"The kitchens are too far off."
"And it is very strange that the boy did not run out of the room: unless smoke overpowered him from the first. I cannot make out why he did not. It is a bad plan in general, but in this instance it might have saved his life by bringing help to him."
Honour made no immediate remark. She had been sitting in a low chair, swaying her body backwards and forwards in her distress. Suddenly she looked up at the surgeon and spoke in a low tone.
"I want to know who fastened the doors."
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Pym, after a pause of surprise.
"I don't think he was burnt by accident, sir," she continued, glancing at the walls as if afraid of being overheard, and speaking in the faintest possible whisper. "I think it was done on purpose."
"Good Heavens, woman!" exclaimed the astonished surgeon, really wondering whether the trouble was turning her brain.
"There are things connected with it that I can't understand," she continued. "They did not strike me particularly at the moment, but they do now that I can think of them. He couldn't get out of the room; he was fastened in."
That she was not suffering from mental aberration at present, was apparent enough to the surgeon; the girl was as sane as he was. Honour thought he was never going to leave off staring at her.
"When I left him upstairs, I left both doors open; that is, unfastened," she went on. "When I got back again, both were fastened; the one on the inside, the other on the out. I want to know who did it."