The abandoned

midnight, in New York. He was held there by the unhealthy habits and companionships which recently had angered his grandfather to the point of threatening a di

d, "the first thing, so nothing can be disturbed." Doctor Groom, a grim and dark man, had grown silent on entering the room. For a long time he stared at the body in the candle light, making as much of an examination as he could, evidently, without physical contact. "Why did he ever come here to sleep?" he asked in his rumbling bass voice. "Nasty room! Unhealthy room! Ten to one you're a formality, policeman. Coroner's a formality." He sneered a little. "I daresay he died what the hard-headed world will call a natural death. Wonder what the coroner'll say." The detective didn't answer. He shot rapid, uneasy glances about the room in which a single candle burned. After a time he said with an accent of complete conviction: "That man was murdered." Perhaps the doctor's significant words, added to her earlier dread of the abnormal, made Katherine read in the detective's manner an apprehension of conditions unfamiliar to the brutal routine of his profession. Her glances were restless, too. She had a feeling that from the shadowed corners of the faded, musty room invisible faces mocked the man's stubbornness. All this she recited to Bobby when, under extraordinary circumstances neither of them could have foreseen, he arrived at the Cedars many hours later. Of the earlier portion of the night of his grandfather's death Bobby retained a minute recollection. The remainder was like a dim, appalling nightmare whose impulse remains hidden. When he went to his apartment to dress for dinner he found the letter of which Silas Blackburn had spoken to Katherine. It mentioned the change in the will as an approaching fact nothing could alter. Bobby fancied that the old man merely craved the satisfaction of terrorizing him, of casting him out with all the ugly words at his command. Still a good deal more than a million isn't to be relinquished lightly as long as a chance remains. Bobby had an engagement for dinner. He would think the situation over until after dinner, then he might go. It was, perhaps, unfortunate that at his club he met friends who drew him in a corner and offered him too many cocktails. As he drank his anger grew, and it wasn't all against his grandfather. He asked himself why during the last few months he had avoided the Cedars, why he had drifted into too vivid a life in New York. It increased his anger that he hesitated to give himself a frank answer. But always at such moments it was Katherine rather than his grandfather who entered his mind. He had cared too much for her, and lately, beyond question, the bond of their affection had weakened. He raised his glass and drank. He set the glass down quickly as if he would have liked to hide it. A big man, clear-eyed and handsome, walked into the room and came straight to the little group in the corner. Bobby tried to carry it off. "'Lo, Hartley, old preacher. You fellows all know Hartley Graham? Sit down. We're going to have a little cocktail." Graham looked at the glasses, shaking his head. "If you've time, Bobby, I'd like a word with you." "No preaching," Bobby bargained. "It isn't Sunday." Graham laughed pleasantly. "It's about money. That talks any day." Bobby edged a way out and followed Graham to an unoccupied room. There the big man turned on him. "See here, Bobby! When are you going out to the Cedars?" Bobby flushed. "You're a dear friend, Hartley, and I've always loved you, but I'm in no mood for preaching tonight. Besides, I've got my own life to lead"-he glanced away -"my own reasons for leading it." "I'm not going to preach," Graham answered seriously, "although it's obvious you're raising the devil with your life. I wanted to tell you that I've had a note from Katherine to-day. She says your grandfather's threats are taking too much form; that the new will's bound to come unless you do something. She cares too much for you, Bobby, to see you throw everything away. She's asked me to persuade you to go out." "Why didn't she write to me?" "Have you been very friendly with Katherine lately? And that's not fair. You're both without parents. You owe Katherine something on that account." Bobby didn't answer, because it was clear that while Katherine's affection for him had weakened, her friendship for Graham had grown too fast. Looking at the other he didn't wonder. "There's another thing," Graham was saying. "The gloomy old Cedars has got on Katherine's nerves, and she says there's been a change in the old man the last few days-wanders around as if he were afraid of something." Bobby laughed outright. "Him afraid of something! It's always been his system to make everybody and everything afraid of him. But you're right about Katherine. We have always depended on each other. I think I'll go out