I went out long before he was awake in the morning; I had not yet
decided what I should do. That it would be done for me pretty quickly I
already realized; for it was not likely, after his declaration of the
previous night, that Jervis Fanshawe would long leave me at liberty. So
I took what was to prove my last walk through London, for that time at
least; and presently saw what I had expected to see. Flaring lines on
newspaper placards told me and all the world of London what had
happened, and the lines were strengthened as hour after hour went by. In
face of them I had a curious satisfaction in my present liberty, a
curious wonder at the power that was mine. I could have gone up to any
respectable citizen jogging along his respectable way, and have told him
the truth calmly; I could have shouted it in the streets, and then have
run, with a hundred at my heels. I was a pariah, walking the streets of
a great city with men hunting for me; I had nothing in common with
respectability or decency.
I remember that I tried experiments that day; touched the very fringe of
what was waiting for me, in a sense, to try how near I could go to the
actual danger without grasping it. I sat in a crowded restaurant at
lunch time, and heard men talk of what had happened, giving details of
how the man had been struck down, and offering suggestions as to the
motive. I that was already dead could listen to them with equanimity;
could wonder a little what would have happened had I suddenly declared
how much deeper my knowledge of the business was than theirs.
One man was quite blatant about it; he had already formed his own idea
of the matter, and had summed it up. There was a woman in it, of course;
everything pointed to the fact that a woman had struck the fatal blow.
In the first place there was no evidence of any struggle; and mark you,
gentlemen, a woman bent on such a business as that would creep upon the
poor devil unawares, and strike him down before he had a chance to
defend himself. It being pointed out to this clever person that a poker
had been found clasped tight in the hand of the murdered man, he was
ready in a moment with a smiling explanation of that. The woman had put
it there, the better to make out her defence if necessary. He was quite
surprised that no one had thought of that.
So I went out into the streets again, to find again what I had expected.
The placards bore an additional line--"A Clue." Clearly Mr. Jervis
Fanshawe had already been at work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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