All is safe, therefore, for him: which is more than
one can be sure of for miscreant in the parlor. Miscreant, however, takes
it coolly enough: the reason being, that, with all his cleverness, for
once in his life miscreant has been over-reached. The reader and I know,
but miscreant does not in the least suspect, a little fact of some
importance, viz., that just now through a space of full three minutes he
has been overlooked and studied by one, who (though reading in a dreadful
book, and suffering under mortal panic) took accurate notes of so much as
his limited opportunities allowed him to see, and will assuredly report
the creaking shoes and the silk-mounted surtout in quarters where such
little facts will tell very little to his advantage. But, although it is
true that Mr. Williams, unaware of the journeyman's having 'assisted' at
the examination of Mrs. Williamson's pockets, could not connect any
anxiety with that person's subsequent proceedings', nor specially,
therefore, with his having embarked in the rope-weaving line, assuredly he
knew of reasons enough for not loitering. And yet he _did_ loiter.
Reading his acts by the light of such mute traces as he left behind him,
the police became aware that latterly he must have loitered. And the
reason which governed him is striking; because at once it records--that
murder was not pursued by him simply as a means to an end, but also as an
end for itself.
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