"Her way of covering herself," he explained, "in case you suspected she had made you drink too much or had drugged you. She really wanted you to come to tea that afternoon. It was after writing that that she found out what had gone wrong. In other words, she read in the paper of Silas Blackburn's death, and in a panic she put on plain clothes and hurried out to see what had happened. The fact that she forgot her managers, her professional reputation, everything, testified to her anxiety, and I began to sense the truth. She had been born in Panama of a Spanish mother and an American father. She had some stealthy interest in the Cedars and the Blackburns. She was about the right age. Ten to one she was Silas Blackburn's niece. So for me, many hours before Silas Blackburn walked in here, the presence of the other Blackburn about the Cedars became a tragic and threatening inevitability. Had Silas Blackburn been murdered or had his brother? Where was the survivor who had committed that brutal murder? Maria had come here hysterically to answer those questions. She might know. The light in the deserted house! She might be hiding him and taking food to him there. But her crying suggested a signal which he never answered. At any rate, I had to find Maria. So I slipped out. I thought I heard her at the lake. She wasn't there. I was sure I would trap her at the deserted house, for the diffused glow of the light we had seen proved that it had come through the cobwebbed windows of the cellar, which are set in little wells below the level of the ground. The cellar explained also how she had turned her flashlight off and slipped through the hall and out while we searched the rooms. She hadn't gone back. I couldn't find her. So I went on into Smithtown and sent a costly cable to my father. His answer came to-night just before Silas Blackburn walked in. He had talked with several of the survivors of those evil days. He gave me a confirmation of everything I had gathered from the papers. The Blackburns had quarrelled over a contract. Robert had been struck over the head. He wandered about the isthmus, half-witted, forgetting his name, nursing one idea. Someone had robbed him, and he wanted his money back or a different kind of payment, but he couldn't remember who, and he took it out in angry talk. Then he disappeared, and people said he had gone to Spain. Of course his wife suspected a good deal. In Blackburn's desk are pitiful and threatening letters from her which he ignored. Then she died, and Blackburn thought he was safe. But he took no chances. Some survivor of those days might turn up and try blackmail. It was safer to bury himself here." "Then," Bobby said, "Maria must have brought her father with her when she came from Spain last summer."