“We are afraid.”

The others came down.  Robinson walked close to Silas Blackburn and for some time gazed at the gray face.

“Yes,” he said.  “You are Silas Blackburn.  You came to my office in Smithtown the other day and asked for a detective, because you were afraid of something out here.”

“There’s no question,” Graham cried.  “Of course it is Mr. Blackburn, yet it couldn’t be.”

“What you all talking about?  Why are the police in my house?  Why do you act like fools and say I was dead?”

They gathered in a group at some distance from him.  They unconsciously ignored this central figure, as if he were, in fact, a ghost.  Bobby and Katherine told how they had found the old man, a black shadow against the wall of the wing.  Paredes repeated the questions he had asked and their strange answers.  Afterward Robinson turned to Silas Blackburn, who waited, trembling.

“Then you did go to the old room to sleep.  You lay down on the bed, but you say you didn’t stay.  You must tell us why not, and how you got out, and where you’ve been during this prolonged sleep.  I want everything that happened from the moment you entered the old bedroom until you wakened.”

“That’s simple,” Silas Blackburn mouthed.  “I went there along about ten o’clock, wasn’t it, Katy?”

“Nearly half past,” she said.  “And you frightened me.”

“He must tell us why he went, why he was afraid to sleep in his own room,” Graham began.

Robinson held up his hand.

“One question at a time, Mr. Graham.  The important thing now is to learn what happened in the room.  You’re not forgetting Howells, are you?”

Silas Blackburn glanced at the floor.  He moved his feet restlessly.  He fumbled in his pocket for some loose tobacco.  With shaking fingers he refilled his pipe.

“Except for Bobby and Katherine,” he quavered, “you don’t know what that room means to Blackburns; and they only know by hearsay, because I’ve seen it was kept closed.  Don’t see how I’m going to tell you—­”

“You needn’t hesitate,” Robinson encouraged him.  “We’ve all experienced something of the peculiarities of the Cedars.  Your return alone’s enough to keep us from laughter.”

“All right,” the old man stumbled 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.”