But the detective was intent upon his task, and presently called him back.
“This is the cripple’s room,” he said. “He ain’t much of a witness. I tried to break him in the Robbins case; but he wouldn’t talk. I want to have a look at the woman, though.”
He kicked the door open suddenly. Porgy and Bess were seated by the stove, eating breakfast from tin pans. On the bed in the corner the baby lay.
Porgy paused, with his spoon halfway to his mouth, and looked up. Bess kept her eyes on the pan, and continued to eat.
The Coroner stopped in the doorway, and made a businesslike show of writing in a notebook.
“What’s your name?” he asked Porgy.
The cripple studied him for a long moment, taking in the ample proportions of the figure and the heavy, but not unsympathetic, face. Then he smiled one of his fleeting, ingenuous smiles.
“Jus’ Porgy,” he said. “Yuh knows me, Boss. Yuh is done gib me plenty ob penny on King Charles Street.”
“Of course, you’re the goat-man. I didn’t know you without your wagon,” he said amiably. Then, becoming businesslike, he asked:
“This nigger, Crown. You knew him by sight. Didn’t you?”