"Put that thing down, Withers," the chief constable rasped, "and come with us. You've posted a man at the prison?… Good. Come along."
They went out into the highroad, Sir Benjamin in the lead with his old Norfolk jacket f!ying and a battered hat stuck on the side of his head. Nobody spoke until they had climbed the hill to the great gate of the prison. The iron grating which. had once barred it sagged open in rusty drunkenness; Rampole remembered how it had jarred and squeaked when they had carried Martin Starberth's body inside. A dark passage, cold and alive with gnats, ran straight back. Coming in here out of the sunlight was like entering a spring-house.
"I've been in here once or twice," the chief constable said, peering round curiously, "but I don't remember the arrangement of the rooms. Doctor, will you lead the way?
“I say! The Governor's Room part of the place is kept locked, isn't it? Suppose young Starberth locked the outer door of the room when he went in; how do we manage it? I should have got the keys from his clothes."
"If somebody chucked him over that balcony," Dr. Fell grunted, "you can rest assured the murderer had to get out of the Governor's Room afterwards. He didn't try to make a fifty-foot jump from the window, either. Oh, we shall find the door open, right enough."
"It's confoundedly dark in here," said Sir Benjamin. Craning his long neck, he pointed to a door at the right. "Is that where you carried young Starberth last night?"
Rampole nodded, and the chief constable pushed a rotting oak door a little way open to peer inside.
"Not much in there," he announced. "Ugh! Damn the cobwebs. Stone floor, grated window, fireplace, what I can see of it. Not much light." He slapped at some invisible bugs before his face.
"That was the turnkeys' waiting-room, and the prison office beyond it," Dr. Fell amplified. "There was where the governor interviewed his guests and recorded 'em before they were assigned their quarters.,
"It's full of rats, anyway," Rampole said, so suddenly that they all glanced at him.