We went down the street and turned into a bit of lawn in which, set back from the street, stood a one storey building of brick trimmed with white. We went up the rock path to the door, where Anse halted everyone except us and made them remain outside. We entered, a bare room smelling of stale tobacco. There was a sheet iron stove in the center of a wooden frame filled with sand, and a faded map on the wall and the dingy plat of a township. Behind a scarred littered table a man with a fierce roach of iron gray hair peered at us over steel spectacles.
"Got him, did ye, Anse?" he said.
"Got him, Squire."
He opened a huge dusty book and drew it to him and dipped a foul pen into an inkwell filled with what looked like coal dust.
"Look here, mister," Shreve said.
"The prisoner's name," the squire said. I told him. He wrote it slowly into the book, the pen scratching with excruciating deliberation.
"Look here, mister," Shreve said. "We know this fellow. We--"
"Order in the court," Anse said.
"Shut up, bud," Spoade said. "Let him do it his way. He's going to anyhow."
"Age," the squire said. I told him. He wrote that, his mouth moving as he wrote. "Occupation." I told him. "Harvard student, hey?" he said. He looked up at me, bowing his neck a little to see over the spectacles. His eyes were clear and cold, like a goat's. "What are you up to, coming out here kidnapping children?"
"They're crazy, Squire," Shreve said. "Whoever says this boy's kidnapping--"
Julio moved violently. "Crazy?" he said. "Dont I catcha heem, eh? Dont I see weetha my own eyes--"
"You're a liar," Shreve said. "You never--"
"Order, order," Anse said, raising his voice.
"You fellers shet up," the squire said. "If they dont stay quiet, turn 'em out, Anse." They got quiet. The squire looked at Shreve, then at Spoade, then at Gerald. "You know this young man?" he said to Spoade.
"Yes, your honor," Spoade said. "He's just a country boy in school up there. He dont mean any harm. I think the marshal'll find it's a mistake. His father's a congregational minister."
"H'm," the squire said. "What was you doing, exactly?" I told him, he watching me with his cold, pale eyes. "How about it, Anse?"
"Might have been," Anse said. "Them durn furriners."
"I American," Julio said. "I gotta da pape'."
"Where's the gal?"
"He sent her home," Anse said.
"Was she scared or anything?"
"Not till Julio there jumped on the prisoner. They were just walking along the river path, towards town. Some boys swimming told us which way they went."
"It's a mistake, Squire," Spoade said. "Children and dogs are always taking up with him like that. He cant help it."
"H'm," the squire said. He looked out of the window for a while. We watched him. I could hear Julio scratching himself. The squire looked back.
"Air you satisfied the gal aint took any hurt, you, there?"
"No hurt now," Julio said sullenly.
"You quit work to hunt for her?"
"Sure I quit. I run. I run like hell. Looka here, looka there, then man tella me he seen him give her she eat. She go weetha."
"H'm," the squire said. "Well, son, I calculate you owe Julio something for taking him away from his work."
"Yes, sir," I said. "How much?"
"Dollar, I calculate."
I gave Julio a dollar.
"Well," Spoade said. "If that's all--I reckon he's discharged, your honor?"
The squire didn't look at him. "How far'd you run him, Anse?"
"Two miles, at least. It was about two hours before we caught him."
"H'm," the squire said. He mused a while. We watched him, his stiff crest, the spectacles riding low on his nose. The yellow shape of the window grew slowly across the floor, reached the wall, climbing. Dust motes whirled and slanted. "Six dollars."
"Six dollars?" Shreve said. "What's that for?"
"Six dollars," the squire said. He looked at Shreve a moment, then at me again.
"Look here," Shreve said.
"Shut up," Spoade said. "Give it to him, bud, and let's get out of here. The ladies are waiting for us. You got six dollars?"
"Yes," I said. I gave him six dollars.
"Case dismissed," he said.
"You get a receipt," Shreve said. "You get a signed receipt for that money."
The squire looked at Shreve mildly. "Case dismissed," he said without raising his voice.
"I'll be damned--" Shreve said.
"Come on here," Spoade said, taking his arm. "Good afternoon, Judge. Much obliged." As we passed out the door Julio's voice rose again, violent, then ceased. Spoade was looking at me, his brown eyes quizzical, a little cold. "Well, bud, I reckon you'll do your girl chasing in Boston after this."
"You damned fool," Shreve said. "What the hell do you mean anyway, straggling off here, fooling with these damn wops?"
"Come on," Spoade said. "They must be getting impatient."
Mrs Bland was talking to them. They were Miss Holmes and Miss Daingerfield and they quit listening to her and looked at me again with that delicate and curious horror, their veils turned back upon their little white noses and their eyes fleeing and mysterious beneath the veils.
"Quentin Compson," Mrs Bland said. "What would your mother say. A young man naturally gets into scrapes, but to be arrested on foot by a country policeman. What did they think he'd done, Gerald?"
"Nothing," Gerald said.
"Nonsense. What was it, you, Spoade?"
"He was trying to kidnap that little dirty girl, but they caught him in time," Spoade said.
"Nonsense," Mrs Bland said, but her voice sort of died away and she stared at me for a moment, and the girls drew their breaths in with a soft concerted sound. "Fiddlesticks," Mrs Bland said briskly. "If that isn't just like these ignorant lowclass Yankees. Get in, Quentin."
Shreve and I sat on two small collapsible seats. Gerald cranked the car and got in and we started.
"Now, Quentin, you tell me what all this foolishness is about," Mrs Bland said. I told them, Shreve hunched and furious on his little seat and Spoade sitting again on the back of his neck beside Miss Daingerfield.
"And the joke is, all the time Quentin had us all fooled," Spoade said. "All the time we thought he was the model youth that anybody could trust a daughter with, until the police showed him up at his nefarious work."
"Hush up, Spoade," Mrs Bland said. We drove down the street and crossed the bridge and passed the house where the pink garment hung in the window. "That's what you get for not reading my note. Why didn't you come and get it? Mr MacKenzie says he told you it was there."
"Yessum. I intended to, but I never went back to the room."
"You'd have let us sit there waiting I dont know how long, if it hadn't been for Mr MacKenzie. When he said you hadn't come back, that left an extra place, so we asked him to come. We're very glad to have you anyway, Mr MacKenzie." Shreve said nothing. His arms were folded and he glared straight ahead past Gerald's cap. It was a cap for motoring in England. Mrs Bland said so. We passed that house, and three others, and another yard where the little girl stood by the gate. She didn't have the bread now, and her face looked like it had been streaked with coaldust. I waved my hand, but she made no reply, only her head turned slowly as the car passed, following us with her unwinking gaze. Then we ran beside the wall, our shadows running along the wall, and after a while we passed a piece of torn newspaper lying beside the road and I began to laugh again. I could feel it in my throat and I looked off into the trees where the afternoon slanted, thinking of afternoon and of the bird and the boys in swimming. But still I couldn't stop it and then I knew that if I tried too hard to stop it I'd be crying and I thought about how I'd thought about I could not be a virgin, with so many of them walking along in the shadows and whispering with their soft girlvoices lingering in the shadowy places and the words coming out and perfume and eyes you could feel not see, but if it was that simple to do it wouldn't be anything and if it wasn't anything, what was I and then Mrs Bland said, "Quentin? Is he sick, Mr MacKenzie?" and then Shreve's fat hand touched my knee and Spoade began talking and I quit trying to stop it.