He opened the door.
"Queerest case I've ever seen," he mumbled. "Step in, Mr. Blackburn."
Because of the drawn blinds the room was nearly as dark as the corridor. Bobby entered slowly, his nerves
taut. Against the farther wall the bed was like an enormous shadow, without form.
"Stay where you are," the detective warned, "until I give you more light. You know, I wouldn't want you to
touch anything, because the room is exactly as it was when he was murdered!"
Bobby experienced a swift impulse to strangle the brutal word in the detective's throat. But he stood still while
the man went to the bureau, struck a match, and applied it to a candle. The wick burned reluctantly. It
flickered in the wind that slipped past the curtain of the open window.
"Come here," the detective commanded roughly.
Bobby dragged himself forward until he stood at the foot of the four-poster bed. The detective lifted the
candle and held it beneath the canopy.
"You look all you want now, Mr. Robert Blackburn," he said grimly.
Bobby conquered the desire to close his eyes, to refuse to obey. He stared at his grandfather, and a feeling of
wonder grew upon him. For Silas Blackburn rested peacefully in the great bed. His eyes were closed. The
thick gray brows were no longer gathered in the frown too familiar to Bobby. The face with its gray beard
retained no fear, no record of a great shock.
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?"