Mustn’t one wait and be asked first to turn King’s Evidence?
Suppose they said he had merely confessed....
The Crayminster street had a picturesque nutritious look. Half-way down it was the White Hart with cyclist club signs on its walls and geraniums over a white porch, and beyond a house being built and already at the roofing pitch. To the right was a baker’s shop diffusing a delicious suggestion of buns and cake and to the left a little comfortable sweetstuff window and a glimpse of tables and a board: ‘Teas.’ Tea! He resolved to break into his ninepence boldly and generously. Very likely they would boil him an egg for a penny or so. Yet on the other hand if he just had three or four buns, soft new buns. He hovered towards the baker’s shop and stopped short. That bill was in the window!
He wheeled about sharply and went into the sweetstuff shop and found a table with a white cloth and a motherly little woman in a large cap. Tea? He could have an egg and some thick bread and butter and a cup of tea for fivepence. He sat down respectfully to await her preparations.
But he was uneasy.
He knew quite well that she would ask him questions. For that he was prepared. He said he was walking from his home in London to Someport to save the fare. “But you’re so dirty!” said the motherly little woman. “I sent my luggage by post, ma’m, and I lost my way and didn’t get it. And I don’t much mind, ma’m, if you don’t. Not washing....”
All that he thought he did quite neatly. But he wished there was not that bill in the baker’s window opposite and he wished he hadn’t quite such a hunted feeling. A faint claustrophobia affected him. He felt the shop might be a trap. He would be glad to get into the open again. Was there a way out behind if for example a policeman blocked the door? He hovered to the entrance while his egg was boiling and then when he saw a large fat baker surveying the world with an afternoon placidity upon his face, he went back and sat by the table. He wondered if the baker had noted him.
He had finished his egg; he was drinking his tea with appreciative noises, when he discovered that the baker had noted him. Bealby’s eyes, at first inanely open above the tilting tea cup, were suddenly riveted on something that was going on in the baker’s window. From where he sat he could see that detestable bill, and then slowly, feeling about for it, he beheld a hand and a floury sleeve. The bill was drawn up and vanished and then behind a glass shelf of fancy bread and a glass shelf of buns something pink and indistinct began to move jerkily.... It was a human face and it was trying to peer into the little refreshment shop that sheltered Bealby....
Bealby’s soul went faint.
He had one inadequate idea. “Might I go out,” he said, “by your back way?”