d the
entire contents of his trunk; selected those things which he considered
indispensable, and those which might constitute clues. He hastily packed
his grip, and, with a last glance about the room and some seconds of
breathless listening at the door, he attached to the handle a long piece
of cord, which at some time had been tied about his trunk, and, gently
opening the window, lowered the grip into the courtyard beneath. The
light he had already extinguished, and with the conviction dwelling in
his bosom that in some way he was become accessory to a murder--that he
was a man shortly to be pursued by the police of the civilized world--he
descended the skeleton lift-shaft, picked up his grip, and passed out
under the archway into the lane at the back of Palace Mansions and St.
Andrew's Mansions.

He did not proceed in the direction which would have brought him out
into the Square, but elected to emerge through the other end. At exactly
the moment that Inspector Dunbar rushed into his vacated room, Mr.
Soames, grip in hand, was mounting to the top of a southward bound 'bus
at the corner of Parliament Street!

He was conscious of a need for reflection. He longed to sit in some
secluded spot in order to think. At present, his brain was a mere
whirligig, and all things about him seemingly danced to the same tune.
Stationary objects were become unstable in the eyes of Soames, and the
solid earth, burst free of its moorings, no longer afforded him a safe
foothold. There was a humming in his ears; and a mist floated before his
eyes. By the time that the motor-'bus was come to the south side of the
bridge, Soames had succeeded in slowing down his mental roundabout in
some degree; and now he began grasping at the flying ideas which
the diminishing violence of his brain storm enabled him, vaguely, to
perceive.

The first fruits of his reflections were bitter. He viewed the events
of the night in truer focus; he saw that by his flight he had sealed his
fate--had voluntarily outlawed himself. It became frightfully evident
to him that he dared not seek to draw from his bank, that he dared not
touch even his modest Post Office account. With the exception of some
twenty-five shillings in his pocket, he was penniless!

How could he hope to fly the country, or even to hide himself, without
money?

He glanced suspiciously about the 'bus; for he perceived that an old
instinct had prompted him to mount one which passed the Oval--a