"And now, Shag, don't forget what I told you," he said to his attendant as the train drew into Colchester. "Don't you so much as scratch the varnish on the tip of one of my rods. And if you let me hear a whisper of anything bordering on a case you and I part company—do you hear?"
"I heahs yo' Colonel!" and the negro saluted, for the detective still clung to many of his military associations. Then, having kept his promise in seeing that the old lady was safely helped from the train, Colonel Ashley followed his valet, burdened with bags and rods.
The fishing rods Shag carried, he must have managed to transport safely to the hotel the colonel was to occupy for a two weeks' vacation and rest, for the military detective was smiling and good-natured when he took them from their cases and gently placed them on the bed.
"Anything else, Colonel?" asked Shag, when he had laid out his master's clothes, and was preparing to go to his own apartment in an annex to the hotel.
"No, I guess that's all, Shag. But what's your hurry? You aren't usually in such haste to leave me, even if you have laid out all my duds. What's the matter? Got some friends in town?"
"Oh, no, sah, Colonel! No, indeedy! 'tain't dat at all!"
"Well, what is it? Why are you in such haste to get away?"
"Um! Ah! Well, I don't laiks fo' t' tell yo' Colonel!" and Shag seemed uneasy.
"You don't like to tell me? Look here, you black rascal! don't try to hide anything from me, do you hear? You know me, and—"
"Oh, indeedy I does know yo', Colonel! Dat's jest why I don't wan t' tell yo'! It—it's 'bout one ob dem t'ings!"
"What things? Shag, you rascal, look here! Have you been buying a newspaper?"
"Ye—ye—yes, sah, Colonel, I has! But I done bought it fo' mahse'f. Deed an' I wasn't goin' t' let yo' hab so much as a snift at it, Colonel! De train-boy, whut yo' gib a dollar t', he handed it t' me when I was gittin' off. It's one ob de papers gotten out right yeah in dis city, an'—"
"Well, out with it, Shag! What's in it that's so mighty interesting?"
"Er—Colonel—yo' see—yo' done tole me—"
"Oh, out with it, Shag! I'll forgive you, I suppose. What is it?"
"Well, Colonel, sah, de paper done got in it an 'count ob a strange an' mysterious murder case, an'—"
"I knew it! I knew it! I could almost have taken my oath on it!" cried the excitable colonel. "Here I come to this place to have some quiet fishing in the suburbs, to get a complete rest, and yet not be too far from civilization, and no sooner do I get off the train than there's a murder mystery thrust right under my nose! Right under my nose! By Gad! I knew it!"
Shag stood, resting his weight first on one foot and then on the other, his head bowed. He was trying to keep from slipping from under his vest, where he had hidden it, a newspaper, with glaring, black headlines. Shag looked timidly at his master.
Colonel Ashley paced up and down the room, pausing now and then to listen to the dash of rain against the windows, for the storm, bearing out its promise of the morning, had lasted all day, changing from a drizzle to a downpour and from a downpour to a drizzle with dismal repetition. The colonel glanced at Shag, and then, drawing from an inner pocket the little green book, read:
"Hunting is a game for princes and noble persons. It hath been highly prized in all ages. It was one of the qualifications—"
The detective snapped the book shut, and tossed it on the bed.
"Shag!" he exploded.
"Yes, sah, Colonel."
"You've often heard me talk of fishing and hunting, haven't you?"
"Deed an' I has, Colonel; many a time! Yes, sah!"
"Humph! Yes! Well, detective work is a sort of hunt, isn't it, Shag?"
"Yes, sah, Colonel. Dat's jest what it is! Many an' many a time I'se done heah yo' say yo's goin' out t' hunt dis man or dat woman!"
"Very good, Shag. And it's a sort of fishing, too, isn't it?".
"Yes, sah, Colonel! More as once I'se heah yo' say as how yo' had t' fish an' fish an' fish t' git a bit of a clew."
"I see you remember, Shag. Well, now, you black rascal, did you say you've got a newspaper with an account in it of a strange and mysterious murder right here in this city?"
"Yes, sah, Colonel! Right yeah in Colchester, where we done come t' hab puffick rest an' quiet an' fishin', just laik yo' done said on de train."
"Humph! A murder mystery right here in town. I thought I heard the newsboys shouting something about it at the station. But I didn't listen. Who's killed, Shag?"
"Why, Colonel, sah, it's a poor ole lady, an'—"
"Stop, Shag! Not another word! How dare you try to get me interested in a case when I told you if you so much as breathed anything about one I'd horsewhip you! I told you that, didn't I?"
"Deed an' yo' did, Colonel!"
The detective paced up and down the room. He reached for the little green book. Then, as if in desperation, he turned to the shrinking negro and went on:
"You say there's a mystery about it, Shag?"
"Yes, sah, Colonel. Yes, sah!" and he made a motion toward the paper that was slipping from under his vest.
"Stop it!" cried the colonel. "I came here to fish and read Izaak Walton in the shade of a big tree along some quiet brook. If you so much as bring a paper into this room I'll send you back to Virginia where you belong, Shag!"
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
The military-looking detective resumed his pacing of the room, his hands behind his back clasping and unclasping nervously.
"Shag!" he suddenly called.
"Yes, sah, Colonel."
"Is it much of a mystery—I mean—er—anything but the usual blood and thunder stuff?"
"Why, Colonel," began the black man eagerly, "it's de beatenist mystery dat ever was—all 'bout a murdered jewelry lady, what's got her haid busted in with a big gold statue, an' a gold knife stab in her side, an' a watch shut up tight in her hand, tickin' an' tickin' an' tickin', laik it was her heart beatin', an' her cousin done find her in a pool of blood on de floor, an' de clocks all stopped, an' a rich young spendthrift comes in an' claims de dagger, an' de detectives—"
"Shag!" fairly shouted his master.
