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said Troy. “Mark the throne before you move it.”
    Basil Pilgrim chalked the position of the throne on the floor, and then he and Ormerin tipped it up. The rest of the class looked on with gathering interest. By following the chalked-out line on the throne they could see the spot where the heart would come, and after a little experiment found the plot of this spot on the underneath surface of the throne.
    “Now, you see,” said Ormerin, “the jealous wife would drive the knife through from underneath.”
    “Incidentally taking the edge off,” said Basil Pilgrim.
    “You could force it through the crack between the boards,” said Garcia suddenly, from the window.
    “How? It’d fall out when she was shoved down.”
    “No, it wouldn’t. Look here.”
    “Don’t break the knife and don’t damage the throne,” said Troy.
    “I get you,” said Hatchett eagerly. “The dagger’s wider at the base. The boards would press on it. You’d have to hammer it through. Look, I’ll bet you it could be done. There you are, I’ll betcher.”
    “Not interested, I’m afraid,” said Malmsley.
    “Let’s try,” said Pilgrim. “May we, Troy?”
    “Oh, do let’s,” cried Phillida Lee. She caught up her enthusiasm with an apologetic glance at Malmsley. “I adore bloodshed,” she added with a painstaking nonchalance.
    “The underneath of the throne’s absolutely filthy,” complained Malmsley,
    “Pity if you spoiled your nice green pinny,” jeered Sonia.
    Valmai Seacliff laughed.
    “I don’t propose to do so,” said Malmsley. “Garcia can if he likes.”
    “Go on,” said Hackett. “Give it a pop. I betcher five bob it’ll work. Fair dinkum.”
    “What does that mean?” asked Seacliff. “You must teach me the language, Hatchett.”
    “Too right I will,” said Hatchett with enthusiasm. “I’ll make a dinkum Aussie out of you.”
    “God forbid,” said Malmsley. Sonia giggled.
    “Don’t you like Australians?” Hatchett asked her aggressively.
    “Not particularly.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Models at the school I went to in Sydney knew how to hold a pose for longer than ten minutes.”
    “You don’t seem to have taken advantage of it, judging by your drawing.”
    “And they didn’t get saucy with the students.”‘
    “Perhaps they weren’t all like you.”
    “Sonia,” said Troy, “that will do. If you boys are going to make your experiment, you’d better hurry up. We start again in five minutes.”
    In the boards of the throne they found a crack that passed through the right spot. Hatchett slid the thin tip of the knife into it from underneath and shoved. By tapping the hilt of the dagger with an easel ledge, he forced the widening blade upwards through the crack. Then he let the throne back on to the floor. The blade projected wickedly through the blue chalk cross that marked the plot of Sonia’s heart on the throne. Basil Pilgrim took the drape, laid it across the cushion, pulled it in taut folds down to the throne, and pinned it there.
    “You see, the point of the knife is lower than the top of the cushion,” he said. “It doesn’t show under the drape.”
    “What did I tell you?” said Hatchett.
    Garcia strolled over and joined the group.
    “Go into your pose, Sonia,” he said with a grin.
    Sonia shuddered.
    “Don’t,” she said.
    “I wonder if the tip would show under the left breast,” murmured Malmsley. “Rather amusing to have it in the drawing. With a cast shadow and a thin trickle of blood. Keep the whole thing black and white except for the little scarlet thread. After all, it is melodrama.”
    “Evidently,” grunted Garcia.
    “The point of suspension for the drape would have to be higher,” said Troy. “It must be higher than the tip of the blade. You could do it. If your story was a modern detective novel, Malmsley, you could do a drawing of the knife as it is now.”
    Malmsley smiled and began to sketch on the edge of his paper. Valmai Seacliff