CHAPTER XV
BRACEWAY SEES A LIGHT
Braceway had discovered long ago that the man who attempts good work as a detective must depend almost as much on his ability to make friends as he does on his capacity for sifting evidence.
"I'm a good worker," he was in the habit of saying, "but I'm not half as good working alone as I am when I have the help of all the men and women who are witnesses in a case or connected with it in some other way. I need all the cooperation I can get."
This was one reason why Roddy, when he entered Braceway's room, felt sure immediately that he would receive only kindly treatment. He had shown signs of fear on entering the room, and in his extremely black face his singularly white eyeballs had rolled around grotesquely.
But Braceway put him at ease with a smile.
"What have you been trying to do, Roddy?" was his first good-humoured question. "Think you've got sense enough to fool all the white folks?"
"Who, boss? Me, boss?" the boy returned, disavowing with a grin any pretense to intelligence. "Naw, suh, boss. You knows I ain' got no sense. I ain' nevuh tried to fool nobody."
"Didn't you tell the chief of police you were awake all of Monday night when you were on duty in the lobby and didn't you say the only thing you did was to carry up Mr. Morley's bags?"