"Well? What about it?"
"You notice that the wings are like spokes in a wheel, with the outer wall as its rim. These shaded spaces between the spokes—" the yellow pencil moved briefly—"are exercise grounds, gardens, and so on: open to the sky. Our concern is Wing B—" again the pencil moved'—"which is here. Wing B, on the ground floor, contained mainly offices for clerical work. But at the far end of it, here, is a self-contained unit Behind an iron door it housed the condemned cell and the execution shed."
Ruth Callice had abandoned the paper and joined them by the table, where Stannard leaned on the crackling plan.
Ruth, Martin was thinking, couldn't have been brushed by any emanation from Fleet House. She had been here too many times before; she was a friend of Aunt Cicely; she would have remarked on it. Yes; but had Ruth ever said anything at all about Fleet House?
Stannard's yellow pencil was moving again.
"Pentecost, please remember, was not abandoned until 1938. It had the most up-to-date of neck-cracking methods."
"Stan," Ruth began in an uncertain voice, "do you think it's necessary to dwell so.."
But Stannard was looking at Martin.
"There was none of that hideous walk across a yard, into a shed, and up thirteen steps. The condemned cell at Pentecost is here. Opposite it, directly opposite across a passage eight feet wide, is the execution shed. The condemned man never knows it is there. He can be trussed up, marched across the passage, placed on a drop worked by a lever—"
Here Stannard made a chopping motion with his hand.