This was only reaction from last night. That exhilarated mood couldn't have lasted anyway. A number of people were peacefully sleeping underneath him.
"But I've seen the other kind of murderer too," he could remember Stannard saying, at a time which now seemed weeks instead of days ago. "That's why I don't scoff at spiritual evil."
Very well. Yet, whatever constitutes spiritual evil, it is confined to the dark and the unseen way. It has no strength, it is even ludicrous, in the calm early hours of a Sunday morning, on a commonplace roof-top where the furniture suggests a place for a party.
Martin strolled towards the northern side — careful of that ledge, now! — near the front Again he looked towards Pentecost Prison, wondering about Stannard. As he did so, two sentences went through his head.
"I regret to say that it is human blood."
And, recurring from another time, another he had remembered before:
"If you should hear the alarm-bell. In the night, it will mean we are in serious trouble."
He would like to see that alarm-bell. It would show the exact position of the condemned cell, where its rope hung. But, at such a distance, this was impossible. Idly he had noticed beside him a square table with a glassy-looking orange top. It might do for the tea-tray when Jenny arrived. On the table, he now suddenly observed, lay a pair of field-glasses.
Martin laughed aloud. This was like making a wish and having it answered by a flick of the lamp. They were very old glasses of antiquated pattern: the leather scuffed and peeling, the leather strap worn thin. But they might as a matter of curiosity, find the bell on top of the prison. He picked up the field-glasses.
"Jenny, where's that tea?" he called aloud.