after dinner." "Then come have a bite with me," Graham urged. "I'll see you off afterward. If you catch the eight-thirty you ought to be out there before half-past ten." Bobby shook his head. "An engagement for dinner, Hartley. I'm expecting Carlos Paredes to pick me up here any minute." Graham's disapproval was belligerent. "Why, in the name of heaven, Bobby, do you run around with that damned Panamanian? Steer him off to-night. I've argued with you before. It's unpleasant, I know, but the man carries every mark of crookedness." "Easy with my friends, Hartley! You don't understand Carlos. He's good fun when you know him-awfully good fun." "So," Graham said, "is this sort of thing. Too many cocktails, too much wine. Paredes has the same pleasant, dangerous quality." A club servant entered. "In the reception room, Mr. Blackburn." Bobby took the card, tore it into little bits, and dropped them one by one into the waste-paper basket. "Tell him I'll be right out." He turned to Graham. "Sorry you don't like my playmates. I'll probably run out after dinner and let the old man terrorize me as a cure for his own fear. Pleasant prospect! So long." Graham caught at his arm. "I'm sorry. Can't we forget to-night that we disagree about Paredes? Let me dine with you." Bobby's laugh was uncomfortable. "Come on, if you wish, and be my guardian angel. God knows I need one." He walked across the hall and into the reception room. The light was not brilliant there. One or two men sat reading newspapers about a green-shaded lamp on the centre table, but Bobby didn't see Paredes at first. Then from the obscurity of a corner a form, tall and graceful, emerged with a slow monotony of movement suggestive of stealth. The man's dark, sombre eyes revealed nothing. His jet- black hair, parted in the middle, and his carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard gave him an air of distinction, an air, at the same time, a trifle too reserved. For a moment, as the green light stained his face unhealthily, Bobby could understand Graham's aversion. He brushed the idea aside. "Glad you've come, Carlos." The smile of greeting vanished abruptly from Paredes's face. He looked with steady eyes beyond Bobby's shoulder. Bobby turned. Graham stood on the threshold, his face a little too frank. But the two men shook hands. "I'd an idea until I saw Bobby," Graham said, "that you'd gone back to Panama." Paredes yawned. "Each year I spend more time in New York. Business suggests it. Pleasure demands it." His voice was deep and pleasant, but Bobby had often remarked that it, like Paredes's eyes, was too reserved. It seemed never to call on its obvious powers of expression. Its accent was noticeable only in a pleasant, polished sense. "Hartley," Bobby explained, "is dining with us." Paredes let no disapproval slip, but Graham hastened to explain. "Bobby and I have an engagement immediately after dinner." "An engagement after dinner! I didn't understand-" "Let's think of dinner first," Bobby said. "We can talk about engagements afterward. Perhaps you'll have a cocktail here while we decide where we're going." "The aperitif I should like very much," Paredes said. "About dinner there is nothing to decide. I have arranged everything. There's a table waiting in the Fountain Room at the C-- and there I have planned a little surprise for you." He wouldn't explain further. While they drank their cocktails Bobby watched Graham's disapproval grow. The man glanced continually at his watch. In the restaurant, when Paredes left them to produce, as he called it, his surprise, Graham appraised with a frown the voluble people who moved intricately through the hall. "I'm afraid Paredes has planned a thorough evening," he said, "for which he'll want you to pay. Don't be angry, Bobby. The situation is serious enough to excuse facts. You must go to the Cedars to-night. Do you understand? You must go, in spite of Paredes, in spite of everything." "Peace until train time," Bobby demanded. He caught his breath. "There they are. Carlos has kept his word. See her, Hartley. She's glorious." A young woman accompanied the Panamanian as he came back through the hall. She appeared more foreign than her guide-the Spanish of Spain rather than of South America. Her clothing was as unusual and striking as her beauty, yet one felt there was more than either to attract all the glances in this room, to set people whispering as she passed. Clearly she knew her notoriety was no little thing. Pride filled her eyes. Paredes had first introduced her to Bobby a month or more ago. He had seen her a number of times since in her dressing-room at the theatre where she was featured, or at crowded luncheons in her apartment. At such moments she had managed to be exceptionally nice to him. Bobby, however, had answered merely to the glamour of her fame, to the magnetic response her beauty always brought