"Didn't want them to know," answered Hyde. "The fact is, I haven't been
on good terms with them for a long time, and I've got some pride
left--or I had, until yesterday. But here's the truth: I had to clear out
of my lodgings--which was nothing but an attic, three days since, and
I've been wandering about, literally hungry and homeless, since that. If
it hadn't been for that, I should never have been in this hole! And
that's due to circumstances that beat me, for I tell you again, I don't
know anything about this man's murder--at least, not about it actually."
"What do you know?" asked Viner. "Tell us plainly."
"I'm going to," responded Hyde. "I was hanging about the Park and around
Kensington Gardens most of yesterday. Then, at night, I got wandering
about this part--didn't seem to matter much where I went. You don't know,
either of you, what it means to wander round, starving. You get into a
sort of comatose state--you just go on and on. Well, last night I was
walking, in that way, in and out about these Bayswater squares. I got
into Markendale Square. As I was going along the top side of it, I
noticed a passage and turned into it--as I've said, when a man's in the
state I was in, it doesn't matter where he slouches--anywhere! I turned
into that passage, I tell you, just aimlessly, as a man came walking out.
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