He dried his hands and walked, whistling, out to the living room. No matter how distasteful the scene with the sullen woman had been, the substantial fact remained that he had in his pocket an important document. After all, Lucy Thomas had talked—and signed.
"Mattie," he called, "fix me an orangeade, please. Mr. Greenleaf's late for dinner, and I need a little freshening up."
He went to the living room window again and gazed, with thoughtful, slightly sad eyes, out toward the mountains.
"These policemen!" he was thinking contemptuously. "They don't know how to make blockheads tell what they can tell. There are ways—and ways."
CHAPTER XIV
THE PAWN BROKER TAKES THE TRAIL
Frank Abrahamson, pawn broker and junk dealer, responded at once to Braceway's warm smile. The Jew had his racial respect for keenness and clean-cut ability. He liked this man who, dressed like a dandy, spoke with the air of authority.
"The fellow with the gold tooth?" he replied to Braceway's request for information. "Was there anything peculiar about him? Why, yes. He was clothed in peculiarities."
The pawn broker, thin, round-shouldered, with a great hook-nose and cavernous, bright eyes, spoke rapidly, without an accent, punctuating his sentences with thrusts and dartings and waves of his two hands. His fifty-five years had not lessened his vitality.