"There is. But that's not the main reason why we're here, Masters. We're here to prevent another murder."
Masters straightened up. The breath whistled through his nostrils.
"Another…?"
"That's right"
"But whose murder?"
"Decide for yourself, son. In this whole case, where there are as many women as there are men, who would you say is practically certain to get murdered?"
Chapter 9
There was a bright quarter-moon, that night, in a soft blue-black sky without stars. The darkness caressed, it invited, anyone who sat under the hedgerows or followed the broad winding road. Its warmth would have stirred the blood of lovers, and doubtless did, somewhere under those trees.
The side road which led to Pentecost Prison had once been paved. Now, between the tall grass on each side, it lay cracked and broken and ridged because it had not been repaired for decades. The motor-car, with one wing banging, jolted badly on its surface. But, since the road was straight, the car's headlamps picked up far ahead the high iron double-gates against a rounded face of bricks once painted grey.
A few seconds more the car jolted off the asphalt to a gravel circle now thick-grown with weeds. The handbrake ticked back with a decisive wrench and the clanking engine was shut off, letting in stillness.