“You’ve got to pull yourself together,” he said with soothing gruffness.
Wilson’s eyes fell upon Tom; he started up on his tiptoes and then would have collapsed to his knees had not Tom held him upright.
“Listen,” said Tom, shaking him a little. “I just got here a minute ago, from New York. I was bringing you that coupé we’ve been talking about. That yellow car I was driving this afternoon wasn’t mine—do you hear? I haven’t seen it all afternoon.”
Only the negro and I were near enough to hear what he said, but the policeman caught something in the tone and looked over with truculent eyes.
“What’s all that?” he demanded.
“I’m a friend of his.” Tom turned his head but kept his hands firm on Wilson’s body. “He says he knows the car that did it … It was a yellow car.”
Some dim impulse moved the policeman to look suspiciously at Tom.
“And what colour’s your car?”
“It’s a blue car, a coupé.”
“We’ve come straight from New York,” I said.
Someone who had been driving a little behind us confirmed this, and the policeman turned away.
“Now, if you’ll let me have that name again correct—”
Picking up Wilson like a doll, Tom carried him into the office, set him down in a chair, and came back.