7.
That the Police Department has not at present a single detective engaged in trying to find Taylor Henry’s murderer.
The Observer believes that you should know these things and that the voters and taxpayers should know them. The Observer has no ax to grind, no motive except the desire to see justice done. The Observer will welcome an opportunity to hand these affidavits, as well as all other information it has, to you or to any qualified city or state official and, if such a course can be shown an aid to justice, to refrain from publishing any or all of the details of these affidavits.
But the Observer will not permit the information incorporated in these affidavits to be ignored. If the officials elected and appointed to enforce law and order in this city and state do not consider these affidavits of sufficient importance to be acted upon, the Observer will carry the matter to that higher tribunal, the People of this City, by publishing them in full.
H. K. MATHEWS, Publisher
Ned Beaumont grunted derisively and blew cigar-smoke down at this declaration, but his eyes remained somber.
8
Early that afternoon Paul Madvig’s mother came to see Ned Beaumont. He put his arms around her and kissed her on both cheeks until she pushed him away with a mock-severe “Do stop it. You’re worse than the Airedale Paul used to have.”
“I’m part Airedale,” he said, “on my father’s side,” and went behind her to help her out of her sealskin coat.
Smoothing her black dress, she went to the bed and sat on it.
He hung the coat on the back of a chair and stood–legs apart, hands in bathrobe-pockets–before her.
She studied him critically. “You don’t look so bad,” she said presently, “nor yet so good. How do you feel?”
“Swell. I’m only hanging around here on account of the nurses.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me much, neither,” she told him. “But don’t stand there ogling me like a Cheshire cat. You make me nervous. Sit down.” She patted the bed beside her.
He sat down beside her.
She said: “Paul seems to think you did something very grand and noble by doing whatever it was you did, but you can’t tell me that if you had behaved yourself you would ever have got into whatever scrape you got into at all.”
“Aw, Mom,” he began.
She cut him off. The gaze of her blue eyes that were young as her son’s bored into Ned Beaumont’s brown ones. “Look here, Ned, Paul didn’t kill that whipper-snapper, did he?”
Surprise opened Ned Beaumont’s eyes and mouth. “No.”
“I didn’t think so,” the old woman said. “He’s always been a good boy, but I’ve heard that there’s some nasty hints going around and the Lord only knows what goes on in this politics. I’m sure I haven’t any idea.”
Amazement tinged with humor was in the eyes with which Ned Beaumont looked at her bony face.
She said: “Well, goggle at me, but I haven’t got any way of knowing what you men are up to, or what you do without thinking anything of it. It was a long while before ever you were born that I gave up trying to find out.”
He patted her shoulder. “You’re a humdinger, Mom,” he said admiringly.
She drew away from his hand and fixed him with severe penetrant eyes again. “Would you tell me if he had killed him?” she demanded.
He shook his head no.
“Then how do I know he didn’t?”
He laughed. “Because,” he explained, “if he had I’d still say, ‘No,’ but then, if you asked me if I’d tell you the truth if he had, I’d say, ‘Yes.'” Merriment went out of his eyes and voice. “He didn’t do it, Mom.” He smiled at her. He smiled with his lips only and they were thin against his teeth. “It would be nice if somebody in town besides me thought he didn’t do it and it would be especially nice if that other one was his mother.”
9
An hour after Mrs. Madvig’s departure Ned Beaumont received a package containing four books and Janet Henry’s card. He was writing her a note of thanks when Jack arrived.