CHAPTER III

COVERING THE TRACKS

I thought quickly, and my consciousness seemed to embrace all the
details of the situation with a keenness foreign to my nature.

Once, I believe, I had been able to play an active part among the men
who were my associates in that adventurous life that lay so far behind
me. But eight years of clerkship had reduced me to the condition of
one who waits on the command of others. Now my irresolution vanished
for the time, and I was my old self once more.

The first task was the disposal of the body in such a way that
suspicion would not attach itself to me after I had vacated the rooms
next morning.

There was a fire-escape running up to the floor of that room on the
outside of the house, though there was no egress to it. It had been
put up by the landlord to satisfy the requirements of some new law; but
had never been meant for use, and it was constructed of the flimsiest
and cheapest ironwork. I saw that it would be possible by standing on
a chair to swing myself up to the hole in the wall and reach down to
the iron stairs up which, I assumed, the dead man had crept after I had
given him the hint of Jacqueline's abode by emerging from the front
door.

I raised the dead man in my arms, looking apprehensively toward the
bed. I was afraid Jacqueline would awaken, but she slept in heavy