When they arrived, they found Sol Greening and his married son Dan sitting on the front steps. Mrs. Greening was upstairs, comforting the young widow, who was "racked like a fiddle," according to Sol.
Sol took the constable around to the window and pointed out the body of Isom stretched beside the table.
"You're a officer of the law," said Sol, "and these here primisis is now in your hands and charge, but I don't think you orto go in that room. I think you orto leave him lay, just the way he dropped, for the coroner. That's the law."
Frost was of the same opinion. He had no stomach for prying around dead men, anyhow.
"And it's my opinion that you orto put handcuffs on that feller," said Sol.
"Well, I ain't got any, and I wouldn't put 'em on him if I had," said Bill. "He told me all about how it happened when we was comin' over. Why, you don't suspiciont he done it, do you, Sol?"
"Circumstantial evidence," said Sol, fresh from jury service and full of the law, "is dead ag'in' him, Bill. If I was you I'd slap him under arrest. They had words, you know."
"But he didn't tell you what them words was about," said Sol deeply.
The constable turned to Sol, the shaft of suspicion working its way through the small door of his mind.
"I'd take him up and hand him over to the sheriff in the morning," advised Sol.
"I reckon I better do it," Frost agreed, almost knocked breathless by the importance of the thing he had overlooked.
So they laid their heads together to come to a proper method of procedure, and presently they marched around the corner of the house, shoulder to shoulder, as if prepared to intercept and overwhelm Joe if he tried to make a dash for liberty.
They had left Joe sitting on the steps with Dan, and now they hurried around as if they expected to find his place empty and Dan stretched out, mangled and bleeding. But Joe was still there, in friendly conversation with Dan, showing no intention of running away. Frost advanced and laid his hand on Joe's shoulder.
"Joe Newbolt," said he, "I put you under arrest on the suspiciont of shootin' and murderin' Isom Chase in cold blood."
It was a formula contrived between the constable and Sol. Sol had insisted on the "cold blood." That was important and necessary, he declared. Omit that in making the arrest, and you had no case. It would fall through.