Part 15 (1/2)
”'Say ”Hullo!” and ”How-de-do!”
”How's the world a-using you?”'”
quoted Neale, and chuckled outright. ”What's his name? What does he want?”
”Costello--that me,” interposed the strange junkman. He gazed curiously at Neale with his snapping black eyes. ”_You_ are not Kenway--here in the pape'?”
Again the finger tapped upon the Lost and Found column in the _Post_.
Neale shook his head. He glanced out of the open door and spied the wagon and its informative sign.
”You are a junkman, are you, Mr. Costello?”
”Yes, yes, yes! I buy the pape', buy the rag and bot'--buy anytheeng I get cheap. But not to buy do I come this time to Mees Kenway. No, no!
I come because of this in the paper.”
His tapping finger called attention again to the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the bracelet. Neale expelled a surprised whistle.
”Oh, Aggie!” he said, ”is he after the Gypsy bracelet?”
The swarthy man's face was all eagerness again.
”Yes, yes, yes!” he sputtered. ”I am Gypsy. Spanish Gypsy. Of the tribe of Costello. I am--what you say?--direct descendent of Queen Alma who live three hunder'--maybe more--year ago, and she own that bracelet the honest Kenway find!”
”She--she's dead, then? This Queen Alma?” stammered Neale.
”_Si, si!_ Yes, yes! But the so-antique bracelet descend by right to our family. That Beeg Jeem--”
He burst again into the language he had used before which was quite unintelligible to either of his listeners; but Neale thought by the man's expression of countenance that his opinion of ”Beeg Jeem” was scarcely to be told in polite English.
”Wait!” Neale broke in. ”Let's get this straight. We--we find a bracelet which we advertise. You say the bracelet is yours. Where and how did you lose it?”
”I already tell the honest Kenway, I do _not_ lose it.”
”It was stolen from you, then?”
”Yes, yes, yes! It was stole. A long ago it was stole. And now Beeg Jeem say he lose it. You find--yes?”
”This seems to be complicated,” Neale declared, shaking his head and gazing wonderingly at Agnes. ”If you did not lose it yourself, Mr.
Costello--”
”But it is mine!” cried the man.
”We don't know that,” said Neale, somewhat bruskly. ”You must prove it.”
”Prove it?”
”Yes. In the first place, describe the bracelet. Tell us just how it is engraved, or ornamented, or whatever it is. How wide and thick is it? What kind of a bracelet is it, aside from its being made of silver?”