“Did she ask me—to tell you?” echoed Mr. Bellows wonderingly. “You bet she didn’t! You wasn’t named betwixt us. I asked her who held the lien on her prop’ty, an’ she didn’t answer. Thought it was none o’ my business, likely. I suspicioned it was you, though. You get most of ’em around these parts.”
Jarvis made no reply. He closed the red leather book, slipped it into an inside pocket, then deliberately drew on his driving gloves.
“Can you tell me the date of this—this sale?” he asked.
“What you want t’ know for? Thinkin’ of puttin’ in a bid?” chuckled Mr. Bellows.
Jarvis gave him a terrible look.
“I’d advise you to keep still about this. Don’t attempt to interest anyone else in Miss Preston’s affairs. Do you hear?”
“I ain’t deef,” responded Mr. Bellows in an aggrieved voice. “‘N’ I don’t know’s I see what business ’tis of yours, anyhow. Mebbe she’ll get the money an’ pay you. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if she did. She’s bound she will, an’ where there’s a will there’s a way, I’ve heard tell.”
“The date, man; give me the date!”
“Seein’ I’ve told you so much, I s’pose you might as well know; the sale’s set for the eighteenth.”
“Where?”