“There’ll be a lot of use in telling us, for your own sake, what you had to do with the crush-out last month.”
“Nothing. I haven’t been outside these gates since I came in June.”
“Then you didn’t know anything about it till Radley showed up here a couple of weeks ago?”
“I don’t know anything about it now, except what I read in the papers.” Porter faced him squarely. “What do you mean about Radley showing up?”
“You didn’t hide him in that empty house next door and smuggle food and drinks, and a razor and clothes in to him, did you?” McCarty paused for a moment again, but Porter maintained a dogged silence and he went on: “Does Benjamin Parsons know of it? ’Twill be news to him to hear that after him taking you in and all, you’ve been making him accessory after a crush-out—!”
“He’s accessory to nothing!” Porter interrupted. “I know the law, for I have bitter reason to! He’s a fine old man and believes in giving everybody a fair chance, especially if they’ve been framed, but he’d do nothing against the law even if he thinks it’s in the wrong. You’ve no proof that Radley was here or that any one helped him to hide but I’m glad he made his getaway, glad! I hope to God he’s never caught to go back to that hell!”
“Even though you go, now?” McCarty demanded. “You’ve one chance to keep clear of it, Porter, and you’ll not be giving Radley away, either. We’re wise already that ’twas you helped him to hide and then make his getaway, but ’tis not Radley we’re after now except as the alarm has gone out to the whole Force. We’re on another lay entirely but we just want to find out when he beat it away from the Mall and how he got out. I never gave my word yet that I broke it, and I’m giving it now that ’twill not be from me nor Riordan either a hint will get out about your part in all this.”
“You mean you’re not here to frame me nor kid me into snitching on Radley?” A faint tremor of hope ran through his tones as he gazed searchingly into the honest, square-jawed face before him. “You’ve got a name for fair play, Mac, and you’re on to enough already to put me away again if you want to, so what I tell you can’t matter.—It won’t hurt George Radley either, as it happens.”
Dennis started violently and McCarty asked:
“Why can’t it? You don’t mean he’s croaked?”