The street is not different from the dawn that drenched my room. Stone is solitary, damp: houses are stifled by the night that they hold, that is passing. I buy a _Times_ and a _World_ at the corner stand where the dark hunched man with thick glasses and a bristling beard gazes at me with exaggerated eyes. I do not look at the paper, waiting for the car. As I sit in the car, I read quietly what I expected to find. Here is the substance: It is a simple case. Mr. LaMotte’s serving man, Frank Nelson, is implicated and is already in the Tombs. His master gave him the evening off, and clearly the crime could not have been committed without knowledge of this and of the fact that Mr. LaMotte was alone. At about 8.30, a man came to the apartments where Mr. LaMotte has his chambers and told the colored doorboy, Elijah Case, that he had an important note to be delivered in person. Elijah phoned up and Mr. LaMotte responded. Elijah carried the man to the third floor, pointed out the door, heard the messenger knock, saw him enter ... and went down. Little time passed before the elevator signal rang again. Elijah went up, opened the elevator door and the messenger stepped in.... Elijah recalls him clearly. “How do you happen to be so certain?” the police asked him. “I dunno. But I is.” He says the man was dressed entirely in black, and that his head was white. “Do you mean white like a _white man_?” “Nossah ... I means white lak ... lak chalk.” “Even his hair?” “I don’ remember no hair. A white head. Da’s all.” “Even his eyes?” Elijah shuddered. “Yessah. Dey was white, too.”... The police infer that the colored boy, who is simple-minded and imaginative, made up his monster after he had learned the event. In any case, Elijah went back to his little hall office: and shortly after a call came in, by phone, for Mr. LaMotte. No: Mr. LaMotte had no private phone. Instructions were, not to say in any instance whether Mr. LaMotte was at home, to get the name and announce it first. It was Mrs. LaMotte, the deceased’s mother. She often called, and although frequently Mr. LaMotte would tell the boy: “Say I am not at home” ... that doubtless was why he used the house phone ... never in the three years Elijah had worked at the apartment had Mr. LaMotte failed to answer his signal, and never had he refused to speak to his mother. Elijah phoned up, now, and received no answer. This satisfied the mother who rang off. But it began to trouble Elijah. Mr. LaMotte never walked down, and also he never left without giving word to the boy. During all that time, Elijah had not been required to leave his little office in full view of the hall. Finally, Elijah was scared. He phoned again. No answer. He went up, and rang, and pounded on the door. He went down into the Square and found an officer. They broke open the door, for the pass-key was with the janitor who was away....