with it unless the evidence--disappears. You'll have no defence."
Bobby drew back a little.
"You want me to go there--and--and take from his pocket those things?"
She nodded.
"You remember he suggested that he hadn't sent his report. That may be there, too."
Bobby shook his head. "He must have said that as a bait."
"At the worst," she urged, "a report without evidence could only turn suspicion against you. It wouldn't
convict you as those other things may. You must get them. You must destroy them."
Graham slipped quietly in and closed the door.
"The district attorney is coming himself with another detective," he said. "I can guess what Katherine has been
talking about. She's right. I'm a lawyer, an I know the penalty of tampering with evidence. But I don't believe
you're a murderer, and I tell you as long as that evidence exists they can convict you. They can send you to the
chair. They may arrest you and try you anyway on his report, but I don't believe they can convict you on it
alone. You're justified in protecting yourself, Bobby, in the only way you can. No one will see you go in the
room. We'll arrange it so that no one can testify against you."
Bobby felt himself at a cross roads. During the commission of those crimes he had been unconscious. If he
had, in fact, had anything to do with them, his personality, his real self, had known nothing, had done no
wrong. His body had merely reacted to hideous promptings whose source lurked at the bottom of the black pit.
To tamper with evidence would be a conscious crime. All the more, because of his doubt of himself, he shrank
from that. Katherine saw his hesitation.
"It's a matter of your life or death."
But although Katherine decided him it wasn't with that. She came closer. She looked straight at him, and her
eyes were full of an affection that stirred him profoundly:
"For my sake, Bobby--"
He studied the dead ashes of the fire which a little while ago had played on Howells, vital and antagonistic, by
the door of the private staircase. The man had challenged him to do just the thing from which he shrank. But
Howells was no longer vital or antagonistic, and it occurred to him that a little of his shrinking arose from the
thought of approaching and robbing the still thing upstairs, all that was left of the man who had not been
afraid of the mystery of the locked room.
"For my sake," Katherine repeated.
Bobby squared his shoulders. He fought back his momentary cowardice. The affection in Katherine's eyes was
stronger than that.
"All right," he said. "Howells never gave me a chance while he was alive. He'll have to now he's dead."
Katherine relaxed. Graham's face was quite white, but he gave his instructions in a cold, even tone: