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In the early afternoon of the day of the funeral, Porgy sat in his doorway communing with Peter. The old man was silent for awhile, his grizzled head bowed, and an expression of brooding tenderness upon his lined face.
“Robbins war a good man,” he reflected at length, “an’ dat nigger, Crown, war a killer, an’ fuhebber gettin’ intuh trouble. Yet, dere lie Robbins, wid he wife an’ fadderless chillen; an’ Crown done gone he ways tuh do de same t’ing ober again somewheres else.”
“Gone fuh true. I reckon he done lose now on Kittiwar Islan’, in dem palmettuh t’icket; an’ de rope ain’t nebber make fuh ketch um an’ hang um.” Porgy stopped suddenly, and motioned with his head toward someone who had just entered the court. The new arrival was a white man of stocky build, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and a goatee. He was swinging a heavy cane, and he crossed the court directly and paused before the two. For a moment he stood looking down at them with brows drawn fiercely together. Then he drew back his coat, exhibiting a police badge, and a heavy revolver in a breast holster.
“You killed Robbins,” he shot out suddenly at Peter. “And I’m going to hang you for it. Come along now!” and he reached out and laid a firm hand upon the old man’s shoulder.
Peter shook violently, and his eyes rolled in his head. He made an ineffectual effort to speak, tried again, and finally said, “’Fore Gawd, Boss, I ain’t nebber done it.”
Like a flash, the pistol was out of its holster, and pointing between his eyes. “Who did it, then?” snapped the man.
“Crown, Boss. I done see him do um,” Peter cried in utter panic.
The man laughed shortly. “I thought so,” he said. Then he turned to Porgy.
“You saw it too, eh?”
There was panic in Porgy’s face, and in his lap his hands had clinched upon each other. But his eyes were fixed upon the paving. He drew a deep breath, and waited.
A flare of anger swept the face above him. “Come. Out with it. I don’t want to have to put the law on you.”
Porgy’s only answer was a slight tremor that shook the hands in his lap. The detective’s face darkened, and sweat showed under his hat-brim. Suddenly his temper bolted.
“Look at me, you damned nigger!” he shouted.
Slowly the sitting figure before him relaxed, almost it seemed, muscle by muscle. At last the hands fell apart, and lay flexed and idle. Finally Porgy raised eyes that had become hard and impenetrable as onyx. They met the angry glare that beat down upon them without flinching. After a long moment, he spoke slowly, and with great quietness.
“I ain’t know nuttin’ ’bout um. I been inside, asleep on my bed, wid de do’ closed.”
“You’re a damn liar,” the man snapped.
He shrilled a whistle, and two policemen entered.
“He saw the killing,” the detective said, indicating Peter. “Take him along, and lock him up as a material witness.”
“How about the cripple?” asked one of the officers.
“He could not have helped seeing it,” the man said sourly. “That’s his room right there. But I can’t make him come through. But it don’t matter. One’s enough to hang Crown, if we ever get him. Come, get the old man in the wagon.”
The policeman lifted the shaking old negro to his feet. “Come along, Uncle. It ain’t going to be as bad for you as Crown, anyway,” encouraged one of them. Then the little party passed out of the entrance, leaving Porgy alone.
From the street sounded the shrill gong of the patrol wagon, followed by the beat of swiftly receding hoofs upon the cobbles.