“Was that one of your stunts?” he snarled, leaning across the desk and glaring at Gollowitz. “You crazy fool! You should have left it alone. I knew about that pencil. I had a story to cover it. Five of our men killed! You must be out of your head!”
Gollowitz dropped back in his chair, his face ashen. He felt Ferrari’s eyes on him, and in a moment of sick despair he realized that the story of his failure would get back to the Syndicate.
“You not only throw lives away, but you underline the importance of the pencil,” Maurer went on. “I dropped that pencil down the drain two days before June was killed.”
“But there was her blood on it,” McCann said sharply.
Maurer’s little eyes gleamed.
“It was my blood. I cut my hand on a bottle. The blood smeared the pencil and as I was wiping it clean it dropped out of my hand and fell down the drain.”
“That won’t do,” McCann said curtly. “Sorry, Mr. Maurer, but it won’t do. The blood on the pencil belongs to Miss Arnot’s blood group, and it happens to be a fairly rare group at that.”
Maurer jutted out his chin.
“What group is it?”
“B group.”