iman. "I say,
Thorp, but this is a go," he went on, cockily enough. Then suddenly the
steadiness went out of his voice, like a match-light in a high wind,
and he finished with a little, choking gasp, "Just the very--rummest
go."

I don't remember that we had a drink on the strength of it, but it's
more than probable. Then we sat down to consider.

The natural, the obvious, and the only proper course of action was to
go at once to Police Headquarters and make a frank statement of the
case with its attendant circumstances. True, we were undistinguished
citizens, with neither pull nor influence, but surely respectability
must count for something, even as against charges of admitted theft and
suspected murder. If we owned up now we should be subjected, doubtless,
to more or less annoyance growing out of the affair, but the position
would be infinitely less difficult than if we waited for events to
force it upon us. "Murder will out," I quoted.

"So they say," answered Indiman, and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

And yet in the end we abandoned this eminently sane conclusion,
deciding that we would keep our own counsel and let the matter work
itself out. For such a crime as murder does not end with the actual
deed; the rupturing of the thousand and one ties that bind even the
most insignificant of lives to the general body of human existence
cannot be accomplished without some disturbance; a circle has myriad
points, and at any one of them the interrupted current may again begin
to flow. Perchance the message falls upon indifferent ears or is too
feeble and incoherent in itself to compel attention. In this event the
signals must necessarily grow weaker and more infrequent until they
finally cease altogether--the crime is now an accomplished fact, the
chapter is finally closed. Or, again, the call may come as plangent and
insistent as the stroke of a fire-alarm; the whole community hears and
instantly understands; the murder is out.

Now either of us could presume to measure the precise quality of odic
force inherent in the grisly mystery that lay under our hand; the
affair might range from the dignity of a cause celebre to the
commonplace of a purely commercial transaction--the economical
transportation of a medical college "subject." It was this very
uncertainty that fascinated our imaginations and so allowed the sober
judgment to be deposed. Our ostensible argument was that the police
would be sure to make a mes