice resumed its throaty monotone.  As he spoke he glanced about slyly, suspecting, perhaps, the watchfulness of the fancies that had intimidated him.

“I realized I had to get out if they would let me.  So I left the bed.  I went.”

He ceased, intimating that he had told everything.

“I know,” Robinson said, “but tell us how you got out of the room, for when you—­when the murder was discovered, both doors were locked on the inside, and you know how impossible the windows are.”

“I tell you,” Katherine said hysterically, “it was his body in the bed.”

Bobby knew her assurance was justified, but he motioned her to silence.

“Let him answer,” Robinson said.

Silas Blackburn ran his knotted fingers through his hair.  He shook his head doubtfully.

“That’s what I don’t understand myself.  That’s what’s been worrying me while these young ones have been talking as if I was dead and buried.  I recollect telling myself I must go.  I seem to remember leaving the bed all right, but I don’t seem to remember walking on the floor or going through the door.  You’re sure the doors were locked?”

“No doubt about that,” Rawlins said.

“Seems to me,” Blackburn went on, “that I was in the private staircase, but did I walk downstairs?  First thing I see clearly is the road through the woods, not far from the station.”

“What did you wear?” Robinson asked.

“I’d had my trousers and jacket on under my dressing-gown,” the old man answered, “because I knew the bed wasn’t made up.  That’s what I wore except for the dressing-gown.  I reckon I must have left that in the room.  I wouldn’t have gone back there for anything.  My mind was full of those angry people.  I wanted to get as far away from the Cedars as possible.  I knew the last train from New York would be along about three o’clock, so I thought I’d go on into Smithtown and in the morning see this detective I’d been talking to.  I went to Robert Waters’s house.  I’ve known him for a long time.  I guess you know who he is.  He’s such a book worm I figured he might be up, and he wouldn’t ask a lot of silly questions, being selfish like most people that live all the time with books.  He came to the door, and I told him I wanted to spend the night.  He offered to shake hands.  That’s funny, too.  I didn’t feel like shaking hands with anybody.  I recollect that, because I’d felt sort of queer ever since going in the old room, and something told me I’d better not shake hands.”

Paredes looked up, wide-eyed.  The cards slipped from his fragile, pointed fingers.