Suddenly from the swinging circle a single bird planed down and lit with an awkward, hopping step directly before the object. For a moment he regarded it with bleak, predatory eyes; then flew back to his fellows. A moment later the whole flock swooped down, and the shape was hidden by flapping wings and black awkward bodies that hopped about and fought inward to the centre of the group.
A negro who had been sleeping under an overturned bateau awoke and rubbed his eyes; then he sprang up and, seizing an oar, beat the birds away with savage blows.
He bent over the object for a moment, then turned and raced for the street with eyes showing white.
“Fuh Gawd’ sake, folks,” he cried, “come hyuh quick! Hyuh Crown, an’ he done dead.”
§
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.