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and adds a footnote to say that it is the duty of a British newspaper to publish the facts without fear or favour. That shuts the poor little blighters up.
     
    ‘Want us to pay for your defence at the Assizes?’ he asked.
     
    ‘I don’t mind if you do,’ I said, looking cautiously over the lay-out of the room.
     
    That bright young reporter had been scattering his employers’ money around. The porter ought to have been in the room, and he carefully was not. The detective and the constable - he was looking a bit uneasy - should not have been there, and they were. The porter’s uniform coat and overalls hung on pegs. There was a half-open broom cupboard, full of untidy brushes and cleaning materials. A wide lattice window gave on to an inner courtyard where the bicycles of the municipal employees were ranged in racks. The window could not be more than twelve feet above the ground, though God knew what there was directly underneath.
     
    ‘Sign that,’ said the reporter, ‘and we’ll get you the best Counsel available.’
     
    By habit I glanced at the contract which he slapped down in front of me. He seemed surprised at my reading it with attention. He even addressed me by name, instead of ’son’.
     
    ‘It just gives us the exclusive right to print your life story, Mr Howard-Wolferstan,’ he explained.
     
    I reckoned that I had better appear a sporting prisoner - elastic, easy and with a proper British respect for ‘avin’ me nyme in the pypers. It surprised me that they should want it. Spies, after all, come a good second to sex, and are not sympathetic to the average reader. I suppose there was a shortage of material. For the last week or two there had been no spectacular murders, and neither Canterbury nor Rome had had any eccentrically erring priests.
     
    I signed his contract without protest, for at bottom he was a man of enterprise after my own heart, he would have been entertaining in a bar or as a companion in any illegality. But I could not stick his tame photographer, who had the artificial good-fellowship of some mackerel living on the earnings of a prostitute, and just the right face for it. However, I was polite, even cheerful. I did what he told me and showed an interest in his camera. Thank God I had the sense to put on a wide, film-star grin!
     
    There was half a plan forming. I played the publicity hound. The reporter, who had seen me and listened to me in court, was puzzled, but the photographer naturally assumed that I had a mind like his own. I asked if I couldn’t make a picture of both of them.
     
    ‘A new idea,’ I said. ‘You can plaster it on the front page. Our representatives taken by the accused himself.’
     
    The detective believed in keeping in with the press. He was all for it, so long as we wasted no time. He told the constable to turn me loose, and the photographer gave me his camera. They all stayed pretty close, however, although I was obviously a harmless and model prisoner.
     
    I took a snap, and then complained that I did not think heads and shoulders were going to be really effective. So I grouped them round the door - to allay any possible suspicion - and myself went to the far corner of the room. At last I quickly tried them sitting at the table, with myself at the side of the window. That, I said, was perfect. And then, without any warning, I fell backwards out of the window, grabbing the upright to steady myself.
     
    I am no acrobat. I do not think I could either have planned or taken the risk if I had not been overcome by the atmosphere which surrounded me - of a certain slimy kindliness, of petty crookedness, of British tastes as reflected in the papers which the masses are supposed - wrongly, I think - to admire. All that, far more than the shock of finding myself a spy and a communist, drove me into not caring if I broke my neck.
     
    As it was, I merely twisted my right arm and bumped my head. The municipal ash-cans were underneath. The one I hit