in places like this. "Paredes," Graham muttered, "will have a powerful ally. You won't fail me, Bobby? You will go?" Bobby scarcely heard. He hurried forward and welcomed the woman. She tapped his arm with her fan. "Leetle Bobby!" she lisped. "I haven't seen very much of you lately. So when Carlos proposed-you see I don't dance until late. Who is that behind you? Mr. Graham, is it not? He would, maybe, not remember me. I danced at a dinner where you were one night, at Mr. Ward's. Even lawyers, I find, take enjoyment in my dancing." "I remember," Graham said. "It is very pleasant we are to dine together." He continued tactlessly: "But, as I've explained to Mr. Paredes, we must hurry. Bobby and I have an early engagement." Her head went up. "An early engagement! I do not often dine in public." "An unavoidable thing," Graham explained. "Bobby will tell you." Bobby nodded. "It's a nuisance, particularly when you're so condescending, Maria." She shrugged her shoulders. With Bobby she entered the dining-room at the heels of Paredes and Graham. Paredes had foreseen everything. There were flowers on the table. The dinner had been ordered. Immediately the waiter brought cocktails. Graham glanced at Bobby warningly. He wouldn't, as an example Bobby appreciated, touch his own. Maria held hers up to the light. "Pretty yellow things! I never drink them." She smiled dreamily at Bobby. "But see! I shall place this to my lips in order that you may make pretty speeches, and maybe tell me it is the most divine aperitif you have ever drunk." She passed the glass to him, and Bobby, avoiding Graham's eyes, wondering why she was so gracious, emptied it. And afterward frequently she reminded him of his wine by going through the same elaborate formula. Probably because of that, as much as anything else, constraint grasped the little company tighter. Graham couldn't hide his anxiety. Paredes mocked it with sneering phrases which he turned most carefully. Before the meal was half finished Graham glanced at his watch. "We've just time for the eight-thirty," he whispered to Bobby, "if we pick up a taxi." Maria had heard. She pouted. "There is no engagement," she lisped, "as sacred as a dinner, no entanglement except marriage that cannot be easily broken. Perhaps I have displeased you, Mr. Graham. Perhaps you fancy I excite unpleasant comment. It is unjust. I assure you my reputation is above reproach"-her dark eyes twinkled-"certainly in New York." "It isn't that," Graham answered. "We must go. It's not to be evaded." She turned tempestuously. "Am I to be humiliated so? Carlos! Why did you bring me? Is all the world to see my companions leave in the midst of a dinner as if I were plague-touched? Is Bobby not capable of choosing his own company?" "You are thoroughly justified, Maria," Paredes said in his expressionless tones. "Bobby, however, has said very little about this engagement. I did not know, Mr. Graham, that you were the arbiter of Bobby's actions. In a way I must resent your implication that he is no longer capable of caring for himself." Graham accepted the challenge. He leaned across the table, speaking directly to Bobby, ignoring the others: "You've not forgotten what I told you. Will you come while there's time? You must see. I can't remain here any longer." Bobby, hating warfare in his present mood, sought to temporize: "It's all right, Hartley. Don't worry. I'll catch a later train." Maria relaxed. "Ah! Bobby still chooses for himself." "I'll have enough rumpus," Bobby muttered, "when I get to the Cedars. Don't grudge me a little peace here." Graham arose. His voice was discouraged. "I'm sorry. I'll hope, Bobby." Without a word to the others he walked out of the room. So far, when Bobby tried afterward to recall the details of the evening, everything was perfectly distinct in his memory. The remainder of the meal, made uncomfortable by Maria's sullenness and Paredes's sneers, his attempt to recapture the earlier gayety of the evening by continuing to drink the wine, his determination to go later to the Cedars in spite of Graham's doubt-of all these things no particular lacked. He remembered paying the check, as he usually did when he dined with Paredes. He recalled studying the time-table and finding that he had just missed another train. Maria's spirits rose then. He was persuaded to accompany her and Paredes to the music hall. In her dressing-room, while she was on the stage, he played with the boxes of make-up, splashing the mirror with various colours while Paredes sat silently watching. The alteration, he was sure, came a little later in the cafe at a table close to the dancing floor. Maria had insisted that Paredes and he should wait there while she changed. "But," he had protested, "I have missed too many trains." She had demanded his time-table, scanning the columns of close figures. "There is one," she had said, "at twelve