“Talks tough, Doctor, and sticks out his chin as though asking you what you were going to do about it. I’ve sent out his fingerprints. Wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out he was a bit of a gangster.”
“You have him safely in jail,” Dr. Stone pointed out.
“Safe enough for the present,” Captain Tucker admitted, “but I can’t hold him forever on mere suspicion.”
“Then you’re not charging him with murder?”
“How can I? You can’t prove a murder without producing a body. Where’s the corpse? Where’s Boothy Wilkes, alive or dead? He hasn’t been around——. You pass his place every day, Joe. When did you see him last?”
“Wednesday,” Joe Morrow, Dr. Stone’s nephew, answered. “He asked me had I seen Jud Cory hanging around.”
“Nobody’s seen him since Wednesday. That was six days ago. That morning he and Jud had a talk outside the post office—something about money—and suddenly Jud yelled out that he’d kill him. Dozen people heard it. And since late Wednesday Boothy hasn’t been seen.”
“Why did Jud want to kill him?” the blind doctor asked.
“How do I know?”
“Might be worth looking into,” the calm voice drawled.