They watched me through veils, with a kind of delicate horror. "Who's under arrest?" Shreve said. "What's this, mister?"
"Gerald," Mrs Bland said. "Send these people away.
You get in this car, Quentin."
Gerald got out.
Spoade hadn't moved.
"What's he done, Cap?" he said. "Robbed a hen house?"
"I warn you," Anse said. "Do you know the prisoner?"
"Know him," Shreve said. "Look here--"
"Then you can come along to the squire's.
You'reobstructing justice.
Come along." He shook my arm.
"Well, good afternoon," I said. "I'm glad to have seen you all.
Sorry I couldn't be with you."
"You, Gerald," Mrs Bland said.
"Look here, constable," Gerald said.
"I warn you you're interfering with an officer of the law," Anse said. "If you've anything to say, you can come to the squire's and make cognizance of the prisoner." We went on.
Quite a procession now, Anse and I leading.
I could hear them telling them what it was, and Spoade asking questions, and then Julio said something violently in Italian and I looked back and saw the little girl standing at the curb, looking at me with her friendly, inscrutable regard.
"Git on home," Julio shouted at her. "I beat hell outa you."
We went down the street and turned into a bit of lawn in which, set back from the street, stood a one storey building of brick trimmed with white.
We went up the rock path to the door, where Anse halted everyone except us and made them remain outside.
We entered, a bare room smelling of stale tobacco.
There was a sheet iron stove in the center of a wooden frame filled with sand, and a faded map on the wall and the dingy plat of a township.
Behind a scarred littered table a man with a fierce roach of iron gray hair peered at us over steel spectacles.
"Got him, did ye, Anse?" he said.
"Got him, Squire."
He opened a huge dusty book and drew it to him and dipped a foul pen into an inkwell filled with what looked like coal dust.
"Look here, mister," Shreve said.
"The prisoner's name," the squire said.
I told him.
He wrote it slowly into the book, the pen scratching with excruciating deliberation.
"Look here, mister," Shreve said. "We know this fellow.
We--"
"Order in the court," Anse said.
"Shut up, bud," Spoade said. "Let him do it his way.
He's going to anyhow."
"Age," the squire said.
I told him.
He wrote that, his mouth moving as he wrote. "Occupation." I told him. "Harvard student, hey?" he said.
He looked up at me, bowing his neck a little to see over the spectacles.
His eyes were clear and cold, like a goat's. "What are you up to, coming out here kidnapping children?"
"They're crazy, Squire," Shreve said. "Whoever says this boy's kidnapping--"
Julio moved violently.
"Crazy?" he said. "Dont I catcha heem, eh?
Dont I see weetha my own eyes--"
"You're a liar," Shreve said. "You never--"
"Order, order," Anse said, raising his voice.
"You fellers shet up," the squire said. "If they dont stay quiet, turn 'em out, Anse." They got quiet.
The squire looked at Shreve, then at Spoade, then at Gerald. "You know this young man?" he said to Spoade.
"Yes, your honor," Spoade said. "He's just a country boy in school up there.