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
"Out of the room this instant, and don't you dare come back until I send for you!"
"Yes, sah, Colonel."
The old colored man turned slowly to the door. His manner was dejected. Evidently he had given serious offense.
Silently he turned the knob, but, before he had stepped over the threshhold, he heard a voice calling softly:
"Shag!"
"Yes, sah, Colonel."
"Eh—Shag—before you go, you—er—you might leave me that paper I see under your vest. I may have occasion to—to glance at it, to see what to-morrow's weather is going to be for fishing."
"Yes, sah, Colonel."
And, with a carefully concealed grin on his face, Shag drew the black-lettered paper from under his waistcoat, and laid it on the bed beside the "Complete Angler."
CHAPTER IV
SPOTTY
"Well, now," observed Detective Thong, and, somehow or other, his voice sounded really cheerful, "let's see where we're at, Mr. Darcy. Have you looked over the stock all you want to?"
They were in a room in the rear of the jewelry store—the city and county detectives, the reporters and James Darcy—with Policeman Mulligan on guard near the cut glass and silver gleaming in the showcases. On guard near a dark red stain in the floor, scarcely dry—it was still soaking into the wood. The body of the murdered woman had been taken away, followed by a sigh of relief from James Darcy, who, try as he did, could not keep his eyes from seeking it.
"The stock is checked up as well as I can do it in a short time," replied the jewelry worker, who had spent some time going over the store under the watchful eyes of Carroll and Thong. "I'm not sure anything is taken. If there is, as I said, it can't be much. But I'll go over everything more carefully, checking up the books. That will take a few days, but I can do it while I'm here arranging for the funeral."
"Not here you can't do it," broke in Carroll, with a short laugh.
"Not here?" There was startled amazement in Darcy's question.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you won't be here. You'd better come with us. You'll have to, in fact. The captain'll want to have a talk with you, and I guess the prosecutor the same. How about it, Jim?" and he looked over at Haliday, from the Court House. He was examining the side door leading to the alley.
"Oh, sure! he'll have to be held—as a witness, anyhow," was the easy answer, and in the same breath he added: "Not a mark! Not a scratch on the place! It was an inside job all right!"
"Held? I'll have to be—held?" faltered Darcy.
"Of course," said Thong. "And, while you're at it, take a friend's advice, and keep your mouth shut."
"You mean anything I say might—might be used—against me?"
"Oh, I wouldn't put it that way exactly. That's moving picture stuff—theater business, you know. We don't go in for that—not me and Carroll. But don't talk too much. Of course you'll have to answer a lot of questions, and the easier you do the better for you. But wait until they're asked. Maybe it's against my interests to say that, but I've sort of took a notion to you. Now you'd better get ready to leave."
"You mean lock the place up?"
"Oh, no, somebody'll have to stay here."
"Not me!" interrupted Mulligan. "I haven't had my breakfast. I was jest comin' in off dog-watch when I happened to see what was goin' on here—the crowd an' everythin'. I ain't goin' to stay!"
"Well, 'phone in then and get somebody," advised Carroll testily.
"Somebody's got to be here until we can look around more."
"I'll stay for a while." said Haliday. "I'd like to look about a bit myself. I'll probably have to get the case ready for the prosecutor."
"Well, let's be going then," suggested Thong. "Shall I ring for the wagon?"
His partner shook his head after a look at Darcy.
"The trolley'll be all right for him," he said in a whisper. "We can get out the back way and avoid the crowd," for the street in front of the jewelry store was still thronged, in spite of the ever increasing rain. "As for King, he's asleep, and I guess we can put him to bed here. If we try to carry him out there'll be more of a push than there is now. Let him sleep it off," and he glanced at a huddled figure in a corner chair.
"Who's asleep?" broke in the thick voice of the wastral. "Whash matter you fellers, anyhow? Man comes in get li'l preshent for his wife—wife sits up all night waitin'—she's 'titled to li'l preshent. Wheresh my gold knife, Darcy? I give it to you—have 'grave—Pearl's name—wheresh my knife?"
"You can have it pretty soon," promised Thong. "Look here, Harry, my boy. You're pretty drunk, for a fact, but do you happen to know where you were and what you did last night—and early this morning? Try to think—it may mean a lot to you!" and he spoke earnestly. "Where were you—what did you do?"
"What I did?" He blinked his eyes rapidly, to rid them of the water which poured forth in an effort to assuage their drink-inflamed condition, and regarded those about him with half-drunken gravity. "What I did? You want to know—what—what I did?"
"Yes. Where were you, and what did you do?" asked Carroll easily.
"Hu! Got drunk, thash what I did. Can't you see? I'm drunk yet, but I don't care! Ha! Had one swell time, thash what I did! One whale of a good time! It was some night—a wet night—believe me—a wet night—awful wet. Never had so mush fun—never! We got ole Doc Harrison stewed to the gills—hones' we did—stewed like—like prunes—apricots! Ho! Thash what we did!"
"Guess he wasn't the only one," observed Carroll grimly. "Now, look here, King. You're pretty drunk yet, but maybe you can get this through your noodle. There's been some nasty business, and you may, or may not, know something about it, though I don't believe you do, for you're so pickled now that you must have been loading up ever since last week. But you've got to answer some questions—when you're able—and it's a question of holding you here or—taking you with us. How about it?"
"Look here!" snarled King, and his voice rang out with sudden energy.
"Who you talkin' to?"
"Now take it easy, Harry," advised Thong. "We're talking to you, of course."
