"A dirty white brick room, a trap, an iron beam, a lever no other furniture," continued Stannard. Instead of lighting the cigar, he put it down on the arm of the sofa. "But I had seen a rocking-chair across the passage in the condemned cell. I went over there, fetched in the chair, and, as a matter of honour, closed the door behind me.
"I put the rocking-chair in a comer, the far corner from the door, looking obliquely across the gallows-trap towards the lever. I hung my lamp over the back of the chair and tried to read The Cherry Orchard. This became impossible. The influences, previously poisonous, were now devilish.
"No, Inspector! Don't make faces. I saw no ghosts and I heard none. I am prepared to admit the influences may have been imaginary, though I don't believe it Everything centered round that gallows-trap.
"There, of course, the condemned person had dropped on his long or short rope — according to weight — into a brick-lined pit underneath. It was natural that these currents of hatred, of malice, of despair, should come from there or seem to come from there.
"Then I did the worst possible thing.
"I put down my book. I did what I called in my own mind —" a sardonic grin tightened back Stannard's lips—"the act of a boxer riding with the punch. I lit a cigar. I rocked in the chair, and deliberately exposed myself to whatever was here. I tried to imagine what an execution would look like. In short, I did exactly what I said Drake would, do.’
"I knew I was somewhat rattled; but not how rattled until
"You remember that I was sitting in the comer of the execution shed. I had been imagining the hanging of Hessler, who had tried to escape from the condemned cell. I had been wondering about this: when the doctor and other officials went down into the pit to make sure the hanged man was dead, how did they get down? Ladders? But I saw no ladders. All of a sudden I woke up from these thoughts.
"My cigar, which for some reason I had been holding near the tip, had burnt down and was searing my fingers. And I was not sitting in any comer. I was sitting in my rocking-chair on the gallows-trap itself."
Stannard paused.