Judged impartially, side by side, the genuine page looked no more genuine than the other.
The clock struck two: the younger man raised his face from a long reverie, and there were the terrible eyes of Scrafton still upon him. He was equally at a loss what to think, what to believe, what to do; but all at once his eyes fell upon the "copy" on his desk; it must go by the three o'clock post, or it would be too late for the next issue.
Mechanically he began folding up his various contributions--punning paragraphs--four-line quips--a set of verses that he had completed. The other set, upon which he had been engaged on Scrafton's entry, he tossed aside, but all that was ready he put into a long envelope, which he addressed, weighed, and stamped as though nobody had been there. Scrafton watched him with his grinning eyes, but leapt up and overtook Harry as he was leaving the room.
"Not a soul will be about, and there's a pillar just under the windows."
Harry held up his envelope. The other read the address, and it quenched the suspicion in his fiery eyes, but opened them very wide.
"So you can think of your comic paper after this!"
"I must think of something, or I shall go mad."
"Well, where's another bottle of whisky before you go?"
Harry fetched one from the dining-room, and in another moment he was on the stairs, with an overcoat over his pyjamas, and the latch-key in his hand. His brain was in a whirl. He had no idea what to do when he returned, what steps to take, and no clear sight of his duty by his dead father. If he was dead, there was an end. But how could he believe the word of that ghoul upstairs? And yet, was there anything to be gained by his returning with the police? For the very idea had occurred to Harry, of which Scrafton had at first suspected and then acquitted him.
He could see his way no farther than the posting of his "copy"; that little commonplace necessity had come as a timely godsend to him; he only wished the pillar was a mile instead of a yard away.
As he emerged from the mansions a couple of men retired farther into the shadow of the opposite houses; as he turned from the pillar-box one of these men was crossing the road towards him, having recognised Harry; and it was the very man of whom he was thinking--of whom he was trying to think as his own father's murderer.