When Skeeter was admitted and locked behind the bars of the jail, and saw Hitch Diamond pacing up and down the corridor in the second story, the only occupant of the prison, he found to his annoyance that he could not begin a word of conversation with his lifelong friend. When talking to others, he could speak about Hitch and his misfortune with great volubility, but face to face with Hitch, what was there to say?
The two sat down, Skeeter laid a package of cigarettes upon the seat of a chair beside them, and after that for twenty minutes there was perfect silence. Not a word had been spoken except their first brief and embarrassed greetings. Each sat, smoking furiously, and lighting a fresh cigarette upon the stub of the old one.
At last Skeeter managed to speak, and made the one request which opened the floodgates of Hitch Diamond’s talk:
“Tell me all about it, Hitchy. Don’t leave out no little thing.”
Hitch dropped his cigarette at his feet and began.
For two hours his low voice rumbled on, the narrative beginning from the moment he left Tickfall to go to New Orleans to the prize-fight and progressing with minute particularity to the moment when he sat in the jail beside Skeeter Butts.
Skeeter listened with a heart as heavy as lead. It seemed to him that Hitch had confessed everything except the actual commission of the crime of murder and robbery. The array of proof which Flournoy had was sustained and established in every particular by Hitch’s story. Vinegar had fired his hopes for a moment by betraying the secret that the white folks were unconvinced of Hitch’s guilt and were hunting for the perpetrator of the deed. But Skeeter knew when Hitch had finished his story that Hitch would pay the penalty for his crime.
Not a word did Skeeter utter until the narrative was ended. Then he arose and held out his hand.
“Good-by, Hitch,” he said, with a catch in his voice. He walked down the steps, and the jailer opened the door and let him out.
Passing across the courthouse yard he met Sheriff Flournoy.