"Still alive, I see," he added.
Chapter 12
We talk with scorn of prophetic instincts. Martin felt one then, as sharp as the twinge from a bad heart; but, like the mist-movings, it drifted away and was lost in an instant.
"Still alive?" he repeated, and laughed. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't be alive?"
"We-el!" smiled Masters, with a tolerant and amused wave of his hand. "As you described it to Sir Henry and me, this execution shed business was to be a swell affair. But you don't seem to be hanged by the neck or snuffed out by any ghost, do you?"
Martin, studying him, saw that Masters had the appearance of a man who has walked hard to keep just ahead of somebody. In addition to his reddish eyelids, there were certain familiar dust-stains on the blue serge which had not quite been erased by a handkerchief or the mist-damp.
"Chief Inspector," he said, "were you at that prison too?"
"We-el!" said Masters, as though he debated this himself. That's a very interesting question, sir. I might have been, and then again I might not have been." He drew closer, confidentially. The fact is, a minute ago I heard you two saying something about a skeleton and a clock."
"Please don't start to browbeat me," begged Jenny. "Go and see my grandmother."
"Browbeat? Now, miss!" Masters was reproachful. He grew more confidential, like a Balkan diplomat. "I'll just tell you something about that skeleton, if you like. It wasn't Sir George Fleet"