"I can see that the dagger we found among that heap of rapiers…"
"Oh, ah! Exactly. It'd been planted there, with fresh blood on it to make what you think what you did think later. That somebody'd killed the girl about half-past eleven. But the girl was still alive. Not even in the prison!
"You're the arms expert, Mr. Drake. And that Italian dagger you found, now! I told you knife-wounds can't be identified certain-sure like bullet-wounds. Would you say mat dagger was (hurrum!) unique?"
"Lord, no. There are plenty of them. I've got one something like it in my own collection."
Masters bent forward, his fingers spread. Every word he spoke seemed to pounce.
"Then: a quarter to one. Everything dark and quiet Somebody from outside leads Enid Puckston along the aisle. Creeping; hardly a rustle. Soft as soft Like a cat! Door opens (no noise; notice that), door closes. They're in the old mortuary.
"Somebody takes her across the mortuary, out into the garden under the windows of the condemned cell. Somebody kills her there with another dagger. Enid's carried the travelling-robe; it's in the photograph. Somebody carries her body, soft as soft, down the underground stair from the mortuary, along the passage, through a door, into the shaft under the gallows-trap…'
Masters, reverting to his normal tone, sat up straight
"How was I supposed to know," he demanded, "there'd been a murder in the prison that night? I was uneasy, like: ah, ah! But my job was to follow Mr. Drake. And I did, when he left at what he thought was four o'clock. I followed you both," he looked at Jenny, "down over that field."
Now here was a characteristic of Jenny: that, though she had been furious a few minutes before over, a little matter concerning Ruth, it seemed swept out of her mind at anything concerning Martin.