Harry King seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent temper, drunk or sober, once it was roused, and it did not take much liquor to make him a veritable devil. Though after his first wild burst he became maudlin and silly. King came of a good family, but his relatives had cast him off after his midnight marriage to an actress of questionable morals, with whom it was not a first offense, and he now lived, after his own peculiar fashion, on the income of an estate settled on him in his better days by an aunt. Now and then he managed to get larger advances than the stipulated sum from a rascally lawyer, who took a chance of reimbursing himself a hundred per cent. when Harry King should come to the end of his rope—a time which seemed not far off, if the present were any indication. He was to inherit the bulk of his fortune when he became thirty-five years of age. He was now thirty-three, but the pace he was going and keeping made his chances of living out the stated allotment seem meager.
"I'm talking to you, Harry, my boy," went on the detective, "and I advise you, for your own good, to keep a civil tongue in your head. If you don't, you may get into trouble. There's been a murder—"
"A murder!" King's voice was more certain now.
"Yes. You saw the body carried out—or are you still so drunk you can't remember? It was Mrs. Darcy—the lady who owned this jewelry store, you know. Now pull yourself together. You've got to come with us and explain a little about this knife of yours. She was stabbed with that."
"With my knife—that paper cutter dagger I was giving as a present to—to my wife?" King's voice was sobering more now.
"That's the idea, Harry."
"But I brought that knife to Darcy to have him engrave it."
"That may be. It was used to cut the old lady, though, and laid back on Darcy's work-table. Come now—brace up, and tell us all you know about it."
"Oh, I—I can brace up all right. So the old lady's dead, is she? Killed—stabbed! Too bad! Many's the trinket I've bought of her for—for—well, some of the girls, you know," and he winked suggestively at the detectives. "Old lady Darcy's dead! Say, look here, boys!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of manner, as something seemed to penetrate to his sodden brain, "you—you don't for a minute think I did this—do you?" and he sat up straight for the first time.
"Never mind what we think," said Carroll. "We're not paid for telling it—like the reporters," and he grinned at Daley of the Times. "We want to get at the facts. Are you in condition to talk?"
"Not here!" interrupted Thong quickly, with a glance at the newspaper men, which they were quick to interpret. "Oh, it's all right, boys," went on the detective. "We'll let you in for anything that's going as soon as we can—you know that."
"Sure," agreed Daley. "But don't keep us waiting all day. The presses are like animals—they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon as you can."
They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which
King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.
Colonel Ashley—or Colonel Brentnall as he had registered at the hotel—having, by means of a more or less adroit bit of camouflage, obtained possession of the newspaper containing an account of the murder of Mrs. Darcy, and of the holding of her cousin and Harry King on suspicion, tossed the journal on the bed beside his well-worn copy of the "Complete Angler." Then, to demonstrate his complete mastery over himself, he picked up the book, never so much as glancing at the black headlines, and read:
". . . I have found it to be a real truth that the very sitting by the river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but will invite the angler to it; . . ."
"I'm a fool!" exploded the colonel. "I came here to fish, and, first click of the reel, I go nosing around on the trail of a murder, when I vowed I wouldn't even dream of a case. I won't either,—that's flat! I'll get my rods in shape to go fishing to-morrow. It may clear. Then Shag and I—"
Slowly the book slipped from his hand. It fell on the bed with a soft thud, and a breeze from the partly opened window ruffled a page of the newspaper. The colonel, looking guiltily around the room, walked nearer to the bed, and then, as stealthily as though committing a theft, he picked up the Times. Softly he exclaimed:
"Gad! what's the use?"
A moment later, pulling his chair beneath an electric light, he began to read the account of the murder.
Pete Daley's story of the finding of the dead body of the owner of the jewelry store was a graphic bit of work. He described how Darcy, coming down in the gray dawn, had discovered the woman lying stark and cold, her head crushed and a stab wound in her side.
None of the details was lacking, though the gruesomeness was skilfully covered with some well-done descriptive writing. The wounds seemed to have been inflicted at the same time—one by the metal statue of a hunter found on the floor near the body, the other by a dagger-like paper cutter, admitted to be owned by Harry King, but which, with the blade blood-stained, was found on the jewelry bench of her cousin James Darcy.
The solution of the murder mystery depended on the answers to two questions, the reporter pointed out. First, which wound killed Mrs. Darcy? Second, who inflicted either or both wounds?
There were ramifications from these beginnings—such as the motive for the crime; whether or not there had been a robbery; and, if so, by whom committed. Then, to get to the more personal problem, did either King or Darcy commit the murder, and, if so, why?
"Um," mused the colonel, reading the Times on the evening of the day the crime was discovered. "It may turn out to be a mystery after all, in spite of the two men who are held. Let's see now," and he went on with his perusal of the paper.
The autopsy had been performed, and Dr. Warren had said either wound might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it, though it really was a paper cutter of foreign make.
King and Darcy were not, as yet, formally, arrested, being "detained," merely, at police headquarters as witnesses, though there was no question but that suspicion was cast on both. Under the law a formal charge must be made against them within twenty-four hours, and unless this was done King's lawyer threatened to bring habeas corpus proceedings for his client.
"Oh, there'll be a charge made before then all right," said Thong easily, when the legal shyster had, with threatening finger under the detective's nose, made much of this point. "I'm not saying it will be against your man, Mr. Fussell, but there'll be a charge made all right."
It is needless to say that both suspected men protested they knew nothing about the killing. King was frank enough—sober now—to say he had been drunk all night—spending the hours with boon companions in a notorious resort, a statement which seemed capable enough of proof.
Darcy told over and over again how he had come downstairs to find his relative stretched on the floor of the shop, and, aside from that little restless period of the night, he had heard no disturbance. Sallie Page could tell nothing, the maid was out of the city, and none of the clerks knew more of what had happened than they were told.
