"Hard!" said Police Captain Tucker. "That's what he is, Doctor--hard,"
and the policeman drove a smacking fist into the palm of his other hand
to emphasize the point.
The dog, lying in front of the fireplace, lifted her head. Dr. David
Stone puffed his pipe serenely in the warmth of the blazing logs. The
winter wind whistled about the house, a shutter banged like the report of
a gun, and Joe Morrow jumped.
"Talks tough, Doctor, and sticks out his chin as though asking you what
you were going to do about it. I've sent out his fingerprints. Wouldn't
be surprised if it turned out he was a bit of a gangster."
"You have him safely in jail," Dr. Stone pointed out.
"Safe enough for the present," Captain Tucker admitted, "but I can't hold
him forever on mere suspicion."
"Then you're not charging him with murder?"
"How can I? You can't prove a murder without producing a body. Where's
the corpse? Where's Boothy Wilkes, alive or dead? He hasn't been
around----. You pass his place every day, Joe. When did you see him
last?"
"Wednesday," Joe Morrow, Dr. Stone's nephew, answered. "He asked me had I
seen Jud Cory hanging around."
"Nobody's seen him since Wednesday. That was six days ago. That morning
he and Jud had a talk outside the post office--something about money--and
suddenly Jud yelled out that he'd kill him. Dozen people heard it. And
since late Wednesday Boothy hasn't been seen."
"Why did Jud want to kill him?" the blind doctor asked.
"How do I know?"
"Might be worth looking into," the calm voice drawled.
"Haven't I tried to sweat it out of him? Haven't I grilled him trying to
make him tell where he hid the body? What do I get? A stuck-out chin, and
a scowl, and him telling me he's not a squealer. That's gangster talk."
The blind man's head rested against the back of the chair; his sightless
eyes seemed to stare unblinkingly at some object on the ceiling; the pale
face had the calmness of graven stone. Joe, highly excited by all this
talk of murder and a hidden body, pulled at a thought that had occurred
to him more than once in the past. Could anything happen that would shake
his uncle out of that unruffled tranquillity?
"How old did you say he was, Captain?"
"Twenty."
The doctor sat up and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the fireplace,
"No boy is hard at twenty, Captain. He only thinks he's hard. Mind if I
talk to him?"