"We-ell No harm in telling that You people who were in the condemned cell when you found the dagger, you were doing a lot of talking…"
"Chief Inspector, how do you know so much about that conversation?"
Masters eyed him grimly.
"Aren't you forgetting, Mr. Drake, that I spent the night in that prison? Oh, ah! Keeping an eye on you to make sure nobody nailed you?"
"You could hear everything we said all the time?"
"I'm an old-fashioned copper," Masters said dryly. ‘I’ve had trickier jobs when I was a sergeant"
"But where were you during the test'? I mean, when I'd locked Stannard behind the iron door, and the others had gone?’
Masters snorted.
"Making myself comfortable," he said, "on top of that mountain of paper. Lummy! We'd get sixteen hours at a stretch in the old days when I was a sergeant On Saturday night I was facing the iron door. I could see you, Mr. Drake, by your own light, sitting on the paper-bales. I couldn't see down into the aisle, between the bales and the wall with the doors; but I could get there at one jump if I had to."
Here Masters smiled a peculiar smile.