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A group of three white men stood over the body. One was the plain-clothes man with the goatee and stick who had investigated the Robbins’ murder. Behind him stood a uniformed policeman. The third, a stout, leisurely individual, was stooping over the body, in the act of making an examination.
“What do you make of it, Coroner?” asked the plain-clothes man.
“Knife between fifth and sixth ribs; must have gone straight through the heart.”
“Well, he had it comin’ to him,” the detective observed. “They tell me he is the nigger, Crown, who killed Robbins last April. That gives us the widow to work on fer a starter, by the way; and Hennessy tells me that he used to run with that dope case we had up last August. She’s livin’ in the Row, too. Let’s go over and have a look.”
The Coroner cast an apprehensive glance at the forbidding structure across the way.
“Can’t be so sure,” he cautioned. “Corpse might have been washed up. Tide’s on the flood.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to have a look at those two women, anyway,” the plain-clothes man announced. “That place is alive with crooks. I’d like to get something on it that would justify closing it up as a public nuisance, and throwing the whole lot of ’em out in the street. One murder and a happy-dust riot already this summer; and here we are again.”
Then turning to the policeman, he gave his orders.
“Get the wagon and take the body in. Then you had better come right back. We might have some arrests. The Coroner and I’ll investigate while you’re gone.”
He turned away toward the Row, assuming that he would be followed.
“All right, Cap; what do you say?” he called.
The Coroner shook his ponderous figure down into his clothes, turned with evident reluctance, and joined him.
“All right,” he agreed. “But all I need is a couple of witnesses to identify the body at the inquest.”
Across the street a small negro boy detached himself from the base of one of the gateposts and darted through the entrance.
A moment later the white men strode into an absolutely empty square. Their heels made a sharp sound on the flags, and the walls threw a clear echo down upon them.
A cur that had been left napping in the sun woke with a start, looked about in a bewildered fashion, gave a frightened yelp, and bolted through a doorway.
It was all clearly not to the taste of the Coroner, and he cast an uneasy glance about him.
“Where do we go?” he asked.
“That’s the widow’s room over there, if she hasn’t moved. We’ll give it a look first,” said the detective.
The door was off the latch, and, without knocking, he kicked it open and walked in.
The room was small, but immaculately clean. Beneath a patched white quilt could be seen the form of a woman. Two other women were sitting in utter silence beside the bed.
The form under the covers moaned.
“Drop that,” the detective commanded. “And answer some questions.”
The moaning stopped.
“Where were you yesterday and last night?”
The reply came slowly, as though speaking were great pain.
“I been sick in dis bed now t’ree day an’ night.”
“We been settin’ wid she, nursin’ she, all dat time,” one of the women said.
And the other supplemented, “Dat de Gawd’ trut’.”
“You would swear to that?” asked the Coroner.
Three voices answered in chorus:
“Yes, Boss, we swear tuh dat.”
“There you are,” said the Coroner to the plain-clothes man, “an air-tight alibi.”
The detective regarded him for a moment with supreme contempt. Then he stepped forward and jerked the sheet from Serena’s face, which lay upon the pillow as immobile as a model done in brown clay.
“You know damn well that you were out yesterday!” he snapped. “I have a good mind to get the wagon and carry you in.”
Silence followed.
“What do you say to that?” he demanded.
But Serena had nothing to say, and neither had her handmaidens.
Then he turned a menacing frown upon them, as they sat motionless with lowered eyes.
“Well!”
They jumped slightly, and their eyes showed white around the iris. Suddenly they began to speak, almost in unison.
“We swear tuh Gawd, we done been hyuh wid she t’ree day.”
“Oh, Hell!” said the exasperated detective. “What’s the use? You might as well argue with a parrot-cage.”
“That woman is just as ill at this moment as you are,” he said to his unenthusiastic associate when they were again in the sunlight. “Her little burlesque show proves that, if nothing else. But there is her case all prepared. I don’t believe she killed Crown; she doesn’t look like that kind. She is either just playing safe, or she has something entirely different on her chest. But there’s her story; and you’ll never break in without witnesses of your own; and you’ll never get ’em.”