Playing up Darcy's story, Daley and some of the other reporters speculated on whether or not a burglar might have entered the store, leaving no trace of his uncanny skill, and, in his wanderings about the place, have entered Darcy's room. He might even have attempted to chloroform the jewelry worker, it was suggested, and perhaps did, slightly. Then, descending to the store, the intruder might have started to loot the safe when he was disturbed by Mrs. Darcy, who may have come down to see what the unusual noise was.
Such, at least, was a theory, and one several took stock in. At any rate Darcy, after having been aroused, by what he knew not, had gone to sleep again, only to awaken to hurry down to do the repair work on the watch of the East Indian—the watch that was found so uncannily ticking in the otherwise silent jewelry store, clasped in the hand of the dead woman. It was mentioned that Singa Phut was being kept under observation, though no suspicion attached to him.
Darcy had at first nervously, and then indignantly, protested his innocence, King continually doing the latter. Naturally there followed, even with the faint suspicions so far engendered, the question as to what the possible object for the crime could have been, presuming either man had been involved.
It was known that King was constantly in debt, in spite of his allowance and the more substantial advances he received from time to time. He had patronized the jewelry store, and he admitted owing Mrs. Darcy quite a large sum for a brooch he had purchased for his wife some time before. It was, of course, possible, that he had, in his drunken state, gone to the store to get the paper cutter, which some peculiar kink or twist in his drink-inflamed brain had caused him to remember at an odd time. Or perhaps he had run short of money when playing cards, and have gone to Mrs. Darcy's store to borrow or see if he could not get something on which he might raise cash.
Harry King was known to have been gambling the night before, the game lasting until nearly morning, and at one stage, when King was "broke," he had excused himself, gone out into the night alone, and had come back well supplied with funds. Asked jokingly by his cronies where he had got the money, he had said "a lady" gave it to him. He resumed play, only to lose, and had staggered out into the gray dawn, which was the last his companions had seen of him. He next appeared at the jewelry store after the murder.
Sobered, King's explanation was that "a lady" had really given him the money, but who she was, or why she gave him funds at two o'clock in the morning, he would not say. He admitted calling at the jewelry store somewhere around eleven o'clock at night for the purpose of seeing if the engraving on the paper cutter had been finished. King was not so very drunk then, he said. He was just "starting in."
The store was closed, he said, but he added a bit of testimony that caused Colonel Ashley, and others, to think a bit.
King said that, though the front doors to the store were locked, he, knowing the place well, had gone around to the side door in the alley, thinking that might not yet be fastened. He hoped, he said, to be able to get in and procure the present for his wife. But this door, too, was locked, though, through the glass he could see a light in the rear room. And he could hear voices, which were raised louder than ordinary.
The voices, King added, were those of Mrs. Darcy and her cousin, James Darcy, and it was evident that a quarrel was in progress. Asked as to the nature of the dispute King had said he had heard mentioned several times the name "Amy." There was also something said about money and an "electric lathe."
Naturally there was an inquiry as to who "Amy" was, and what was meant by the electric lathe. Darcy answered with seeming frankness that the Amy in question was Miss Mason, daughter of Adrian Mason, wealthy stockman of Pompey, a village about ten miles from Colchester. Mr. Mason had what was often referred to as a "show place," with blooded horses and cattle, and he was quite a financial figure in Monroe county, of which Colchester was the county seat.
Besides this, Amy was well off in her own right, her uncle having left her a half interest in a valuable mine.
James Darcy and Amy Mason were engaged to be married, though this fact was known to but few, and made quite a sensation when Darcy admitted it after his arrest. He and Amy had known each other since childhood, and when small had lived near each other.
Mr. Mason, in spite of his wealth, was a democratic man, and though he knew, and Amy also, that she might have married wealth and position, both were "passed up," to quote the stockman himself, in favor of a real love match. For that is what it was.
"He's a man, that's what James Darcy is!" Amy's father had said, when some one hinted that he had neither wealth nor family of which to boast. "He's a man! He's got all the family he needs. What's a family good for, anyhow, after you're grown up? As for money, I've got more than I need, and Amy's got a little nest-egg of her own. Besides, Darcy can earn his living, which is a hanged sight more than some of these dancing lizards can do if they were put to it."
It developed that the words over Amy which had occurred, just before the murder, between James Darcy and his cousin, had to do with the difference in the worldly prospects of the two young people. Mrs. Darcy had rather laughed at him, James said, for thinking of marrying a girl so much wealthier than he was.
"What did you tell her?" asked Carroll. "I mean your cousin."
"I told her I could support my wife decently well, if not in such state as that to which she was accustomed in her father's house. As for style, neither Miss Mason nor I care for it. And, if things go right, I may be able to bring her as much wealth as she has herself."
"How do you mean if things go right?" asked the detective.
"Well, if I can perfect the electric lathe I am trying to patent," was the answer.
"Oh, so that's what King heard about an electric lathe?"
"I suppose so. It's no great secret. I've been working on it for some time, but my cousin objected to my spending my time that way. She thought I should devote it all to her interests, even outside the shop. I told her I had my own future to look to, and we often had words about that. Last night's quarrel wasn't the first, though she was especially bitter over my work on the lathe. I have been giving it more time than usual because it is nearly finished, and I want to get it ready to show at a big Eastern jewelry convention."
"And what was the talk about money?"
"Well, Mrs. Darcy owed me about a thousand dollars. I had done some special work on making necklaces for her customers, and she had promised, if they were pleased, to pay me extra for the exclusive designs I got up. The customers were pleased, and they paid her extra for the ornaments. So I demanded that she keep her promise, but she refused, pleading that many other customers owed her and times were hard. I needed that thousand dollars to help complete my lathe model, and—well, we had words over that, too."
"Then, do I understand," summed up Carroll, "that the night Mrs. Darcy was killed you had a quarrel with her over Miss Mason, and about the money and because you spent too much time working on your patent lathe?"
