und what I wanted--a
carefully hidden packet of accounts and letters and newspaper clippings.
They're at your service, Mr. District Attorney. They told me that Silas
Blackburn had been in Panama. They proved that Maria, instead of ever
having been his accomplice, was his enemy. They explained the source of
his wealth and the foundation of that enmity. Certainly you remember the
doctor told us Silas Blackburn started life with nothing; and hadn't
you ever wondered why with all his money he buried himself in this
lonely hole?"

"He returned from South America, rich, more than twenty-five years ago,"
the doctor said. "Why should we bother about his money?"

"I wish you had bothered about several things besides your ghosts,"
Paredes said. "You'd have found it significant that Blackburn laid the
foundation of his fortune in Panama during the hideous scandals of the
old French canal company. We knew he was a selfish tyrant. That discovery
showed me how selfish, how merciless he was, for to succeed in Panama
during those days required an utter contempt for all the standards of law
and decency. The men who got along held life cheaper than a handful of
coppers. That's what I meant when I walked around the hall talking of the
ghosts of Panama. For I was beginning to see. Silas Blackburn's fear, his
trip to Smithtown, were the first indications of the presence of the
other Blackburn. The papers outlined him more clearly. Why had it been
forgotten here, Doctor, that Silas Blackburn had a brother--his partner
in those wretched and profitable contract scandals?"

"You mean," the doctor answered, "Robert Blackburn. He was a year younger
than Silas. This boy was named in memory of him. Why should any one have
remembered? He died in South America more than a quarter of a century
ago, before these children were born."

"That's what Silas Blackburn told you when he came back," Paredes said.
"He may have believed it at first or he may not have. I daresay he wanted
to, for he came back with his brother's money as well as his own--the
cash and the easily convertible securities that were all men would handle
in that hell. But he never forgot that his brother's wife was alive, and
when he ran from Panama he knew she was about to become a mother.

"That brings me to the other feature that made me wander around here like
a restless spirit myself that night. You had just told your story about
the woman crying. If there was a strange woman aro