“No other living body. And Joe Newbolt was standing beside the body of Isom Chase, near the head, you say?” 137
“Yes, near Isom’s head.”
“With his hat in his hand, as if he had just entered the room, or was about to leave it?”
Sol nodded.
“Do you know anything about a man who had been boarding here the past week or two?”
The coroner seemed to ask this as an afterthought.
“Morgan,” said Sol, crossing his legs the other way for relief. “Yes, I knowed him.”
“Did you see him here last night?”
“No, he wasn’t here. The old lady said he stopped in at our house yesterday morning to sell me a ready-reckoner.”
Sol chuckled, perhaps over what he considered a narrow escape.