"Excuse me, kid. I--I always get riled when I think of him getting the
worst of anything. I'm sure we'll both be terrible grateful to
Chris--to Mrs. Jenison. She's an angel,--as of course you know, kid.
Sending me books, eh? Tell her I like Dickens, will you? And, say,
there's _one_ book she needn't go to the trouble of sendin' me."
"You mean the--the Bible?"
"Yes."
"Dick, you don't really mean that. You--"
"I've already got one," said the prisoner simply. His eyes fell with
curious inconsistency. They saw his chin and lower lip quiver ever so
slightly. He scraped the floor with his foot a time or two, and his
fingers tightened on the bars. "It's a little one my mother gave me
when I was a kid. I've always kept it. Funny little old Bible, with
print so small you can't hardly read it, 'specially that place where
all them guys with the jay names were being begot. They seem to run
together a good deal--I mean the names. I guess they must have run
together considerable themselves, if accounts are true. Yes, my ma gave
it to me for being a good boy once."
His eyes were wet when he looked up at David's face again. His smile
seemed more twisted than usual.
"Where is it now, Dick?" asked Jenison, a lump coming into his throat.
Joey was plainly, almost offensively amazed.
"Why,--why, Ernie's got it. He didn't have anything else to read, so he
took it a couple of weeks ago. I--I guess I'll ask him for it some day
soon. Oh, yes, there _is_ something I want to speak to you about, Joey.
A couple o' years ago I took out a life insurance policy in favor of
Ernie, and also an accident policy. I couldn't keep up the accident
one, but the other's paid up to next January. Maybe I won't have to pay
on it again. It's for five thousand. I want you to see that he gets the
money if--if I--well, you know. The policy is in the safe over at old
Isaac's pawnshop,--you know the place. I'll write and ask him to come
down and see me, and I'll tell him to give you the paper, if you don't
mind, Joey."
"Sure, Dick. I'll take charge of it. You're very good to Ernie, and
thoughtful, lad."
"Well, I guess I ought to be," remarked Dick dryly.
David from the first had been more or less certain that Dick was not
the one who shot Grand. He could not drive the ugly conviction from his
mind. It occurred to him at this juncture to put his theory to the
test, hoping to catch Dick off his guard.
"The police are now saying that you did not do the shooting, Dick." He
watched the other's face narrowly.
There was not so much as a flicker of alarm.
"They don't think the old boy committed suicide, do they?" asked Dick,
with a chuckle of scorn for the obtuseness of the police.
"No. They're working on some new evidence, that's all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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