But what really alarmed me most was my inside knowledge of New York justice. I had seen too many innocent men sent up; I had heard faked evidence in too many police cases; I knew that, without a “pull,” I stood but little chance of escaping a conviction as an accessory to what they would call a wanton case of arson. I was not even on the staff of a newspaper at the time. I had no influence of any sort behind me. Nor were my means of support too “visible,” a Britisher, a highly-connected Britisher into the bargain, it was just what the new-broom fire marshal was looking for. It would make a big case for the Press. The agony of mind I endured was ghastly, and the slow delay of long waiting intensified it.... One evening, on coming home about dusk, I saw a strange man in the little hall-way of my house. He asked me my name. I told him. He handed me a blue paper and went out. It was the long-expected subpœna from the fire marshal. I was summoned to attend at eight o’clock two mornings later in his office. My emotions that night and the next day were new experiences to me; I heard the judge sentence me, saw myself in prison for a term of years with hard labour. I began to _feel_ guilty. I knew I should say the wrong thing to the fire marshal. I should convict myself. The truth was the truth, but everything pointed against me; I knew Brodie as a friend, I was his business associate, was frequently in his rooms, had accepted kindnesses from him, I needed money badly, I had hidden his good clothes in my cupboards a few days before the fire. I had been with him on that particular night, I had left the room with him--last of the party. I should be looked upon as guilty, it was for me to clear myself. Prejudice against me, too, as an Englishman would be strong. The Boyde episode would be revived, and twisted to show that I consorted with law-breakers. I should stammer and hesitate and appear to be hiding the truth, to be lying, and I should most certainly look guilty. The thing I dreaded had come upon me. I thought of my home and family. It all made me realize with a fresh sharpness the kind of world poverty had dragged me down to, with the contrast between what I had been born to and what I now lived in.... I needed every scrap of strength and comfort my books could give me. That I was exaggerating like a schoolboy never occurred to me. I suffered the tortures of the damned, of the already condemned, at any rate. That I was innocent of wrong-doing was, for some reason, no consolation: I had got myself into an awful mess and should have to pay the price.