In that shapeless garment he was no longer likely to catch the eye of any unduly curious observer as a "well-dressed" man.
He now walked swiftly.

Turning out of Chandos Street from the Strand, he avoided the brightly lit proximity of Leicester Square, and plunged into the crooked dark streets on the other side of Charing Cross Road.

He reached New Oxford Street, crossed it, and continued along obscure streets, his head bent forward, in the unconscious habit of a man thinking deeply as he went.
In the first feeling of dismay at the discovery that the police were looking for him he had been overwhelmed by a sense of catastrophe.

With the passing of that phase he was able to consider the situation with a cooler brain, and it now seemed to him that his position was not so precarious as he deemed it in the light of that shock.

He knew London, and might be able to evade arrest indefinitely if he took precautions and avoided risks.