But you will not lack a suitable guide.
BOOK II. AS SEEN BY DETECTIVE SWEETWATER
X. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
At an early hour the next morning, Sweetwater stood before the coroner’s desk, urging a plea he feared to hear refused. He wished to be present at the interview soon to be held with Mr. Brotherson, and he had no good reason to advance why such a privilege should be allotted him.
“It’s not curiosity,” said he. “There’s a question I hope to see settled. I can’t communicate it—you would laugh at me; but it’s an important one, a very important one, and I beg that you will let me sit in one of the corners and hear what he says. I won’t bother and I’ll be very still, so still that he’ll hardly notice me. Do grant me this favour, sir.”
The coroner, who had had some little experience with this man, surveyed him with a smile less forbidding than the poor fellow expected.
“You seem to lay great store by it,” said he; “if you want to sort those papers over there, you may.”
“Thank you. I don’t understand the job, but I promise you not to increase the confusion. If I do; if I rattle the leaves too loudly, it will mean, ‘Press him further on this exact point,’ but I doubt if I rattle them, sir. No such luck.”