man of his iron self-restraint could have done it. You
can see for yourselves how every fact in my statement would appear, in
the shadow of Manderson's death, a clumsy lie. I tried to imagine myself
telling such a story to the counsel for my defence. I could see the face
with which he would listen to it; I could read in the lines of it his
thought, 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 enquiries 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 suspect; 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