"Don't you know? Haven't you seen a paper? Why Forbes's bakery was burnt out last night, and the papers say you lost your life in the fire."
When Timmons led the almost unconscious Stamer from the threshold, and left him a few yards from the door, the latter did not go far. He had scarcely the strength to walk away, and he certainly had not the desire to go. He had borne two extreme phases of terror within the last twenty-four hours; he had suffered the breathless terror of believing he had taken human life, and he had imagined the spirit of the murdered man was pursuing him.
He had often, in thought, faced the contingency of having to fire on some one who found him at his midnight depredations, but he had not, until he formed the resolve of putting Leigh away, contemplated lying in wait for an unsuspecting man and shooting him as if he were a bird of prey.
Once it had entered his mind to kill Leigh, nothing seemed simpler than to do it, and nothing easier than to bear the burden of the deed. He had no hint of conscience, and there were only two articles in his code--first, that prison was a punishment not to be borne if, at any expense, it could be avoided; and, second, that no harm was to be allowed near Timmons. Both articles were concerned, inextricably bound up, in Leigh's life. He saw in the dwarf the agent, the ally of the police--the police, absolutely, in a more malignant form than the stalwart detective who, with handcuffs in his pockets, runs a man down. This Leigh was a traitor and a policeman together. It seemed as though it would be impossible for one human being to possess any characteristic which could add to the hatefulness of him who exhibited these two. And yet this Leigh was not only a traitor and a policeman combined, but an enemy of Timmons--a beast who threatened Timmons as well! Shooting was too merciful a death for such a miscreant. But then, shooting was easy and sure, so he should be shot.
The act itself had been very easy. There had been no more difficulty about it than about hitting the old hat in the shadow of the factory wall. But when the silent shot was sped and the air-gun disposed of by being carefully hung down the inside of a chimney and hooked to a copper-wire tie of the slate chimney-top, and he was safely down the water pipe and in the mews, the aspect of the whole deed changed, or rather it became another thing altogether.
