"Just now. I came straight from there."
He came straight from there? Did he supply an alibi so neatly because of that shadowy head on the door panel? For a long minute we each took measure of the other, but Eddie's nerves were less reliable than mine; he spoke first.
"Well?" he grunted, scarcely above his breath. And when I continued to stare silently at him, he writhed a shoulder with, "What's doing? What d'yuh want of me?"
Still silently, I pulled out with my thumb through the armhole of my vest the police badge pinned to the suspender. His ill-colored face went a shade nearer the yellow white of tallow.
"What for?" he asked huskily. "You haven't got nothin' on me. It was suicide—cor'ner's jury says so. Lord! It has to be, him layin' there, all hunched up on the floor, his gun so tight in his mitt that they had to pry the fingers off it!"
"So you found the body?"
He nodded and gulped.
"I told all I knowed at the inquest," he said doggedly.
"Tell it again," I commanded.
Standing there, working his hands together as though he held some small, accustomed tool that he was turning, shifting from foot to foot, with long breaks in his speech, the chauffeur finally put me into possession of what he knew—or what he wished me to know. He had been out all night. That was usual with him Saturdays. Where? Over around the canneries. Had friends that lived there. He got into this place about dawn, and went straight to bed.