She started at the Warden's voice, close to her ear, above the rasping clamour of the machines: "The last row, at the end. The middle machine--that's the one."
With a quick intake of her breath she looked where he pointed. The colour faded from her cheeks. Doubt--if she had clung to doubt--was ended now! The man who had started with levelled pistol from behind the curtain of Craig's library had been short and stocky and round-shouldered. The side-face of the distant prisoner at whom she was now looking with such painful intensity, under the shadow of his cap-brim showed smudged with oil and dust; but his shoulders were broad and straight and his frame tall and lithe. Whatever the law said, this man was not the man who had shot Craig! She alone could swear it!
She felt suddenly a kind of terror of the place. She touched Malcolm's arm. "I've seen enough--please! Could we turn back now?"
The Warden overheard and nodded. "Just wait here a moment," he said, "and we'll go. I want to take a look forward." He strode from them down the broad way between the lines of workers.
Harry heard the step behind him on the steel floor. He thought the others were with him. Under the rattle of the cogs his sick imagination caught the swish of a dress--almost he thought he caught a faint breath of a familiar perfume--and he averted his face till they should pass. It was by reason of this that his lowered eyes caught a stealthy movement in the man at the next machine--a movement of one hand which crept under his jacket, and jerked forth, clutching something shining and murderous.
Harry acted without conscious thought, by swift and certain instinct. As the lean arm, tense with hate, went up behind the Warden's back, he leaped forward with a cry of warning, caught the wrist whose hand held the sharpened file, and both went down clinched and struggling together.
The cry, sharp and strained, pierced across the din. It brought the Superintendent to his feet on his platform, like the release of a coiled spring, a revolver in either hand.
"Back to the door!" he roared, and Malcolm's sinewy arm swept the two girls behind him. The fierce clamour of a bell sounded outside. There was sudden pandemonium. Doors opened, men in uniform dashed by her, and on the platform the Superintendent stood, crouching forward like a panther about to spring, still as a statue, both hands outstretched with their gleaming muzzles, his eyes flashing over the room.