ught, that to put forward such an impudent farrago would mean merely
the disappearance of any chance there might be of a commutation of the
capital sentence.

"True, I had not fled; I had brought back the body; I had handed over
the property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I had
yielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left to
clutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I had
not set out to kill but only to threaten, and that, when I found that I
had done murder, the heart went out of me. Turn it which way I would, I
could see no hope of escape by this plan of action.

"The second of the obvious things that I might do was to take the hint
offered by the situation, and to fly at once. That too must prove fatal.
There was the body. I had no time to hide it in such a way that it would
not be found at the first systematic search. But whatever I should do
with the body, Manderson's not returning to the house would cause
uneasiness in two or three hours at most. Martin would suspect an
accident to the car, and would telephone to the police. At daybreak the
roads would be scoured and inquiries telegraphed in every direction. The
police would act on the possibility of there being foul play. They would
spread their nets with energy in such a big business as the
disappearance of Manderson. Ports and railway termini would be watched.
Within twenty-four hours the body would be found, and the whole country
would be on the alert for me--all Europe scarcely less; I did not
believe there was a spot in Christendom where the man accused of
Manderson's murder could pass unchallenged, with every newspaper crying
the fact of his death into the ears of all the world. Every stranger
would be suspected; every man, woman and child would be a detective. The
car, wherever I should abandon it, would put people on my track. If I
had to choose between two utterly hopeless courses, I decided, I would
take that of telling the preposterous truth.

"But now I cast about desperately for some tale that would seem more
plausible than the truth. Could I save my neck by a lie? One after
another came into my mind; I need not trouble to remember them now. Each
had its own futilities and perils; but every one split upon the fact--or
what would be taken for fact--that I had induced Manderson to go out
with me, and the fact that he had never returned alive. Notion after
notion I swiftly rejecte