“She lives in my house and attends to me. She used to do the same for my son Alonzo. She was there the night your crippled bastard went there with your pistol and killed him. Clovis was there too, but she was drunk and got drunker, and only Geraldine heard and remembered the words. Having fired the pistol, the murderer left. My son lived long enough to say he had seen the mistress of Beulah Land and the artist-man Casey Troy fucking on the ground like dogs in that very place.”

Leon sat so still in his chair he might have been dead, except that presently he began to tremble and then to shake, his head and body quivering as if with malarial chill, so that he had to hold on to the arms of the chair.

Roscoe continued. “It was nearly a year after Alonzo died that Geraldine told me, and even then she was frightened to say it all until I made her. Later, I asked questions about the man who lived for a time in your house as honored guest and artist. What happened between him and your woman was not an uncommon occurrence. Slaves see, and they talk—and can be made to talk when they will not—however little their masters credit them with the ability to see and understand what they have evidence of. Alonzo did certainly lie with your woman, but only after her cunt had been greased with slime of another than you!”

Leon stopped trembling but did not rise from his chair.

“That is what I came to tell you. That is what was unfinished between us.” Roscoe made a slight bow as he had done in times past. Then he turned and went to the door, but as he came to it, Leon found his voice.

“Why have you chosen to tell me these things?”

Without turning, Roscoe said in an even voice that might have conveyed nothing more important than the time of day, “I am dying of the consumption. I have known it for some time. When I saw you at the depot that day, I decided that I could not die without your knowing what I knew. And by way of parting, I may tell you that my grandson thought your granddaughter a pretty little thing.”

Roscoe opened the door and went out.

5