"You quite understand the terms?" Stannard persisted.
"Quite." Martin tried to speak with a careless air, though his nerves were jerking like an alcoholic's. "Whoever wins the toss locks the other in, keeps the key, sits outside, and doesn't let him out until four o'clock — unless he yells for help."
"Exactly!" Stannard beamed. Then he looked at Ricky, and hesitated. "You recall the rope of the alarm-bell? In the condemned cell?"
"Yes. What about it?" snarled Ricky.
"It's very old. It probably doesn't work. But if you should hear the alarm-bell in the night, it will mean we are in serious trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
Stannard nodded towards the door of the execution shed. "Probably that Mr. Drake has gone mad in there," he replied.
"What makes you so infernally sure," demanded Martin, "that I'm going to lose the throw?"
"My luck," Stannard told him. "It never fails."
It was evident that he quite seriously believed this. Self-confidence radiated from him like a furnace; he kept patting his stomach, as though the luck rested there. Then, as he caught Ruth's eye, his tone changed.