Certainly in my mufti I could not get past the next floor just then
without exciting fatal notice, and to wait for an opportunity when the
coast might be clear was too dangerous, seeing the risk of someone
coming up.
"It was not easy to see my way of escape. I went to the top room and
locked the door. My nerves were pretty strong, but they were severely
tried when I shut myself in with the dead man and had the consciousness
of having laid myself open to the charge of being his murderer. I stood
there by the door thinking desperately what I could do. Fool that I had
been to venture into the place in that garb. But who could have foreseen
the result? Anyhow there was no time for reflection; it was necessary to
act and seek a possible expedient. Hopelessly enough I went into the
little inner room and struck a match. In a moment a thrill of hope came
to me, for the first object the light showed me was a big coil of rope
conspicuous among the odds and ends of lumber in the recess. The idea of
escape by the window had only occurred to me to be dismissed as a sheer
impossibility; the height of the tower made that quite prohibitive, but
here seemed a chance of it.
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