“Thought so. The idiots brought him right through here, with the knife
lying on top of the robe. Pure luck that it happened to be morning, and
nobody much around. I've been looking him up. It's awkward--awkward as
hell. I saw his wife. You want to keep her out of the publicity, I take
it.”
The man was not unkind. He was studying me with shrewd eyes,--I knew
that,--but he was so physically big and solid, and so plainly a man
of affairs in that rough, practical world that Crocker himself had
inhabited, that I found myself leaning on him. He could help. And, as I
returned his quiet gaze, I knew that I could trust him. I realized, all
at once, that the code has its good side as well as its bad.
“Has there got to be publicity?” I asked.
He squinted his eyes, took a thoughtful pull at his cigar, and nodded.
“Rather,” he replied. “Everybody knows the Crocker family. And this
fellow himself has been on the front page now and then. Publicity? Good
God, man, stop and think a minute! He's dead. And death is one thing
you can't hush up so easily. I know our newspaper boys--and I know
_that_.... Look here, suppose I take hold with you. Glad to do what I
can.”