"He must have been in there
and at work for an hour or two, stayed right in there with the man he had
killed. It's the craziest thing any man ever done."
The harness maker, lying on the floor of the car where Ed had thrown him,
stirred and sat up. Clara turned to look at him and shivered. His shirt was
torn so that the thin, old neck and shoulders could be plainly seen in the
uncertain light, and his face was covered with blood that had dried and was
now black with dust. Ed Hall went on with the tale of his triumph. "I found
him where I said to myself I would. Yes, sir, I found him where I said to
myself I would."
The car came to the first of the houses of the town, long rows of cheaply
built frame houses standing in what had once been Ezra French's cabbage
patch, where Hugh had crawled on the ground in the moonlight, working
out the mechanical problems that confronted him in the building of his
plant-setting machine. Suddenly the distraught and frightened man crouched
on the floor of the car, raised himself on his hands and lurched forward,
trying to spring over the side. Ed Hall caught him by the arm and jerked
him back. He drew back his arm to strike again but Clara's voice, cold and
intense with passion, stopped him. "If you touch him, I'll kill you," she
said. "No matter what he does, don't you dare strike him again."
Tom drove the car slowly through the streets of Bidwell to the door of
a police station.
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