"If you could. I'd like a clear, logical report before to-morrow. I'm being pestered a good deal by some people," Hilary smiled the smile that meant "women," "and I want to know more and take a stand."
An hour later, Roger stood beside Angelo Sabatini in his prison cell.
The man sat on the narrow cot, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his grimed and broken hands. His broad, bent shoulders, the shoulders of a toiler from childhood, were hunched to the flat-backed head, covered with coarse, curly black hair. On the floor at his feet lay a little pile of torn paper, the citizenship papers of Angelo Sabatini. Roger stood silent, leaning against the steel door of the cell. Outside, a guard stopped every now and then in the monotony of his walking to stare.
"You deliberately waited until you knew that Joe Morelli was in his office, then you set fire to the building and when you saw that Morelli had a chance to get away you tried to knife him?" Roger spoke very slowly and distinctly, so that Angelo Sabatini caught the drift.
He nodded. "Morelli—he no buy and sell de feesh—he buy and sell de mens—me and Paolo and Giacomo—everybody—and de babies of me and Paolo and Giacomo. Many days—we have no meat—and no shoes—but Morelli have much meat and de childrens fine shoes. Ecco." With a gesture that laid before Roger the primitive justice of survival, Sabatini paused. "We work all night on the sea. We bring much feesh. Morelli he trow it all—all—back into the sea. Much feesh—too cheap. Ecco."
Roger paced the short cell length and came back again to the steel bars.
"Did you tell the judge all the circumstances, the meat and shoes of Morelli, your own children, the tons of wasted fish?"
The small black eyes blinked. "Che disc'? No caspic' good Inglis. Too queer talk."
Roger repeated slowly. The heavy face lit with a scorn before which Roger was ashamed. "Yes. I tell. And I show dat." A grimed and hairy finger pointed to the pile of torn papers. "I tell dat I come America to get good chance and I no get. All mens is de same and Morelli do me bad. Many times me and Paolo and Beppo go to Morelli and tell: 'Throw no feesh into de sea. We must live.' Morelli laugh. Den me and Paolo and Giacomo talk many nights in de cellar of Beppo. We make—I don know in Inglis—de leetle papers in a hat. It tells me. Ecco. I go."
"And you told the judge?"