nd in the morning they were there flying like little birds
and pecking at my window.

I should have escaped. Heavens, I should have escaped. What was more
simple? I murdered and then walked into the world, which is wide and
intricate.

Do you know that my own clock assisted in the hunting of me? They asked
what time I left my home that morning, and it replied at once,
"Half-after eight." The watch of a man I had chanced to pass near the
house of the crime told the people "Seven minutes after nine." And, of
course, the tall, old clock in the drawing-room went about day after day
repeating, "Eighteen minutes after nine."

Do you say that the man who caught me was very clever? My friend, I have
lived long, and he was the most incredible blockhead of my experience.
An enslaved, dust-eating Mexican vaquero wouldn't hitch his pony to such
a man. Do you think he deserves credit for my capture? If he had been as
pervading as the atmosphere, he would never have caught me. If he was a
detective, as you say, I could carve a better one from an old table-leg.
But the tiles. That is another matter. At night I think they flew in
long high flock, like pigeons. In the day, little mad things, they
murmured on my trail like frothy-mouthed weasels.

I see that you note these great, round, vividly orange spots on my coat.
Of course, even if the detective were really carved from an old
table-leg, he could hardly fail to apprehend a man thus badged. As sores
come upon one in the plague so came these spots upon my coat. When I
discovered them, I made effort to free myself of this coat. I tore,
tugged, wrenched at it, but around my shoulders it was like a grip of a
dead man's arms. Do you know that I have plunged into a thousand lakes?
I have smeared this coat with a thousand paints. But day and night the
spots burn like lights. I might walk from this jail to-day if I could
rid myself of this coat, but it clings--clings--clings.

At any rate, the person you call a detective was not so clever to
discover a man in a coat of spotted orange, followed by shrieking,
blood-stained tiles. Yes, that noise from the corridor is most peculiar.
But they are always there, muttering and watching, clashing and
jostling. It sounds as if the dishes of Hades were being washed. Yet I
have become used to it. Once, indeed, in the night, I cried out to them,
"In God's name, go away, little blood-stained tiles." But they doggedly
answered, "It is the law."