“‘Oh,’ she said, ‘we are running a brothel.’”
Jim leant back in his chair and laughed. “That’s an instance of the evils of indiscriminate charity,” he said.
“It is a sign of the times,” his guest replied, seriously. “Look at the callous crimes of which we read in the newspapers. Take, for instance, the Eversfield case.”
Jim’s heart seemed to stop beating. “I haven’t been reading the papers lately,” he stammered. “I haven’t heard....” His voice failed him.
“Oh, it’s a shocking case,” said Mr. Jones, but to Jim his words were as though they came from a great distance or were heard above the noise of a tempest. “A young woman, the lady of the manor, was found murdered in her own woods, and at first the police thought that the crime had been committed by a certain Jane Potts who was jealous of her. But she proved her innocence, and then the mother of the murdered woman, a Mrs. Darling, admitted that her daughter’s husband, who had been supposed to be dead, was actually alive, and had visited his wife on the day of the crime. It seems that he had wanted to rid himself of her by divorce, but something happened which induced him to kill her instead.”
Jim’s brain was seething. “But if he was guilty, why did he go to see Mrs. Darling afterwards?” he asked.
“Oh, then you have read about the case,” said his guest, glancing at him quickly.
Jim struggled inwardly to be calm and to rectify his mistake. “Yes,” he answered, “I remember it now.”
Mr. Jones bent forward in his chair and tapped his host’s knee. “Mark my words,” he declared, “that man is an out-and-out villain. He had deserted his wife, and had let it be thought that he was dead; and then, I suppose because he was short of money, he came home, and murdered her when she refused to give him any. My theory is that he believed he had been seen by somebody, and therefore determined to brazen it out by calling on his mother-in-law. He is evidently of the callous kind.”
Jim had the feeling that he himself, his ego, had become detached from his brain’s consciousness. Distantly, he could hear every word that was being said, yet at the same time his mind was in confusion, in pandemonium. He looked down from afar off at his body, and wondered whether the trembling of his hand was noticeable. He could listen to himself speaking, and desperately he struggled to control his words.