“Joe,” said Dr. Stone, “I shouldn’t have let you come along on this. You’ve never seen a dead man before.”
Chill shook the boy’s teeth. “A dead man can’t hurt anybody.”
“True; but this may be nasty business. Captain Tucker says old Anthony was murdered.”
The boy sucked in his breath and was momentarily sorry the telephone that had called his uncle had awakened him. Crows, cawing faintly, loomed against the early light of the cold sky. The grass was wet, and saturated the bottoms of his trousers.
“They—they don’t know who did it?”
“That’s the trouble, Joe. So many persons might have wanted to.” Since turning into Meadow Road the doctor had been counting paces, and now his voice changed abruptly. “We should be near there.”
“It’s right ahead, Uncle David.”
Dr. Stone said, “Lady, left,” and the great, tawny dog turned obediently. They went up a weed-bordered path to a house that had once been noble, but which now lay in peeled-paint neglect.
Captain Tucker let them in. Four men sat in a room off the hall, and they watched the doorway in silence as Dr. Stone and the dog appeared. Joe, crowding at his uncle’s heels, was conscious of a studied ease and a cautious wariness in all of them. He identified them as Police Captain Tucker made them known to the blind man—Ted Lawton, marked by a certain furtiveness; Ran Freeman, cool and self-contained; Fred Waring, silently grim, and Otis King, dapper and assured. Lady, restless on her leash, suddenly gave an eerie, dismal whine.
Waring flared. “Stop that confounded dog.”