So ended the first act of the drama of the "De Sanchez Mystery." As for Mr. Converse, "Now I can get to work," he confided to himself, as he walked home to his lodgings in Ash Lane.
CHAPTER VIII
CHERCHEZ LA FEMME
The exterior of No. 18 Ash Lane did not present an inviting appearance. It was a dingy, battered, and weather-worn brick structure, marking a remote epoch in the past; and besides Mr. Converse, it contained one other tenant, a little old man whose entire body was so twisted and contorted into deformity by rheumatism, that one wondered what incentive could prevail upon him to move.
A sign above the double door conveyed to the casual wayfarer the information that the busy, cheerful cripple's name was "A. Follett." Long before the remainder of the legend—"Dealer in Scrap Iron, Brass, Copper, Castings, and All Sorts of Junk"—could be deciphered, the stranger was aware of the business conducted here; for as far as the eye could penetrate into the recesses of the lower floor, it was met by a conglomeration of cast-off material which promised insanity to anybody rash enough to attempt its assortment and classification.
Close by the double entrance a gate in a high board fence gave access to the yard. Through this each day passed the peripatetic collectors of such refuse as Mr. Follett dealt in, and their burdens were disposed of by a black Hercules—Mr. Follett's back and legs and arms—who answered to the name of Joe.
The Captain's daily associates would have been quite staggered had they known that the cheerful, grizzled, and battered dealer in junk was his closest friend and his only confidant, and that he discussed all his most perplexing problems with Mr. Follett. Mr. Converse, however, had demonstrated more than once that his confidence was not misplaced; that his friend's judgment, shrewd insight, and discretion were of a value not to be expressed by words. In Mr. Converse's sailor days the two had been companions on many a memorable voyage, and each was as comprehensive of the other's silences as if they had been filling the moments with golden speech.
On the Monday night subsequent to the inquest and one week after that event, the two are sitting in the snug front room upstairs, and it is Mr. Follett who first speaks.
"So, John," he remarks, "the newspapers have something to stir up the interest in your dead Mexican man." He laughed softly and waved his pipe with a feeble gesture toward the Captain. "But I'm thinkin' it won't hurry you up none to crowd the canvas on you."
"You are thinking of the reward?" queried Mr. Converse.