"Well, yes, though I don't admit I spent too much time, and I surely will claim she owed me that money. As for Miss Mason—I'd prefer to have her name left out," faltered the young jeweler.
"We can't always have what we want," said Thong, dryly. "Was the quarrel specially bitter?"
"Not any more so than others. I had to speak a little loud, for my cousin was getting a trifle deaf."
"And after the quarrel you went to bed?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't see your cousin again until—when?" and Carroll looked
Darcy straight in the eyes.
"Not until after she was—dead."
"Um! I guess that's all now."
They let the young man go, back to his room in police headquarters. It was not a cell—yet, though it would seem likely to come to that, for Thong observed to his partner as they went downstairs:
"Well, there's a motive all right."
"Three, if you like. But none of 'em hardly strong enough for murder."
"Oh, I don't know. I hear he has quite a temper—different from Harry King's, but enough, especially if he got riled about the old lady talking against his girl. You never can tell."
"No, that's so."
Left alone, James Darcy threw himself into a chair and looked blankly at the dull-painted wall.
"This is fierce!" he murmured. "It will be a terrible blow to Amy! I wonder—I wonder if she'll have anything to do with me after this? The shame of it—the disgrace! Oh, Amy! if I could only know!" and he reached out his hand as though to thrust them beyond the confines of the walls. He bowed his head in his arms and was silent and motionless a long time.
Up in his hotel room, Colonel Ashley read the story of the case as printed in the Times.
"This does begin to get interesting," he mused, as he finished reading the account. "There are three possible motives in Darcy's case, and one in King's. And I've known murder to be done on slighter provocation. Darcy might have resented being called a fortune hunter, which, I suppose, is what the old lady meant, or he may have been stung to sudden passion by the holding back of the thousand dollars and the taunts about his lathe. Most inventors are crazy anyhow.
"As for King—if he was drunk enough, and wanted money—or thought he could get some diamonds—it might be—it might be. I wonder who his lady friend is? He daren't tell, I suppose, on account of his wife. I wonder—"
"Oh, what am I bothering about it for, anyhow? I came here to rest and fish, and I'm going to. I've resigned from detective work! There!" He tossed the paper behind the bed. "I'll not look at another issue. Now let's see how my rods are. I'm going to get an early start in the morning, if this infernal rain lets up. Blast that Shag! He's jammed a ferrule!" and, with blazing eyes, the colonel looked at one of the joints of his choicest rod. A brass connection had been bent.
"That's a shame! It'll never work that way—never! I've got to go out and see if I can't get it mended. Wonder if there's a decent sporting goods store in this part of town. I'll go out and have a look."
He made himself ready, taking the two parts of the fishing rod with him. Inquiry at the hotel desk supplied him with the information as to the location of the store, and the detective was soon out in the wet streets, breathing in deep of the damp air—for it was fresh and that was what the colonel liked.
Somehow or other the address of the jewelry store clung to his mind, and, almost unconsciously, he found himself heading in that direction.
"Well, I am a fool!" he murmured, as he passed the place, now ghostly with its one light in front of the safe. The police had taken charge, pending the arrival of a relative of Mrs. Darcy's. Inside, the cut glass and silver gleamed as of old, but on the floor, sunk deep in the grain of the wood now, was the spot of blood—fit to keep company with the red rubies in the locked safe.
"Quite a place," murmured the colonel, as he passed on toward the sporting goods store. "Quite a place! Oh, hang it! I must get it out of my mind!"
In spite of his rather exacting demands regarding a ferrule for his rod, he found what he wanted and, feeling quite satisfied now, as he noted that the weather showed some slight signs of clearing, the colonel started back for his hotel, walking slowly, for it was not yet late.
Just how it happened, not even Colonel Ashley, naturally the most interested person, could tell afterward. But as the detective was crossing a crowded street a big auto truck swung around a corner, and he found himself directly in its path as he stepped off the curb.
Active as he always kept himself, the old detective sprang back out of the way. But fate, in the person of a small boy, had just a little while before, dropped a banana skin on the streets. And the colonel stepped squarely on this peeling, as he tried to retreat.
There was a sudden sliding, an endeavor to retain his footing, and then Colonel Ashley fell prostrate, his fishing rod pieces spinning from his fingers. Down he went, and the truck thundered straight at him.
It was almost upon him, and the big, solid, front tires were about to crush him, in spite of the frantic efforts of the driver to swerve his machine to one side, when a slim figure dashed from the crowd on the sidewalk, and, with an indistinguishable cry, seized the colonel by the shoulders, fairly dragging him with a desperate burst of strength from the very path of death.
There were gasps of alarm and sighs of relief. The driver of the truck swore audibly, but it was more a prayer than an oath. The colonel, grimy and muddy, was set on his feet by his rescuer, and several men gathered about. The colonel was a bit-dazed, but not so much so that he could not hear several murmur:
"He saved his life all right!"
Recovering his breath and the control of his nerves at about the same time, the detective, his voice trembling in spite of himself, turned to the man who had dragged him from almost under the big wheels and said:
"Sir, you did save my life! You saved me from a horrible death, and saying so doesn't begin to thank you or tell you what I mean. If you'll have the goodness, sir, to call a taxi for me, and come with me to my hotel, I can then—"
The colonel came to a halting and sudden pause as he saw the face of the slim little man who had saved him—a face covered with freckles, which were splotched over the cheeks, the turned-up nose, and reaching back to the wide-set ears.
"Spotty!—Spotty Morgan!" gasped the detective, as he recognized a New York gunman, who was supposed to have more than one killing to his credit, or debit, according as you happen to reckon.
"Spotty Morgan! You—you—here!" gasped the detective.
The rescuer, who had been grinning cheerfully, went white under his copper freckles.
