Rawlins brought a candle and guided him down the corridor. Graham came, too. The detective locked the door leading to the private hall and slipped the key in his pocket.
"Nobody will get through there any more than they will through the other door which I'll watch."
With Graham's help he made a quick inspection of the room, searching the closets and glancing beneath the bed and behind the furniture.
"There's no one," he said, preparing to depart. "I tell you there's no chance of a physical attack."
His unimaginative mind cried out.
"I tell you you'll find nothing, learn nothing, for there's nothing here to find, nothing to learn."
"Just the same," Graham urged, "you'll call out, won't you, Bobby, at the first sign of anything out of the way? For God's sake take no foolish chances."
"I don't want the light," Bobby forced himself to say. "My grandfather and Howells both put their candles out. I want everything as it was when they were attacked."
Rawlins nodded and, followed by Graham, carried the candle from the room and closed the broken door.
The sudden solitude and the darkness crushed Bobby, taking his breath. Yellow flames, the response of his eyes to the disappearance of the candle, tore across the blackness, confusing him. He felt his way to the wall near the open window. He sat down there, facing the bed.