Testimony of another policeman that,
when arrested at midnight, Evan had said: "Yes; I took the ring off
his finger. I found him there dead .... I know I oughtn't to have done
it.... I'm an educated man; it was stupid to pawn the ring. I found him
with his pockets turned inside out."
Fascinating and terrible to sit staring at the man in whose place he
should have been; to wonder when those small bright-grey bloodshot eyes
would spy him out, and how he would meet that glance. Like a baited
raccoon the little man stood, screwed back into a corner, mournful,
cynical, fierce, with his ridged, obtuse yellow face, and his stubbly
grey beard and hair, and his eyes wandering now and again amongst the
crowd. But with all his might Laurence kept his face unmoved. Then came
the word "Remanded"; and, more like a baited beast than ever, the man
was led away.
Laurence sat on, a cold perspiration thick on his forehead. Someone
else, then, had come on the body and turned the pockets inside out
before John Evan took the ring. A man such as Walenn would not be out
at night without money. Besides, if Evan had found money on the body he
would never have run the risk of taking that ring.
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