"The old fella was hanging over all limp-like with his hands hanging to the floor, and the young guy was trying to pull him up. Say, that young guy was scared, he was. He was so scared he was green. He says to me as well as he could for his teeth chattering: 'My friend is took sick,' says he, 'real sick.'
"Well, I didn't need anybody to tell me that. It seemed natural for the fella to be scared. I helped him boost the old dago up on the seat comfortable. 'Hold him up a minute,' says the young guy, 'and I'll run in here and ast where's the nearest doctor guy.'
"Innocent as a baby, I was. Oh, yes, soft as a rotten orange; soft in the head. I stood there holding the old fella up and the little slender guy he scampered like a mouse into the bar of the Brevard House. I soon saw the old guy was all in. I waited one minute, two minutes, I dunno, and then it come to me like a clap that I'd been sold. I pulled the old guy's legs out a little so's he wouldn't fall over on his face, but then darned if he didn't slide out of the seat on his back and crumple up on the floor. But I slammed the door on him and run into the bar. I ast the bar-keep for the little slender guy. 'Just walked through,' he says, 'went out by the side door.' Say, I was sick!
"Well, that's all there is to it. It give me such a nasty turn I lost me nerve. I couldn't just bring myself to go back to the flivver with that pore old soft floppy corp in the back. Him walking around on two legs as good as myself, not a half hour before! I stood there lappin' up whiskeys and then you come in. We talked—say, maybe I wasn't glad to have somebody to talk to! and one thing led to another, and I had an impulse to sell the whole outfit to you and like a fool I did. I had ought to have carried the corp direct to the station; they didn't have nothing on me. But I always was an impulsive guy. It has been my ruin!"
Greg saw no reason to doubt any part of this story; the details were convincing; moreover they fitted with what he already knew. Evidently the actual murderer, de Socotra's agent, had been thrown into a panic by the cabman's unexpected discovery of the crime. He had fled, and thus de Socotra's plans had been momentarily upset.
"What killed the old man?" asked Greg.
"Search me," said Hickey. "There was no mark on him that I could see."
"Would you recognize the young man with the little black mustache if you saw him again?"
"Would I! Night or day; from in front or behind."
"Our job must be to find him," said Greg. "It'll be worth something handsome to you if you can run him down."