It took some little time, by calling and pounding outside her door, to arouse deaf Sallie Page, and longer to make her understand that she was wanted. Then, just as Darcy had expected, she began to cry and moan when she heard her mistress was dead, and refused to come from her room. She had served the owner of the jewelry store for more than a score of years.

"Hark!" exclaimed Mulligan, as he and Darcy came downstairs after having roused Sallie Page. "What's that?"

"Some one is knocking," remarked his companion.

"Maybe it's the men from headquarters."

It was--Carroll and Thong, who always teamed it when there was a case of sufficient importance, as this seemed to be. They were insistently knocking at the side door, having forced their way through the crowd that was still there--larger than ever, maintaining positions in spite of the dripping, driving, drizzling rain.

"Killed, eh?" murmured Carroll, as he bent over the body.

"Gun?" asked Thong, who was making a quick visual inventory of the interior of the place.

"No; doesn't seem so. Looks more like her head's been busted in. Hit with something. Doc Warren can 'tend to that end of it. Now let's get down to business. Who found her this way?"

"I did," answered Darcy.

"And who are you?"

"Her second cousin. Her name was Mrs. Amelia Darcy, and her husband and my father were first cousins. I have worked for her about seven years--ever since just after her husband died. She continued his business. It's one of the oldest in the city and--"

"Yes, I know all about that. Robbery here once--before your time. We got back some of the stuff for the old lady. She treated us pretty decent, too. When'd you find her like this?"

"About half an hour ago. I got up a little before six o'clock to do some repair work on a man's watch. He wanted to get the early train out of town."

"I see! And you found the old lady like this?" asked Carroll.

"Just like this--yes. Then I called in the milkmen--"

"I saw them," interrupted Mulligan. "I know 'em. They're all right, so I let 'em go. We can get 'em after they finish their routes."

"Um," a.s.sented Thong. "Anything gone from the store?" he asked Darcy.

"I haven't looked."

"Better take a look around. It's probably a robbery. You know the stock, don't you?"

"As well as she did herself. I've been doing the buying lately."

"Well, have a look. Who's that at the door?" he asked sharply, for a knock as of authority sounded--different from the aimless and impatient kickings and tappings of the wet throng outside.

"It's Daley from the Times," reported Mulligan, peering out. "He's all right. Shall I let him in?"

"Oh, yes, I guess so," a.s.sented Carroll, with a glance at Thong, who confirmed, by a nod of his head, what his partner said. "He'll give us what's right. Let him in."

The reporter entered, nodded to the detectives, gave a short glance at the body, a longer one at Darcy, poked Mulligan in the ribs, lighted a cigarette, which he let hang from one lip where it gyrated in eccentric circles as he mumbled:

"What's the dope?"

"Don't know yet," answered Carroll. "The old lady's dead--murdered it looks like--and--"

"What's that?" interrupted Thong. "What's that ticking sound?"

"It's the watch--in her hand," replied Darcy, and his voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

CHAPTER II

KING'S DAGGER

Carroll and Thong, proceeding along the lines they usually followed in cases like this, keeping to the rules which had come to them through the instructions of superior officers, and some which they had worked out for themselves, had, in a comparatively short time, ascertained the name, age and somewhat of the personal history of Mrs. Amelia Darcy, together with that of her cousin, as the detectives called him, though the relationship was not as close as that.

Mrs. Darcy, who was sixty-five years of age, had carried on the jewelry business of her husband, Mortimer Darcy, after his death, which preceded her more tragic one by about seven years. Mortimer Darcy had been a diamond salesman for a large New York house in his younger days, and had come to be an expert in precious stones. Many good wishes, and not a little trade, had gone to him from his former employers, and some of their customers bought of him when he went into business for himself in the thriving city of Colchester.

Knowing that to start anew in a strange town would mean uphill work for him and his wife, Mortimer Darcy had awaited an opportunity to buy the business of a man whom he had known for a number of years and to whom he had sold many diamonds and other stones. This man--Harrison Van Doren by name--had what was termed the best jewelry trade in Colchester. The "old" families--not that any of them could trace their ancestry back very far--liked to say that "we get all our stuff at Van Doren's."

This name, on little white plush-lined boxes, containing pins or sparkling rings, came to mean almost as much as some of the more expensive names in New York. Young ladies counted it a point in the favor of their lovers if the engagement circlet came from Van Doren's.

And Mortimer Darcy, knowing the value of that cla.s.s of trade, had, when he purchased Mr. Van Doren's business fostered that spirit. Mrs.

Darcy, on the death of her husband, had further catered to it, so that the Darcy establishment, though it was not the richest or most showy in Colchester, was safely counted the most exclusive--that is, it had a full line of the best goods, be it clocks or diamonds, and it had what, in bygone days, was called a "carriage trade," but which is now referred to as "automobile."

That is to say, those, aside from a casual trade with people who dropped in as they might have done to a grocery, to get what they really needed in the way of jewelry, came in gasolene or electric cars where their ancestors had come with horses and carriage.

So Darcy's jewelry store was known, and though a bit old-fashioned in a way, was favorably known, not only to the older members of the rich families of the place, but to the younger set as well. The pretty girls and their well-groomed companions of the "a.s.sembly Ball" set liked to stop in there for their rings, brooches, scarf pins or cuff links, and very frequent were the rather languid orders:

"You may send it, charge."

It was to that cla.s.s of trade that Mrs. Darcy catered. She understood it, and it understood her. That was enough. She took a personal interest in the business to the extent of being in the store almost every day, as her husband had been before her, to advise and be available for consultation, whether it was the buying of a gold teething ring for the newest member of the family, an engagement ring for the latest debutante, a watch for "son," attaining his majority, or perhaps new gold gla.s.ses for grandpapa or grandmama.

The store was not a large one, and four clerks, one a young woman, with James Darcy and an a.s.sistant, who looked after the repair work and made anything unusual in the way of pins or rings, const.i.tuted the force.

But Mrs. Darcy was as good as a clerk herself, and during the holiday rush she was in the store night and day. This was the easier for her, since she owned the building in which her display was kept, and lived in a quiet and tastefully furnished apartment over the store.

On the death of her husband, she had sent for his second cousin, who at that time was in the employ of a well-known New York jewelry house, and he agreed to come to her.

Rather more than a repair man and clerk was James Darcy. He was an expert jewelry designer and a setter of precious stones; and often, when some fastidious customer did not seem to care for what was shown from the glittering trays in the showcases, Mrs. Darcy or one of her clerks would say:

"We will have Mr. Darcy design something different for you."

"That's what I want," the customer would say--"something different--something you don't see everywhere."

And so the Darcy trade had grown and prospered.

"Well, let's hear what you have to say," said Carroll, after James Darcy had given what the detectives considered was, for the time, a sufficient history of himself and his relative, and had hastily gone over such of the stock as was kept outside the safe. The latter had not been forced open--it did not take long to ascertain that. "Is anything gone?"

"I can't say for sure," answered the young man--he was this side of thirty. His long, artistic fingers were trembling, and he felt weak and faint. "But if there has been a robbery they didn't get much. The safe hasn't been opened, and the best of the goods--all the diamonds and other stones--are in that. Nothing seems to be gone from the cases, though I'd have to make a better search, and go over the inventory, to make certain."

"Well, let that go for the time. How'd you find things when you came downstairs? What happened during the night? Any of the doors or windows forced?" and the detective fairly shot these questions at Darcy,