“Bit more to your left.”
Conrad turned on the lights and walked into the luxuriously furnished room. Facing him were the shower cabinets, each equipped with a fitted wardrobe, a chair and a shower. In one of these cabinets, he thought, Frances had hidden and had watched Maurer wash his blood-stained hands.
Mallory, a police photographer, came in and set up his camera. He looked inquiringly at O’Brien who was examining the floor.
“This must be it, Paul,” O’Brien said, and pointed to a brass grill that covered a six-inch-square hole in the floor.
Conrad joined him, and O’Brien directed the beam of his flash-light down into the drain. The light picked out a mass of dry leaves that lay at the bottom of the drain.
“I wonder where they came from?” Conrad said. “Must have been washed in from an outside vent. Doesn’t look as if any water’s passed through the drain for some time. If the pencil is down there, it should be dry, and the blood won’t have been washed off.”
O’Brien examined the grill covering the drain.
“Cemented in. No wonder Maurer couldn’t retrieve his pencil. Did you bring the tools, Mallory?”
“I dumped them just outside. I’ll get them.”
Conrad sat back on his heels and lit a cigarette.