“Do you know the pawn-shops around here?” he asked, becoming suddenly confidential.

“Not one of them, and don’t want to,” came the contemptuous reply.  “When I get as low down as that, I’ve got a brother to help me.  He’ll be up here himself to-night and will tell you so.”

Pickert had been standing over her throughout the interview, despite her invitation to be seated.  He now moved toward a seat, his hat still tilted back from his forehead.

“What makes you think this man you call Dalton stole it?” he asked, drawing a chair out from the table, as though he meant to let her lead him on a new scent.

“Come over here before you sit down and I’ll tell you,” she exclaimed, peremptorily.  “Now take a look at that box.  Now watch me lift the lid, and see what you find,” and she enacted the little pantomime of the morning.

The detective stroked his chin with his forefinger.  He was more interested in Martha’s talk about Dalton than he was in the contents of the box.  “And you want to get him, don’t you?” he asked slyly.

“Me get him!  I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs.  What I want is for him to keep out of here—­ I told him that last night.”

“Well, then, tell me what he looks like, so I can get him.”

“Like anybody else until you catch the hang-dog droop in his eyes, as if he was afraid people would ask him some question he couldn’t answer.”

“One of the slick kind?”

“Yes, for he’s been a gentleman—­before he got down to be a dog.”

“How old?”

“About thirty—­maybe thirty two or three.  You can’t tell to look at him, he’s that battered.”

“Smooth-shaven—­well-dressed?”

“Yes—­no beard nor mustache on him.  I couldn’t see his clothes.  His big cape-coat, buttoned up to his chin, hid them and his face, too.  He had a slouch-hat on his head with the brim pulled down when he went out.”

“And you say he’s been living off of Mrs. Stanton since—­”

“No, I didn’t say it.  I said he was a cur and that she wouldn’t go to jail to please him—­that’s what I said.  Now, young man, if you’re through, I am.  I’ve got to get my work done.”

Pickert tilted his hat to the other side of his bullet head, felt in his side pocket for a cigar, bit off the end, and spat the crumbs of tobacco from his lips.

“You could put me on to the mantilla, couldn’t you?—­spot it for me once I come across it?”

“Of course I could, the minute I clapped my eyes on it.”

“It’s a kind of lace shawl, ain’t it?”

“Yes.  All black—­a big one with a frill around it and a tear in one side—­that’s what she was mending.  A good piece, I should think, because it was so fine and silky.  You could squash it up in one hand, it was that soft.  That’s why she took such care of it, putting it back in that box every night to keep the dust out of it.”

“Well, what’s the matter with your coming along with me?”