"Maybe," a.s.sented the colonel unruffled.

"Who else could have croaked her?" pursued Carroll. "Here he goes and has a quarrel with the old lady just before he goes to bed. He's sore at her because he thinks she's keeping back part of his coin. Then he's sore because she made some cracks about his girl--that's enough to get any man riled. I don't blame Darcy for going off his nut. But he shouldn't have croaked the old lady. He done it all right, and we got the goods on him! You'll see!"

"Well, it's your business, of course--yours and that of the prosecutor--to prove him guilty," said the colonel. "And you can't quarrel with me if I try to prove him innocent."

"Sure not, Colonel. Every man's got to earn his bread and b.u.t.ter somehow. Only I hate to see you kid yourself along believing this guy didn't do the job. He done it, I tell you!"

"Maybe," half a.s.sented the colonel. "Thank you, Dr. Warren. We shall meet again," and, with a military salute, the colonel went out of police headquarters. As he descended the steps he silently mused:

"I wonder what Carroll and Thong would say if they knew about the diamond cross, and heard that Spotty Morgan had it? I guess they would change some of their theories then. Which reminds me that I have more irons in the fire than I suspected. I must not lose sight of Cynthia.

She will be getting anxious about her diamonds, and I would like to see what she says when she hears the truth."

Though Colonel Ashley had given up all hopes of having a use for his beloved fishing rods and flies, at least on this trip to Colchester, he did not give up his perusal of Walton's book.

It was one evening while sitting in his room at the hotel, idly turning over the pages, hardly able to concentrate his mind on what he read for much thinking of the diamond cross mystery, that his eye chanced on page 170, where he saw the pa.s.sage:

"There be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot, that are all without scales--"

The book dropped from the detective's hand.

"Gad!" he exclaimed. "That's what I've been forgetting--the _little_ fish. I must get after some of them. They may turn the scale in our favor. Little fish! That's it. Small fry, when you can't get big ones! I wonder--"

There was a knock at the door and s.h.a.g entered, bowing and saluting military style at the same time.

"Scuse me, Colonel, sah," he began, "but does yo' want t' heah any news?"

"Any news, s.h.a.g? What sort? Come, speak up, you rascal!"

"Well, sah, Colonel, yo' done tell me, when we come heah, not t'

trouble yo' wif any detective news, but--"

"Oh, that was before I got mixed up in this Darcy case, s.h.a.g. The prohibition is off, so to speak. If you have any news--"

"No, sah, Colonel, 'tisn't 'bout po' ole Miss Darcy--leastways not _much_ about her. But dere's been annudder murder in town."

"Another murder?"

"Yes, Colonel. Boys on de streets yellin' extry papers now, all 'bout de murder."

"Who is it? Where? When did it happen?"

"Jest 'bout a hour ago. It's a man--a Indian man whut kept a curiosity shop--de same place where yo' an' me was lookin' at dem funny snake candlesticks las' week."

"Singa Phut's place? Great Scott, s.h.a.g! You don't mean to tell me, _he's_ killed, do you?"

"No, sah, Colonel! Dat Mr. Phut ain't killed. It's his partner. He's got a funny name, too. Heah, I done brought yo' a paper," and s.h.a.g pulled out an extra from under his vest, where he had carefully kept it concealed until he had made sure of his master's frame of mind.

The colonel scanned the front page with its black type eagerly. Surely enough, there had been a murder. Shere Ali, Singa Phut's partner, had been found lying on the floor of the little curiosity shop with his head crushed in.

"And in the dead man's hand was a ticking watch," read the colonel.

For a moment he stared at the words. Then a light seemed to come over his face. He crushed the paper in his hand, and then spread it out to read again the startling news, while he murmured:

"The watch of death!"

CHAPTER XI

NO ALIMONY

"s.h.a.g!" exclaimed the colonel.

"Yes, sah!"

"We're going fishing tomorrow!"

"Is we, Colonel? Den I s'pects yo'll want t' git--"

"Get everything ready, yes. We'll go again to that place where Miss Mason found me. There's as good fish in that stream as any I didn't catch, and I want to try my luck."

"Yes, sah, Colonel. But, scuse me, didn't yo, figger on doin' some detectin' an' give up fishin'?" and s.h.a.g, with the freedom of an old servant, stood looking at his master as if not quite understanding the new twist the affairs had taken.

"That's all right, s.h.a.g. You do as I tell you. I'm going off fishing.

I may not catch anything--I may not want to after I get there. But for a quiet place to think, give me a fishing excursion every time! And I've got to do some tall thinking now. Get ready, s.h.a.g!"

"Yes, sah, Colonel!"

And, having put himself in a fair way, as he hoped, to solve some of the problems connected with the Darcy case, Colonel Ashley went down to police headquarters to learn more facts in connection with the murder of the East Indian.

Carroll and Thong were there, and if they did not exactly welcome the colonel as a kindred spirit they at least accorded him the respect due a fellow craftsman in the peculiar line where talent may be found most unexpectedly. And Carroll and Thong who, with other headquarters men, now knew the colonel's ident.i.ty, were not above learning a trick or two, even if they had to take them from the book of their rival. For they recognized that the colonel would be against them and the prosecutor's detectives when it came to the trial of James Darcy.

"Well, boys, what's this I hear about another murder?" asked Colonel Ashley when he had pa.s.sed over some of his cigars, the flavor of which the two headquarters men had been longing to taste again.

"Some Dago had his head busted in," remarked Thong. "It isn't our case, so we don't know much about it."

"No? Who has it?"

"Pinkus and Donovan; haven't they, Carroll?"

"Yep." Carroll was too much engaged in watching the blue smoke curl lazily upward from his cigar just then to say more.

"Like to talk with 'em about it?" went on Thong, in friendlier tones.

"If they're here, yes."

"I think they just came in," said Thong, bringing his feet down with a bang from the table on which he had had them elevated. "Are you going to work on that case, Colonel?"