"Madam, I can't so much as guess at your meaning. If there's some way out of this murderous business for my sister, my friend and myself, we'd take it more than kindly if you'll explain."
"Lovely," Virtue protested, snapping shut his watch, "I really must leave here immediately."
"Just a minute," she flung him, and called across to Trenmore. "You must know the laws!"
Believing that their fate hung in a delicate balance, Drayton intervened.
"We are strangers here. They haven't allowed us to speak or defend ourselves, but we certainly do not understand the laws, and we have not offended intentionally."
"Strangers! Strangers in Philadelphia?"
"Certainly. This gentleman only recently arrived from Ireland; his sister has spent the last few years in the West, and I myself am from Cincinnati."
The woman shook her head, looking more puzzled than before.
"Those names mean nothing. If you are really from outside the boundaries, how did you get in?"
Drayton hesitated. A diplomatic answer to that was, under the circumstances, difficult. Before he could frame a sentence sufficiently noncommittal, a new figure had thrust its way through the police guard and walked to the woman's side.