I saw Adderly’s white mustache near the front of the room, and I put him on the stand next. He couldn’t contribute anything. He had heard the shot, had jumped out of bed, put on pants and shoes, and had arrived in time to see Chick kneeling beside the dead man. He hadn’t seen anything Bardell hadn’t mentioned.
Dr. Haley had not arrived by the time I was through with Adderly, and I wasn’t ready to open on Nisbet yet. Nobody else there seemed to know anything.
“Be back in a minute,” I said, and went through the cowboys at the door to the street.
The Jew was giving his joint a much-needed cleaning.
“Good work,” I praised him; “it needed it.”
He climbed down from the counter on which he had been standing to reach the ceiling. The walls and floor were already comparatively clean.
“I not think it was so dirty,” he grinned, showing his empty gums, “but when the sheriff come in to eat and make faces at my place, what am I going to do but clean him up?”
“Know anything about the killing last night?”
“Sure, I know. I am in my bed, and I hear that shot. I jump out of my bed, grab that shotgun, and run to the door. There is that Slim Vogel in the street, and that Chick Orr on his knees alongside him. I stick my head out. There is Mr. Bardell and that Nisbet standing in their door.
“ Mr. Bardell say, ‘How is he, Chick?’
“That Chick Orr, he say, ‘He’s dead enough.’