Shocked beyond measure, yet with an eye to color and to the zest of the public for picturesque details, I examined the three rooms with care, the officer in the house following me. Together we looked at the utensils in the kitchen, what was in the cupboard to eat, what in the closet to wear. I made notes of the contents of the rooms, their cheapness, then went to the neighbors on either hand to learn if they had heard anything. Then in a stray owl-car, no carriages being available, I hurried to the Four Courts, several miles cityward, to see the criminal. I found him, old, pale, sick, thin, walking up and down in his small iron cell, plainly out of his mind, a picture of hopeless, unconscious misery. His hands trembled idly about his mouth; his shabby trousers bagged about his shoes; he was unshaven and weak-looking, and all the while he mumbled to himself some unintelligible sounds. I tried to talk with him but could get nothing. He seemed not even to know that I was there, so brain-sick was he. Then I questioned the jail attendants, those dull wiseacres of the law. Had he talked? Did they think he was sane? With the usual acumen and delicacy of this tribe, they were inclined to think he was shamming. I hurried through dark streets to the office. It was an almost empty reportorial room in which I scribbled my dolorous picture. With the impetuosity of youth and curiosity and sorrow and wonder I told it all, the terror, the pity, the inexplicability. As I wrote, each page was taken up by Hartung, edited and sent up. Then, having done perhaps a column and a half (Bellairs having arrived with various police theories), I was allowed finally to amble out into a dark street and seek my miserable little room with its creaky bed, its dirty coverlets, its ragged carpets and stained walls. Nevertheless, I lay down with a kind of high pride and satisfaction in my story of the murder and my description of the ball, and with my life in consequence! I was not so bad. I was getting along. I must be thought an exceptional man to be picked for two such difficult tasks in the same evening. Life itself was not so bad; it was just higgledy-piggledy, catch-as-catch-can, that was all. If one were clever, like myself, it was all right. Next morning, when I reached the office, McCord and Hazard and some others pronounced my stuff “pretty good,” and I was beside myself with glee. I strolled about as though I owned the earth, pretending simplicity and humility but actually believing that I was the finest ever, that no one could outdo me at this game of reporting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXV