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He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the patchboard. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of smugness and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the arrogant. The thing was still loathsome—more loathsome, if possible, than before—and the morning dew that spotted the body seemed fresher, and more like rain newly fallen. Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, as Anon had hinted, with his mocking laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the Watamelon larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease over the patchboard. There was blood on the stitched feet, as though the thing had grown—blood even on the hooves that had not held the gun. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did confess, who would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him had been OPSEC'd. He himself had burned what had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was schizo. They ban him if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public atonement. There was a Janny who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse him till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. The death of a Unicorn seemed very little to him. He was thinking of Mumei. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. At least he thought so. But who could tell? ... No. There had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity’s sake he had tried the denial of doxx. He recognized that now.
But this murder—was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was only one bit of evidence left against him. The patch itself—that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once it had given him pleasure to watch it smiling. Of late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it.
He looked round and saw the gun that had shot a doxxfag.. He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the patchmaker, so it would kill the patchmaker’s work, and all that that meant. It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and shot the patch with it.
There was a cry heard, and a gunshot. The cry was so horrible in its agony that the frightened Jannys woke and crept out of their rooms. Two posters, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked up at the great thread. They walked on till they met an Investigator and brought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was all dark. After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico and watched.
“Whose house is that, Investigator?” asked the elder of the two posters.
“Mr. Deadbeat’s, sir,” answered the Teamate.
They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of them was a Chumbud.
Inside, in the servants’ part of the house, the half-clad domestics were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Tako was crying and wringing her hands. KFP was as pale as death.
After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windows yielded easily—their bolts were old.
When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid patch of a Watamelon as they had last seen it, in all the wonder of its exquisite smugness and beauty. Lying on the floor was a Deadbeat, in evening dress, with a gunshot in his heart. He was bony, dry, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the filesnames that they recognized who it was.
