Wallie halted at the closed but unlocked door and motioned Lonergan and Lombard past him. As the leader faced the door those two were on his left, while Vince and Sawtell, guns now shifted to their right hands, stood upon his right. All but Wallie were balanced on the balls of their feet, tense and ready to charge through the door, but Wallie hesitated. He could hear the masked man's voice, with a vibrant quality carrying through the door. He could hear, distinctly, each word that was said. The masked man was scolding old Bryant Cavendish. Wallie crouched and placed one eye close to the keyhole. The room, he saw, was dimly lighted. It was difficult to see details. The blankets were mounded on the bed as if they'd been pulled over Bryant's big body. On the far side of the bed Wallie could make out a white sombrero, and judged that to be where the masked man sat while he conducted the one-sided conversation. Wallie now knew just where he should direct his men to fire when he threw open the door. He hesitated, listening to what was being said inside. "You're the most unreasonably stubborn old fool I've ever known, Cavendish." It was the masked man speaking. "It's high time for you to drop this false pride of yours; admit you've grown old, let someone help you. "Cavendish, all these murders are yours. I know you aren't the killer, personally, but none of them could possibly have happened if you hadn't been so foolishly stubborn! You'd never admit that you found it hard to walk. You thought you hid that fact, but you didn't! You didn't fool anyone at all. Then when your eyes began to fail you, you tried to hide that fact too. Why, right now, you're so nearly blind that you have to _feel_ your way." Wallie heard a low-toned response from his uncle. Then the masked man continued. "All of those nephews of yours realized that you not only were incapable of getting about, but that you couldn't even see what went on. They felt secure in doing whatever they pleased, so they organized a regular crime ring here in the Basin. They replaced all of your former hands with crooks whom they selected. They let it be known in the right places that this Basin would be a safe hideout for men the law was looking for. You couldn't see what your cowhands looked like, so you had no cause to distrust them. You wouldn't go to a doctor and have your eyes treated and your sight improved, because you wanted to conceal your condition." Wallie reasoned that inasmuch as neither of the two beyond the door was to survive much longer, he might as well hear what else this incalculable masked man knew.