The Señor laughed gently to himself at this answer, and then he said: "And he has not yet found him?"
"Dios! found him, no! Of that name I never heard before, no, never! There is no such name!"
"For what does he say he wishes to see this Corot? Is it that he has a legacy to give him, or has he committed a crime for which this fat man, this heavy Alguazil, wants to arrest him?"
"Quien sabé! He says he has a little friendly question to ask him, that is all. He says if he could see him for one moment, he would tell him all he wants to know. And then he says he must find him. But I do not think now he will ever find him."
"Nor do I," the Señor said. Then he looked up at the clock, and, seeing it was past twelve, went to his room, saying that it was time he prepared himself for the day.
But when he reached that apartment, which was a small room on the second floor, that looked out on to the back windows of the street that ran parallel with the one in which the Hôtel Lepanto was situated, it did not seem as if those preparations stood in any great need of hurry. The inevitable cigarette-papers were again produced and the dusty tobacco, and the Señor, throwing himself into the arm-chair that stood in the corner of the room, again gave himself up to meditation.
"Corot," he said to himself, "Corot. How is it that that man has ever heard the name--what does he know about it, why should he want to find him? I thought that, outside Los Torros and Puerto Cortes, that name had never been heard. Walter knew it, and Juanna knew it, and I knew it, but of others there was no one alive who knew it. Yet here, is this big, stupid man, in this big, stupid city (where--por Dios! one may be stabbed to death and none find the slayer), with the name upon his lips. How has he ever heard it, how has he ever known of it?"
He could find no answer to these questions which he asked himself, and gradually his thoughts went off into another train.
"So, after all," he continued, "his name was not Cundall but Occleve, and he it was who was this lord, this Penlyn, though that other bears the name. And he, who inherited all that wealth from the old man, had no right to it, no not so much right as Juanna--poor Juanna!--and I had. And now he is gone, and it is with the living that I have to do. Well, it shall be done, and by my father's blood the reckoning shall be a heavy one if this lord does not clear himself!"
He rose from his seat, and, going to a cupboard, took from it a suit of clothes of good, dark material, and after brushing them carefully, laid them out upon the bed. From a shelf in it he took out a very good silk hat, which he also brushed, and a pair of nearly new gloves. Then he rang the bell, and bade the servant who answered it bring him sufficient hot water for shaving and washing.