“Pretty snug, brother, isn’t it?” Deacon smiled. “I languish in comfort. ’D’ve been pretty glad of this at times during the recent fracas in France. I say, wouldn’t you like to write the story of my life? _Some Criminals I have Known: Number One—The Abbotshall Murderer._ You know the sort of thing.” Anthony laughed. “Well, you take it easily enough. I’m afraid I should alternate fury and depression.” For a moment Deacon’s blue eyes met his; and in them Anthony saw a kind of despairing horror. But only for the half of a second. And then the old laughing look was in them again. More than ever, Anthony felt admiration and a desperate desire to get this large man out of this small cell; to make him free again—as free as the hot, gleaming streak of the setting sun which pierced the little barred window and painted a broad line of gold upon the drab floor. But to get him out one must work. “What about those finger-prints?” he asked suddenly. “You have me,” said Deacon, “on the hip. That’s the most amazing bit of jiggery pokery about all this hocus pocus. What about ’em to you?” “They certainly savour,” Anthony said, “of hanky panky. In fact, since I know they’re yours and that you didn’t kill Hoode, I know they must be. Now, have you seen that wood-rasp?” “Yes. At the inquest.” “Never before?” “Not as I knows on, guv’nor. In fact, I’d almost swear to ‘never.’ But then I’m the most amazing ass about tools. A fret-saw or a pile-driver, they’re all one to me.” “Did you notice the handle?” Anthony asked. “With interest; because they said it had my paw-marks on it.” “Ever seen that before? By itself, I mean.” Deacon shook his head. “Never.” He fell silent, then said: “I suppose those prints _couldn’t_ be any one else’s, could they?” “I’m afraid they couldn’t,” said Anthony. “You see, it’s as near proved as a thing like that can be that no two men have the same markings on the fingers. They compared those on the wood with those on the bit of paper Boyd got you to hold, and their experts don’t make mistakes. By the way, I suppose you realised at the inquest how you’d been caught?” Deacon smiled. “Not at the inquest, brother, but at the time. I’ve read too many spot-the-murderer serials in my time not to know what a sleuth’s up to when he hands me a bit of paper and asks me whether I ever saw it before. But I didn’t mind at the time, you see, not knowing about that blasted file thing. I say, Gethryn, are we mad? Or is this all a bloody nightmare? I tell you, I didn’t kill the boss, and yet the thing he’s killed with is all over the marks of my fingers! And as far as I know I never even saw the gadget before! It doesn’t work out, does it?” “It’s got to,” Anthony said. “I’ll damned well make it. Now, what d’you know about the incomparable Vanda?” Deacon whistled. “How did you get hold of that?” he asked, wonderingly.