"Belay a moment, John. Did the two know each other before?"
"Oh, no; not at all."
Mr. Follett nodded, and his friend continued:
"Vargas went to Slade's lodging again the next day, and again on Friday—each time at five o'clock,—and remained from an hour and a half to two hours. It's pretty clear that the first visit to Slade at the office was merely to make an appointment, and that the others followed therefrom. But what does it mean? Has Vargas begun a little detective work on his own account? This question is prompted by what followed at the La Salle House between General Westbrook and Vargas on Wednesday night after Slade had left them.
"The General approached and made himself known to Vargas. You know they had met only casually—at the inquest—and the meeting Wednesday night appeared no more than a refreshing of each other's memory. Yet when General Westbrook departed he seemed to be greatly disturbed—so much so that Adams says he had half a mind to follow him. It is true that the two conversed some time, but nothing appeared which would account for the General's agitation; the talk seemed to be merely chatty, pleasant, marked by smiles, and all that. It did not seem to occur to Adams that a man might 'smile, and smile, and be a villain' still; and, after all, it may be that the matter has to do with some property titles. But why enlist the services of Señor Vargas, a stranger? I thought that Vargas himself might be interested in some realty here; but I've had that looked up, and his name does not appear of record anywhere in the county. In this connection I have been having the records carefully gone over to see if any of these people are mixed up by some old deal. The result has been somewhat queer; but we'll pass that up for the present."
"It's no easy matter just a-sortin' out the known facts, is it?" observed Mr. Follett.
The Captain shook his head. "But to sum up, Abram," he added, "we have a number of people connected by a lot of little circumstances, which, at the present moment, have mighty wide gaps between, and seem to point to nothing."
"I tell ye, John, a thing that's standin' stronger in my mind than all else comes from what you've just told me, an' from what I've told you about this man Slade.
"You know, before the war, old Bill Slade, the father, was the Fairchild overseer. I've heard the son's story, an' it appears that he was always little an' mean an' picayunish—not the kind that could do any big dirty thing; just little an' sneakin'. But old Bill was ambitious for his boy, who was just a young feller at the end o' the war, an' he charted out a course for young Bill that pointed from the Fairchild plantation straight to the United States Supreme Court; but he failed to mark off all the rocks an' shoals, an' the set o' the currents; he knew little o' the craft's qualities that was to make the voyage; an' the consequence is, that young Bill landed high an' dry right where he is to-day. He never drank, as I've often heard, nor chewed nor smoked, nor he never fought, nor did anything else to show that he had any good red blood in him—just natcherally unable to do anything good or bad." Mr. Follett abruptly altered his tone. "Has there been anything betwixt him and the Fairchilds since, besides him now ownin' their old home an' lettin' it go to rack an' ruin?" he asked.
"That's being gone into now. Nothing has been turned up so far that sheds any light upon the problem of the murder."