Strictly For Cash (30 page)

If it hadn't been for Ginny I wouldn't have hesitated. I would have ended it there and then, but I remembered how she had looked at me when Hame had said I had stolen the money. I remembered, too, she had said she didn't believe I had ever loved her. More than anything else in the world now I wanted her to know how much she had meant to me, and still meant to me. I wanted her to know my side of the story, sure that if she knew the facts, and how I had been drawn into this mess as inexorably as a swimmer gets sucked into a whirlpool, she would realize, after I had gone to the chair, that I wasn't quite so bad as Hame had painted me.

And because it was essential to me that she should know the truth, I decided to give myself up. Before they brought me to trial I would have time to write down my story just as it had happened, and if the verdict went against me, Ginny would at least have my written record.

Having made the decision, I got cautiously to my feet. I looked back along the ledge. A policeman was leaning out of a window about twenty yards away from me. Reluctantly, his eyes popping and his face shiny with sweat, he swung his leg over the window-sill.

"Stay where you are," I said, waving him back, "I'm coming in."

As I walked towards him, moving slowly, steadying myself against the side of the building and keeping my eyes fixed on him, I heard the deep-throated roar from the crowd below. It reminded me of the noise the lions had made when I had dropped Reisner into the pit. At least he hadn't known what was coming to him.

I did.

THE END