"Why did you come?" Graham asked.
"Bobby was my friend," the Panamanian answered. "He had been very good to me. When I read of his grandfather's death I wondered why Maria had drugged him to keep him in New York. In the coincidence lurked an element of trouble for him. At first I suspected some kind of an understanding between her and old Blackburn—perhaps she had engaged to keep Bobby away from the Cedars until the new will had been made. But here was Blackburn murdered, and it was manifest she hadn't tried to throw suspicion on Bobby, and the points that made Howells's case incomplete assured me of his innocence. Who, then, had killed his grandfather? Not Maria, for I had dropped her at her apartment that night too late for her to get out here by the hour of the murder. Still, as you suspected, Maria was the key, and I began to speculate about her.
"She had told me something of her history. You might have had as much from her press agent. Although she had lived in Spain since she was a child, she was born in Panama, my own country, of a Spanish mother and an American father. Right away I wondered if Blackburn had ever been in Panama or Spain. I began to seek the inception of the possible understanding between them. Since I found no illuminating documents about Blackburn's past in the library, I concluded, if such papers existed, they would be locked up in the desk in his room. I searched there a number of times, giving you every excuse I could think of to get upstairs. The other night, after I had suspected her of knowing something, Miss Katherine nearly caught me. But I found 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 around here it was almost certainly Maria. As Rawlins deduced, she must either be hysterical or signalling some one. Why should she come unless something had gone wrong the night she drugged Bobby to keep him in New York? She wasn't his enemy, because that very night she did him a good turn by trampling out his tracks in the court."
Bobby took Maria's letter from his pocket and handed it to Paredes.
"Then how would you account for this?"