He shrugged his shoulders.

‘I’ve no prejudices either way,’ he returned, his emphasis on the personal pronoun indicating that I, in his opinion, had.

But there he was wrong.  I hadn’t.  I was quite prepared to believe that Gideon had knocked Hobart downstairs, or that he hadn’t.  You can’t be a parson, or, indeed, anything else, for long, without learning that decent men and women will do, at times, quite indecent things, and that the devil is quite strong enough to make a mess of any human being’s life.  You hear of a man that he was in love with another man’s wife and hated her husband and at last killed him in a quarrel—­and you think ’A bad lot.’  But he may not be a bad lot at all; he may be a decent chap, full of ideals and generosity and fine thinking.  Sometimes I’m inclined to agree with the author of that gushing and hysterical book In Darkest Christendom and a Way Out, that the only unforgiveable sin is exploitation.  Exploitation of human needs and human weaknesses and human tragedies, for one’s own profit....  And, as we very nearly all do it, in one way or another, let us hope that even that isn’t quite unforgiveable.  Yes, we nearly all do it.  The press exploits for its benefit human silliness and ignorance and vulgarity and sensationalism, and, in exploiting it, feeds it.  The war profiteers exploited the war....  We all exploit other people—­use their affection, their dependence on us, their needs and their sins, for our own ends.

And that is deliberate.  To knock a fellow human being downstairs in a quarrel, so that he dies—­that may be impulse and accident, and is not so vile.  Even to say nothing afterwards—­even that is not so vile.

Still, I would rather, much rather, think that Gideon hadn’t done it.

It was odd that, as I was thinking these things, walking up Surrey Street from the Temple Embankment, I overtook Gideon, who was slouching along in his usual abstracted way.

I touched his arm and spoke to him.  He gave me his queer, half-ironical smile.

’Hallo, Jukie....  Where are you bound?...  By the way, did you by chance see the Haste this morning?’

’Not by chance.  That doesn’t happen with me and the Haste.  But I saw it.’

’They obviously mean business, don’t they.  The sleuth-hound touch.  I expect to be asked for my photograph soon, for the Pink Pictorial and the Sunday Rag.  I must get a nice one taken.’

I suppose I looked as I felt, for he said in a different tone, ’Don’t worry, old man.  There’s nothing to be done.  We must just let this thing take its course.’

I couldn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t seem like asking him questions, or trying to make him admit or deny the thing to me.  I wanted to ask him if he couldn’t produce an alibi and blow the ridiculous story to the four winds.  But—­suppose he couldn’t...?