Sharpless was about to call his attention to this when the doctor's eye caught them again.
"I have in this box," he said in his soft, heavy bass voice, "two exhibits. Exhibit A — a rubber dagger."
"See here!" — began Arthur Fane.
"Yes?" prompted Ann Browning.
Rich held up the toy dagger. Its blade was painted silvery gray to represent a patchy and unconvincing-looking metal; its handle was black. Without any sense of incongruity, Rich bent the soft rubber back and forth.
"Bought this morning at Woolworth's," he explained. "A sixpenny rubber dagger which can hardly be called dangerous. That's Exhibit A. But Exhibit B is different."
He replaced the dagger in the box, and took out the second article. When they saw it, the breath from his audience was something like a mutter of consternation.
"Exhibit B," said Rich. "A real revolver, loaded with real bullets."
There was a silence.
Over his audience the revolver seemed to exercise a kind of evil fascination. It was a Webley.38, of dark, polished metal except for the ivory grip. Rich broke it open, plucked one of the cartridges from the cylinder, tossed the cartridge into the air, and caught it.