on. "I was raised on stories of that
room--even before my father shot himself there. Later on I saw
Katherine's father die in the big bed, and after that I never cared to
go near the place unless I had to. The other night, when I made up my
mind to sleep there, I tried to tell myself all this talk was tommyrot.
I tried to make myself believe I could sleep as comfortably in that bed
as anywhere. So I went in and locked the door and raised the window and
lay down."

"You're sure you locked the door?" Robinson asked.

"Yes. I remember turning the key in both doors, because I didn't want
anything bothering me from outside."

They all looked at each other, unable to forecast anything of Blackburn's
experiences; for both doors had been locked when the body had been found.
Granted life, how would it have been possible for Silas Blackburn to have
left the room to commence his period of drowsiness? An explanation of
that should also unveil the criminal's route in and out.

The tensity of the little group increased, but no one interposed the
obvious questions. Robinson was right. It would be quicker to let the
protagonist of this unbelievable adventure recite its details in his own
fashion. Paredes ran his slender fingers gropingly over the faces of
several of the cards he had picked up.

"When I got in bed," Silas Blackburn continued, "I thought I'd let the
candle burn for company's sake, but there was a wind, and it came in the
open window, and it made the queerest black shadows dance all over the
walls until I couldn't stand it a minute longer. I blew the candle out
and lay back in the dark."

He drew harshly on his cold pipe. He looked at it with an air of
surprise, and slipped it in his pocket.

"It was the funniest darkness. I didn't like it. You put your hand out
and closed your fingers as if you could feel it. But it wasn't all black,
either. Some moonlight came in with the wind between the curtains. It
wasn't exactly yellow, and it wasn't white. After a little it seemed
alive, and I wouldn't look at it any more. The only way I could stop
myself was to shut my eyes, and that was worse, for it made me recollect
my father the way I saw him lying there when I was a boy. God grant none
of you will ever have to see anything like that. Then I seemed to see
Katy's father, too; and I remembered his screams. The room got thick
with, things like that--with those two, and with a lot of others come out
of the pictures and th