"My gawd! It's you! Colonel—"
Further words were stopped by the detective's hand placed softly, quickly, and so dexterously as hardly to be seen by those in the crowd, over the mouth of the speaker.
"No names—here!" whispered the colonel in the big ear of the man who had saved him from death.
The slim little man gave a wiggle like an eel, and would have darted away through the crowd, but there was a vice-like grip on his shoulder that he knew but too well.
"Spotty, my name's Brentnall for the present," said the colonel, with a grim smile. "And you'd better come with me. How about it?"
Spotty Morgan hesitated a moment, nodded silently, and then, arm in arm with the man whom he had pulled from the path of the big truck, went down the street, the mist and rain swallowing them up.
CHAPTER V
AMY'S APPEAL
Tinkling glasses formed a friendly rampart between Colonel Ashley and
Spotty Morgan. Spotty looked narrowly and shrewdly at the detective.
"I didn't expect to see you here," remarked the gunman, speaking out of the side of his mouth, with scarcely a motion of his lips—a habit acquired through long practice in preventing prison keepers from finding out that he was disobeying the rules regarding silence. "Not for a minute did I expect to run across you here, Colonel As—"
"Not that name, Spotty, if you please," and the fisherman-detective smiled in easy fashion. "You know my little habits in that regard. I'm known here as Brentnall, and, if it's all the same to you, just use that. As for you, if Spotty—"
"Oh, that suits me as well as any other. I can change whenever I like." Spotty raised a glass to his lips, and, with a murmured "here's how," let the contents slide down his always-parched throat.
"That's so, Spotty. Well, I didn't expect to see you here, I give you my word. When did you leave New York?"
"Well, I come away—"
"Hold on!" interrupted the colonel. "Don't answer. I shouldn't have asked. I forgot you saved my life just now. Gad! it isn't the first time I've nearly passed over, but—not in that way!" and he reached for his glass to conceal the shudder that passed over him as he thought of the rumbling wheels of the thundering truck.
"Well, Colonel, I—"
"Never mind, Spotty. Perhaps the less you talk the better off you'll be. Does anybody in town know you're here?"
"Well, my picture—"
"Yes, it is probably down at headquarters. But they're too busy to look for it now. But they may—later. So far you haven't been recognized then?"
"Only by you, and it'd take a pretty clever guy—"
"No compliments, Spotty. We've gotten over that. You disguised yourself very well, but the freckles show through."
"Yes, damn 'em!" heartily exploded the gunman. "I can't cover 'em up. I've tried everything, but I guess I'll have to go togged up like a colored man to fool the other bulls. As for you, Colonel—"
"There you go again! Cut it out! This is business."
"Yes, good business for you, but bad for me. I didn't think you'd get after me so soon, Colonel!"
"I'm not after you, Spotty."
The detective spoke quietly, but the effect on the man sitting across the table from him, in one of the less conspicuous cafes in Colchester, had the effect of a shout.
"Not after me? You ain't?" and Spotty drew away from the array of glasses and bottles so suddenly that he overturned a tumbler with its tinkling chunk of ice. "Not after me, Colonel?"
"No, I came here for a quiet bit of fishing, and I just stumbled on this case against my will. I'm not even working on it, and I'm not going to. Nobody knows I'm in town except my man Shag—and you. I know I can depend on Shag, and as for you—"
"I'm with you till the cows come to roost, Colonel. I'm strong fer you! I kin forget I ever saw you."
"That's good. I thought you'd be that way. So, as no one knows I'm in town (the colonel knew nothing of what Shag had said to the newsboy), I can keep under cover and have my fishing as I like it—quiet. I don't intend any one shall know I'm here, either.
"Now, Spotty, I'm a plain-spoken man when there's occasion for it, and this is one of those times, I guess. You saved my life just now, I know that. Of course I realize I might just have been badly hurt, and perhaps have lingered on in a hospital for some years—but that would be worse than death. I consider that you saved my life. I couldn't have moved out of the way of that truck any more than I could have flown. I realize it more and more. You did me the biggest service one man can do another, and I'm not going to forget it, Spotty."
"No, I guess remembering is your long suit, Colonel."
"Well, that's all in a day's work. I didn't forget you, Spotty. Now, as I said, you saved my life. I believe in turning the tables, and though I can't do for you what you did for me, maybe I can help in a way."
"You kin gamble on that, Colonel!"
"Listen to me, Spotty," and the detective leaned forward and spoke in a low, tense voice. "Just now, as I say, I'm not in this case. Not being a public official, I'm not bound to use what knowledge or suspicions I have regarding this matter, and I'm not particularly interested—as yet. So I'm going to give you a chance, just as you gave me mine now. It isn't exactly the same, for maybe you wouldn't lose your life. You've been devilishly lucky, and gotten through more narrow places than I'd ever give you credit for.
"So it may seem that I'm not quite squaring the account, but it's all I can do—now. I'm going to give you your chance. I'm not going to ask you any questions. You know what you know and I know what I know. Now, Spotty, streak it out of town as fast as a train can take you, and—don't come back!"
Spotty Morgan made little wet rings on the table with his empty glass. A waiter, hovering near by, caught the glint of his eye and brought the liquor. Then Spotty, after a libation, spoke.
"Colonel," he said slowly, "most of what you has been spielin' is like the lawyer guys git off in court. I don't quite tumble, but I take it you mean you're goin' t' let me go."
"That's it, Spotty! I'm going to let you go this time!"
"No double crossin'?"
"You know me better than that! I'll give you twenty-four hours to get out of town. After that I may happen to know more than I know now, and it would be my duty—whether I'm officially on the case or not—to arrest you.
"But now you're free. It's your life and liberty for mine—maybe not quite an even exchange, since you'd have more than even chances if it came to a trial, I suppose. But it's the best I can do. I'm giving you this chance. I'd be a dirty dog if I didn't. But remember this, Spotty! I give you only one chance, just as you gave me—just as you took one and saved me. If I see you again, and this thing hangs over you, I may have to pull you up."