The Coroner was not a highly sensitized individual; but as he moved across the empty court, he found it difficult to control his nerves under the scrutiny which he felt leveled upon him from behind a hundred shuttered windows. Twice he caught himself looking covertly over his shoulders; and, as he went, he bore hopefully away toward the entrance.
But the detective was intent upon his task, and presently called him back.
“This is the cripple’s room,” he said. “He ain’t much of a witness. I tried to break him in the Robbins case; but he wouldn’t talk. I want to have a look at the woman, though.”
He kicked the door open suddenly. Porgy and Bess were seated by the stove, eating breakfast from tin pans. On the bed in the corner the baby lay.
Porgy paused, with his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked up. Bess kept her eyes on the pan, and continued to eat.
The Coroner stopped in the doorway, and made a businesslike show of writing in a notebook.
“What’s your name?” he asked Porgy.
The cripple studied him for a long moment, taking in the ample proportions of the figure and the heavy, but not unsympathetic, face. Then he smiled one of his fleeting, ingenuous smiles.
“Jus’ Porgy,” he said. “Yuh knows me, Boss. Yuh is done gib me plenty ob penny on King Charles Street.”
“Of course, you’re the goat-man. I didn’t know you without your wagon,” he said amiably. Then, becoming businesslike, he asked:
“This nigger, Crown. You knew him by sight. Didn’t you?”
Porgy debated with himself for a moment, looked again into the Coroner’s face, was reassured by what he saw there, and replied:
“Yes, Boss: I ’member um w’en he usen tuh come hyuh, long ago.”
“You could identify him, I suppose?”
Porgy looked blank.
“You’d know him if you saw him again?”
The Coroner made a note in his book, closed it with an air of finality, and put it in his pocket.
During the brief interview, the detective had been making an examination of the room. The floor had been recently scrubbed, and was still damp in the corners. He gave the clean, pine boards a close scrutiny, then paused before the window. The bottom of the lower sash had been broken, and several of the small, square panes were missing.
“So this is where you killed Crown, eh?” he announced.
The words fell into the silence and were absorbed by it, causing them to seem theatrical and unconvincing. Neither Porgy nor Bess spoke. Their faces were blank and noncommittal.
After a full moment, the woman said:
“I ain’t onduhstan’, Boss. Nobody hyuh ain’t kill Crown. My husban’ he fall t’rough dat winduh yisterday when he leg gib ’way. He er cripple.”
“Any one see him do it?” enquired the Coroner from the door.
“Oh, yes, Boss,” replied Bess, turning to him. “T’ree or four ob de mens was in de street; dey will tell yuh all ’bout um.”
“Yes, of course; more witnesses,” sneered the detective. Then turning to the Coroner, he asked with a trace of sarcasm in his tone:
“That satisfies you fully, I suppose?”
The Coroner’s nerves were becoming edgy.
“For God’s sake,” he retorted, “do you expect me to believe that a cripple could kill a two-hundred pound buck, then tote him a hundred yards? Well, I’ve got what I need now anyway. As far as I’m concerned, I’m through.”
They were passing the door of Maria’s shop when the detective caught sight of something within that held his gaze.
“You can do as you please,” he told his unwilling companion. “But I’m going to have a look in here. I have never been able to get anything on this woman; but she is a bad influence in the neighborhood. I’d trust her just as far as I could throw her.”
The Coroner heaved a sigh of resignation, and they stepped back, and entered the shop.
Upon the flooring, directly before the door, and not far from it, was a pool of blood. Standing over the pool was a table, and upon it lay the carcass of a shark. Maria sat on a bench behind the table. As the men entered she swung an immense cleaver downward. A cross-section of the shark detached itself and fell away on a pile of similar slices. A thin stream of blood dribbled from the table, augmenting the pool upon the floor.
Maria did not raise her eyes from her task. Again the cleaver swung up, and whistled downward.
From the street sounded the clatter of the returning patrol.
“I’ll wait for you in the wagon,” said the Coroner hastily, and stepped back into the sunlight.
But he was not long alone. The uninterrupted swing of the dripping cleaver was depressing, and the enthusiasm of his associate waned.
The bell clanged. Hoofs struck sparks from the cobbles, and the strong but uncertain arm of the law was withdrawn, to attend to other and more congenial business.