I thought this was jest one more secret fer me an’the desert together. Nobody knows about you, I says. Nobody ain’t goin’to question you. But I was wrong, I see, an’I might as well speak up. It’s nothin’to me, one way or t’other, though I would like to keep out o’courtrooms—”
“Well, maybe I can help you,” Eden suggested. “Go on. You say you saw murder—”
“Jest hold yer horses, boy,” Mr. Cherry advised. "As I was sayin’, last Wednesday night after dark I drifts in at Madden’s as usual. But the minute I comes into the yard, I see there’s something doin’there. The boss has come. Lights in most o’the windows, an’a big car in the barn. Longside Louie’s old flivver. Howsomever, I’m tired, an’I figures I’ll jest wait round fer Louie, keepin’out o’sight o’the big fellow. A little supper an’a bed, maybe, kin be negotiated without gettin’too conspicuous.
“So I puts my pack down in the barn, an’steps over to the cookhouse. Louie ain’t there. Jest as I’m comin’out o’the place, I hears a cry from the house—a man’s voice, loud an’clear.’Help.’he says.’Put down that gun. I know your game. Help. Help.’Jest as you said. Well, I ain’t lookin’fer no trouble, an’I stands there a minute, uncertain. An’then the cry comes again, almost the same words—but not the man this time. It’s Tony, the Chinese parrot, on his perch in the patio, an’from him the words is shrill an’piercin’—more terrible, somehow. An’then I hears a sharp report—the gun is workin’. The racket seems to come from a lighted room in one ell—a window is open. I creeps closer, an’there goes the gun ag’in. There’s a sort of groan. It’s hit, sure enough. I goes up to the window an’looks in.”
