"Hessler, Ruth, managed to smuggle potassium cyanide into this room. He used it—"
‘To k-kill himself?"
"No. On the guards. In cups of cocoa. When they staggered and tried to shout, he made a break.
My History of the Penal System is very discreet Undoubtedly they knew how he did it but they won't say. In some fashion he got from here into the garden between this wing and the next He had a rope thrown over a spike in the wall. They winged him with a revolver as he was climbing, and he fell back into a flower-bed. Hessler…"
"listen, old boy," Ricky's voice hissed in Martin's ear. He seized his companion's wrist, and twisted it "Over there! To the right!" A pause. "Well, damn me to perdition if…"
Ricky's exclamation drew round the slightly glazed eyes of the others.
"Afterwards," continued Stannard, "the prison governor insisted an alarm-bell be installed here. Idiot! Prize, thundering idiot! Look at that hanging rope over there! As if…"
But the others were not listening. They saw what seemed a crowning incongruity.
In the far corner, grimy but only a few touched with rust lay a much smaller but better collection of rapiers and daggers than Martin had seen at Willaby's on Friday.
The rapiers were flung down in a heap, as they had lain for many years. The white lamp-beam played over cup-hilts, swept-hilts, ring-hilts, both the pointed and the double-edged. Ricky's eyes were fixed on a little ivory tag attached to one handle. Behind the rapiers stood a row of ancient dusty medicine-bottles, corked, and several empty bottles of whisky.