"That made them keep Mlle.

Celie alive.

It enabled us to save her when we had discovered the whereabouts of the gang.

It did not help us very much to lay our hands upon them.
No; the little accident which happened was the entrance of our friend Perrichet into the garden while the murderers were still in the room.
Imagine that scene, M.Ricardo.The rage of the murderers at their inability to discover the plunder for which they had risked their necks, the old woman crumpled up on the floor against the wall, the girl writing laboriously with fettered arms 'I do not know' under threats of torture, and then in the stillness of the night the clear, tiny click of the gate and the measured, relentless footsteps.

No wonder they were terrified in that dark room.