"Didn't I say that news travels fast in a town like this? Half the folks are talking about the killing this minute."
"You'll find you made a mistake," I assured him.
"If I have, I'll beg your pardon handsome. Meanwhile, I'll do my duty."
We were at the red brick town hall by now. At O'Bryant's side I mounted the granite steps and waited while he unlocked the big double door with a key the size of a can-opener.
"We're a kind of small town," he observed, half apologetically, "but there's a cell upstairs for you. Take off your hat and overcoat—you're staying inside till further notice."
5. "They Want to Take the Law into Their Own Hands."
The cell was an upper room of the town hall, with a heavy wooden door and a single tiny window. The walls were of bare, unplastered brick, the floor of concrete and the ceiling of white-washed planks. An oil lamp burned in a bracket. The only furniture was an iron bunk hinged to the wall just below the window, a wire-bound straight chair and an unpainted table. On top of this last stood a bowl and pitcher, with playing-cards scattered around them.
Constable O'Bryant locked me in and peered through a small grating in the door. He was all nose and eyes and wide lips, like a sardonic Punchinello.
"Look here," I addressed him suddenly, for the first time controlling my frayed nerves; "I want a lawyer."