"All right, Colonel. That's a square deal. But don't worry. You won't see me if I see you first. I didn't dream you'd be after me so soon for the job I only done last night. I'd oughter cleared out, but I was waitin' for a pal, an—Oh, well, it was just like you to come around early."
"Man, don't you understand? I'm not after you! I didn't for an instant think you had a hand in it until just now. And I'm not admitting, even yet, that you did have. I haven't done a tap of work on the case, and I'm not going to. My advise to you is to get out of town before I may get into this thing against my will. Skip, Spotty! It's the only way I can pay my debt to you!"
The colonel made as though to hold out his hand to the freckle-faced man opposite him, and then changed the motion of his arm and picked up his glass.
"Skip, Spotty!" he murmured again.
"All right, Colonel, I will! I know when the goin's good. So long.
And—thanks!"
Spotty, still talking through the corner of his mouth, gave a quick glance around the room and slid out of a side door like an eel, disappearing into the rain and mist.
For some little time the colonel sat before the glasses, in which the cracked ice was rapidly melting. He, too, made little rings of water on the table.
"I wonder—" he mused, "I wonder if I did right."
His hand sought his pocket, and came out empty.
"I guess I must have left it on the bed," he murmured. "But I can remember it."
Then, as though reading from the little green book, he recited:
"But if the old salmon gets to the sea . . . and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible. . ."
"Spotty is a veritable salmon," mused the colonel, "even if he is speckled like a trout. I wonder, if he gets into the sea of New York, if I'll ever be able to land him?
"Well, he gave me my life, and I just had to give him a chance for his. It was all I could do. Now to fish and forget everything!"
It was a fair morning in April, with the sun just right, with the "wind in the west when the fish bite best," and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley, with the faithful Shag to carry his rods, creel and a lunch basket, sallied forth from his hotel for a day beside a no-very-distant stream, the virtues of which he had heard were most alluring as regarded trout.
"Shag!" exclaimed the colonel, when they were tramping through a field near the river, having reached that vantage point by a most prosaic trolley car, "this is a beautiful day!"
"It suah am, sah!"
"And I'm going to catch some fine fish!"
"I suah does hope so, Colonel!"
"All right then! Now don't say another word until I speak to you. We'll be there pretty soon, and if there's one thing more than another that I hate, it's to have some one talking when I'm fishing."
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
"Um! Well, see that you mind!"
Selecting with care a fly from his numerous collection, and hoping the appetites of the fish would incline them to consider it favorably that morning, Colonel Ashley proceeded to make his casts, standing not far from a bent, gnarled and twisted elm tree, that overhung the bank of the stream where the current had cut into the soil, making a deep eddy, in which a lazy trout might choose to lie in wait for some choice morsel.
Lightly as a falling feather, the fisherman let his fly come to rest on the sun-lit water, and, hardly had it sent the first, few faint ripples circling toward shore than there was a shrill song of the reel, and the rod became a bent bow.
"By the bones of Sir Izaak!" cried the colonel, "I've hooked one, Shag!"
"De Lord be praised! So yo' has, Colonel!" cried the negro.
"Shut up!" ordered the colonel, who was beginning to play his fish.
"Did I tell you to speak?"
But Shag only laughed. He knew his master.
After ten minutes of skilful work, during which time the trout nearly got away by shooting under a submerged log like an undersea boat diving beneath a battle cruiser, the colonel landed his fish, dropping it, panting, on the green grass. Then he looked up at Shag and remarked:
"Didn't I tell you this was a perfectly beautiful day?"
"Yo' suah did, Colonel," was the chuckling answer. "Yo' suah did!"
And so much at peace with himself and all the world was Colonel Robert Lee Ashley just then that, when the crackling of the underbrush behind him, a moment later, gave notice that some one was approaching, there was even a smile on his face, though, usually, he could not bear to be intruded upon when fishing.
Rather idly the colonel, having mercifully killed his fish by a blow on top of the head and slipped it into the grass-lined creel, looked up to see approaching a young lady and a tall and somewhat lanky boy. There was some thing vaguely familiar about the boy, though the fisherman did not tax his mind with remembering, then, where or when he had seen him before.
"There he is," went the words of the boy, as he and the young woman came in sight of the colonel and Shag—but it was at the detective the lad pointed. "There he is!"
The girl rushed impulsively forward, and, as she held out her hands in a voiceless appeal, there was worry and anguish depicted on her face.
"Are you Colonel Brentnall?" she asked.
The colonel was sufficiently familiar with his alias not to betray surprise when it was used.
"I am," he said, and the peaceful, joyous look that had come into his eyes when he had landed his fish gave way to a hard and professional stare.
"Oh, Colonel Brentnall! I've come to ask you to help me—help him!
You will, won't you? Don't say you won't!"
The girl's face, her blue eyes, the outstretched hands, the very poise of her lithe, young body voiced the appeal.
"My dear young lady," began the colonel. But she interrupted with:
"You're the detective, aren't you?"
"Well—er—I—Say rather a detective, for there are many, and I am only one."
"But you are the one from New York?"
"I am though I don't know how you guessed it. I am not here professionally, though—in fact, I've practically retired—and I would much prefer—"
"But you wouldn't refuse to help any one who needed it, would you? You wouldn't, I'm sure!" and the girl smiled through the tears in her blue eyes.
