"I saw a very young girl," said Stannard, "lying on her back. Her eyes showed whitish slits, and her mouth was open. Her bodily mutilations: well, those are for the morbid. But this I saw; and it seemed to me that all the evil forces in that room were settling down on her like flies."
With a murmured apology Stannard rose to his feet Limping a little, he went slowly to a gilt table in the middle of the room. On the table-top, of eighteenth-century mottled marble, had been set out a decanter of whisky, a syphon, and glasses. He now faced Martin and Ruth; and Masters, twitching round his own chair, also faced Stannard.
"Enid Puckston," said Masters. "Now we're getting to it!"
Stannard's eyes were glittering darkly as of old. His hand trembled very slightly as he tipped whisky into a glass.
"Enid Puckston," Masters repeated. "Did you recognize the girl, sir?"
"No. Never saw her before."
"But you guessed she was murdered? And recently?"
Stannard, in the act of pressing the handle of the syphon, gave Masters a long and almost affectionate look.
"Yes, Inspector," he answered. "I guessed that." Soda hissed into the glass.
"You were one of a group of people (eh?) who found a blood-stained dagger — with fresh blood — over in the condemned cell?"