There was no charge made against Stebbins that night, and inquiries from the newspapers which were anxious to know more of the cause of the affray were met with a stubborn silence. Labar, in fact, had gone home after searching Stebbins carefully with his own hands. The rest he felt could wait till he had some reasonable time for sleep. A night’s detention would do Stebbins no harm, and might put him in a frame of mind to answer some questions that Labar had decided to defer till his own mind was fresh.
With eight hours sleep, a bath, and a little medical attention to his hurt, the inspector felt almost as spruce as he looked, when he arrived at Grape Street in the morning. He cleared up a few odds and ends and had Stebbins brought to his room. In the cold light of day that man answered imperfectly to any conception of a desperate gunman. He was a loose, tall man with a thin sallow face and weak chin. He had neither shaved nor brushed his hair, and his shifty eyes were sunk in deep circles. He eyed Labar nervously, as the detective motioned away his escort, and placed a seat where the light from the window would fall on the detained man’s face.