The two men had never met before; but Harboro, taking in that compact, muscular figure, found himself musing with assurance: “That is Fectnor.”
Nothing in his face or carriage betrayed his purpose, and the man with the blue-serge garment on his arm kept his ground complacently. The man with the horse mounted and rode away.
Harboro advanced easily until he was within arm’s length of the other man in the street. “You’re Fectnor, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I am,” replied the other crisply.
Harboro regarded him searchingly. At length he remarked: “Fectnor, I see you’ve got a gun on you.”
“I have,” was the steely response. Fectnor’s narrow blue eyes became, suddenly, the most alert thing about a body which was all alertness.
“So have I,” said Harboro.
The other’s narrow eyes seemed to twinkle. His response sounded like: “The L you say!”
“Yes,” said Harboro. He added: “My wife was the woman you trapped in Little’s house last night.”
Fectnor’s mind went swiftly to the weapon in his holster; and something more than his mind, surely, since Harboro knew. Yet the man’s hand had barely moved. However, he casually threw the coat he carried over his left arm, leaving his right hand free. If he had thought of reaching for his weapon he had probably realized that he must first get out of reach of Harboro’s arm. “You might put that a little different,” he said lightly. “You might say—the woman I met in Little’s house.”