"Abram Follett!" he cried, "junk dealer! Who the devil is Abram Follett, junk dealer! John, I must admit that behind your adamantine front there exist depths which I despair of ever sounding, and—and—" he finally stammered, "confound it! do you suppose me absolutely devoid of curiosity?"
But the reply was given imperturbably.
"Well, sir, Abram Follett is—Abram Follett; his address is No. 18 Ash Lane."
The attorney looked up at the whimsically elevated brow, the pursed lips, and, with a hopeless shrug of the shoulders, wrote the name and address in his memorandum-book. In a few minutes they parted.
Converse went directly to a large and imposing structure which stood close by the City Hall,—the headquarters of the local telephone system.
The lower story, given over to the offices of various departments, was at this hour of the night dark and apparently untenanted; but the soft glow of many shaded incandescent lights from the upper floors indicated the nucleus of an endless activity.
Without hesitation, Mr. Converse entered the dimly lighted lower hall, passed the ornamental iron cage of the elevator, now bearing a card which announced with direct brevity, "Not running," and ascended a wide marble stairway. He arrived presently before a glass swinging door and into an atmosphere so quiet that it made a conversation which was then in progress somewhere farther on to his left come to him with unusual distinctness.
His attention was held by the voices, emanating, apparently, from a lighted room farther along the hall. The subject of the colloquy was so singularly in harmony with the object of his present visit, that he came to an involuntary pause.
"But about Miss Carter, Henty," said one of the voices; "sure she didn't dream it after reading the papers this morning?"
"Oh, no. She called me over some time after midnight and said the line had been open a long time—told me then."