Bobby stretched out his hand.
"You can't expose her to that."
Rawlins hadn't forgotten the sense of fellowship sprung from the pursuit of Paredes through the forest.
"He's right, Mr. Robinson. You could lock up a dozen people. You might send them to the chair without uncovering the real mystery of the Cedars. Maybe he might find something, and he'd be as safe in that room as in any jail I know of. I mean one of us would be in the library and the other in the corridor outside the broken door. How could he reasonably get out? If there was an attempt to repeat the trick we'd be ready. As for the girl, it's simple enough to safeguard against her getting away before morning. As Mr. Graham says, no one's likely to run far in this storm, anyway."
Robinson considered.
"I don't want to be hard," he said finally, "and I don't want to miss any chance of cleaning up where poor Howells failed."
He glanced at the extraordinary array of evidence. The good nature which, one felt, should always have been in his face, shone at last.
"I don't believe you're guilty. As far as you're concerned it's likely enough a put-up job. I don't know about the girl. Go ahead, anyway, and tell us, if you can, how the locked room was entered. Explain the mystery of that old man who looks as if he were dead, but who moves around and talks with us."
"The answer, if it's anywhere," Bobby said, "is in the old room."
Robinson nodded.