'They wouldn't have done that. They told me everything as the price of their release from the Regina Coeli. They dug the hole for Stelben and stacked the boxes and the bodies round it. He locked himself in here after that and draped the window so that they couldn't see in. Later, when they were able to look in, the hole had been filled in, the floor cemented over and the stove put back in its place. They weren't able to get inside because the door was locked.'
'That's their story,' Engles said.
Mayne looked wildly round the room. 'It's in here somewhere,' he said. 'It must be.'
'Are you sure Muller and Mann really brought it in here?' Engles asked quietly.
'Yes, of course they did. And he couldn't have shifted it out of this room without their knowing.'
i no 'You've only got their word for it,' Engles reminded him. 'After all, you double-crossed them. No reason why they shouldn't have double-crossed you.'
'Get up the rest of the boxes,' Mayne ordered.
'If one box is full of earth, the others will be,' said Keramikos.
'Get them up,' Mayne snarled.
We worked much faster now. We got up twenty-one boxes. Each one, as we got it up, was split open. And each one was full of earth.