"Oh, of course, as a matter of humanity, I would not refuse to help any one. But, professionally—well, really, I'm not here in my detective role. I really can not consider anything at this time. I don't want to seem harsh, or impolite, but I can't—"
"Not even for double your usual fee? Listen! I am prepared to pay well for anything you can do for me—and him. My father is well off. I have money in my own right. I'd spend the last dollar of that. And dad said, when I told him where I was going—Dad said he'd do the same. We both believe Jimmie is innocent, and we want to prove it to everybody as soon as we can. That's why I came right on to see you. I couldn't wait! Oh, perhaps I did wrong, coming this way—I'm sorry if I've spoiled your fishing. But this is such—such a big thing—it means so much to him—to me! I—I—"
She faltered, looking from Shag to the colonel and then to the sympathetic colored man again, for on his face was a look of pity.
"How did you know I was here?" asked Colonel Ashley.
"I went to your hotel. The clerk told me you had come to this stream. It's the only good one for trout around here besides the one on my father's farm."
"Has your father a trout stream?" and the eyes of the colonel took on a kindly gleam.
"He has, and it's well stocked. But please, won't you help me? You are the only one who can!"
"I'm not sure of that, my dear young lady. And, really, I hardly understand what it's all about. You say the hotel clerk told you I was here. I can understand that, for I asked him the best way to reach this place. But how did you know I was a detective and stopping at the Adams House?"
"He told me!" She pointed to the lanky youth.
The colonel and Shag turned their eyes on him. Shag gave a start of surprise. The colonel began to leaf over the brain tablets of his memory system. He was beginning to place the lad.
"Mah good land of massy!" ejaculated the negro. "It's de train newsboy whut yo' give a dollar to las' night, Colonel!"
"The one who wanted to sell me a detective story?"
"I'm him, Colonel Brentnall," answered the lad, a smile of triumph lighting up his face. "Your man told me who you was, and I heard you tell the taxi man where to drive you. I didn't think anything more about it until I read about the murder."
"The murder!" exclaimed the colonel. Somehow that seemed to follow him as a Nemesis.
"Yes—old Mrs. Darcy—the jewelry store lady," went on the boy. "This young lady," and he nodded toward his companion, "when I told her—"
"Perhaps you had better let me explain, Tom," broke in the girl. "You see it's this way," she went on, addressing the colonel. "This boy is Tom Tracy. He sells papers on the express. He was once a jockey for my father, but he got hurt—stiff arm—and we had to get him something else to do. Dad always looks out for his boys, and so Tom went on the road."
"I had to do something that had motion in it," Tom explained in an aside.
"Yes, it was as near to horseback riding as he could come," said the girl, and she smiled, though the grief did not leave her blue eyes. "Well, as he has told you, he heard who you were, Colonel, from your man. Then when he read about the murder, and found how—how close home it came to me, he hurried out to our place and said I should engage you to help—"
"He's the biggest detective in New York!" broke in Tom. "And that's what we need—a big New York detective!"
"But what's it all about?" asked the colonel. "This is talking in riddles, though I begin to see a little—"
"I beg your pardon," said the girl. "I should have told you who I am.
My name is Amy Mason, and—"
"Ah! You are engaged to be married to James Darcy, who is—er—detained as a—er—as a witness in the murder of his cousin?"
"I am," and she seemed to glory in it. "As soon as I heard what had happened—to him—I wanted to help. They would not let me see Jimmie at police headquarters, but I sent word that dad and I were going to work for him every minute."
"That must have cheered him."
"I hope it did. But I want to do more than that. I want to help him! I want to get the best detective in the country to work on the case and prove that Jimmie didn't do this—this terrible thing of which he is accused."
"He isn't exactly accused yet, as I understand it, Miss Mason."
"Oh, well, it's just as bad. He is suspected. Why, Jimmie wouldn't have caused Mrs. Darcy a moment of pain, to say nothing of striking her—killing her! Oh, it's horrible—horrible!" and she covered her face with her hands.
"I don't quite understand," began the colonel, "why you came to me, or how—"
"I told her it was the only thing to do," broke in the newsboy. "Soon as I read about Carroll and Thong being on the case I knew it would take a fly one to put anything over on them. I tried on the train to sell you a detective book, not knowing who you was. You treated me white, and when I heard Miss Mason was in trouble—or her friend was—I said to myself right away that you was the one to fix things. I went out to her farm last night and she was all broke up."
"It was a terrible shock to me when I heard Jimmie was under arrest," said the girl. "I didn't know what to do. Tom, here, proposed coming to see you, and when dad heard who you were, though we knew nothing of you, he said the same thing. He told me I could have all the money I wanted, and I have some of my own if his isn't enough."
"It isn't always a question of money," began the colonel, gently.
"I know!" broke in Amy. "But if I add the inducement of all the trout fishing—"
"You are strongly tempting me, my dear young lady. But finish your story."
"Well, there isn't much more to tell. Tom suggested that I come to see you and ask you to take Mr. Darcy's case—to prove that he had no hand in the murder—for I'm sure he did not.
"Tom stayed at our house at Pompey all night. I wanted to come to your hotel at once, but the storm got too bad, so I waited until this morning, and then we motored in. We found you had gone fishing, and we followed you here. It was, perhaps, not just the thing to do. But I was so anxious! I want to tell Jimmie that something is being done for him. You will help us, won't you?" and again she held out her hands appealingly.
"I don't know anything about police or detectives," she went on, "but
I'm sure there must be some way of proving that my—that Jimmie had no
hand in this. Some terrible thief—a burglar—must have killed Mrs.
Darcy. Oh, Colonel Brentnall, you will help us—won't you?"
She stood there, a beautiful and pathetic picture. The wind sighed through the trees and the murmur of the rippling water filled the air.
"Please!" she whispered. Her hands seemed to waver. Her body swayed.
"Shag, you black rascal!" cried the colonel. "The lady's going to faint! Catch her!"
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
"No! Stand back! I'll attend to her myself! I've given up detective work, but—"
And a moment later Amy Mason sank limply into the colonel's arms.