"Alaicham sholom!" the Rabbi answered, and then he resorted to the Yiddish jargon: "Do you look for me?"
"I look for the Rav Elkan Levin," Morris said in a tongue to which he had long been unaccustomed. "I am the servant of the philanthropist Steuermann."
"Steuermann?" the Rav Levin repeated. "I do not know him."
"In America," Morris said, "his name is honored over the governor's. He sends me to you to speak for the unfortunate Tzwee Kovalenko."
"Tzwee Kovalenko," the old man cried, and his beard stood out as his invisible lips tightened, while his nose became sharp and hawk-like. "A mishna meshuna to him, the same as he sent to my son."
"No," Morris declared; "he did not send it to your son. It was another that did it."
The old man sank trembling into a nearby chair and clutched the edge of the table.
"You tell this to me who saw with my own eyes his body!" he said in shaking tones. "Yes, Baron; I saw my own child like a slaughtered beast, all blood—not a face, but a piece of flesh. I saw him, and you tell me this!"
"None the less," Morris went on, "if your son did die it was a kapora not meant for him. It was intended for the chief of police."
The Rav shook his head.