Sorrowfully enough Colonel Ashley told how it had happened, showing the poisoned watch, but not disclosing the fact that it was the one which had figured in the deaths of Mrs. Darcy and Shere Ali. And as nothing had yet been made public to the effect that the watch, which had had a part in both cases, was more than an ordinary timepiece Mr. Bland did not connect it with these two deaths. Colonel Ashley let it be understood that the watch was a curiosity having to do with some case he was investigating.

"And if I had even dreamed that your dog would take it off the stool to worry it, as he might a bone, I'd never have let him in here," said the detective. "I can't tell you how sorry I am, Mr. Bland, for I loved Chet almost as much as you did."

"I know--I know! And he liked you. Poor little dog! Poor little dog!"

Tenderly they bore him out, the colonel insisting that no one touch him with ungloved hands, and a little later Chet was quietly buried.

"But what are you going to do about that watch--and all that it means?"

asked Jack Young, later, when he was about to depart to take up the shadowing of Harry King.

"I'm going to see how it's made and try to learn whether or not Darcy was aware of its deadly nature. If he was--"

The colonel did not finish.

"Well, I'll get on my way," said Jack, after a pause. "I'll keep in touch with you, in case you need me."

"And don't lose sight of Harry King," was the parting admonition.

"Something just as unexpected as this may turn up in his case," and the colonel motioned to the watch.

Left to himself, the detective looked at the timepiece on his table, now silent in its tissue wrapping. The needle, which under the magnifying gla.s.s was shown to be hollow, probably drawing the poison from some receptacle inside the case, had slipped back out of sight when the pressure was removed from the rim.

"The watch of death!" mused the colonel. "I must see how you are made inside, and I think I'd better have a professional perform an autopsy on you. I'll send for Kettridge. He knows all about watches, though I question if he ever saw one like this."

The colonel was about to use his telephone when it rang and, answering it, he was told that another visitor wished to see him.

"Who is it?" he asked the clerk downstairs.

"Mr. Aaron Grafton."

"Send him up."

Grafton was plainly nervous as he entered the room; and the colonel, had he not been a man of experience, might have allowed this nervousness to influence his judgment, and bring into too much prominence the first suspicions the detective had felt regarding this man.

"Ah, Mr. Grafton, you wish to see me?"

"Only for a moment, Colonel Ashley. I don't like to call on you thus openly, for it might give rise to all sorts of questions, but--"

"Oh, don't let that worry you. I'm a detective, and known as such now.

And you, as the owner of a large department store, where shop-lifting and other crimes may be committed any day, are often in need of the services of detectives, I should say."

"I am, but--"

"Well, don't worry. If any one knows of your coming to me they will imagine you wish to consult me about something connected with your store. So don't let that influence you. But has anything else happened?"

"Yes," answered Mr. Grafton, "there has."

"What?" asked the colonel.

"Well, I've come to say that I don't think I'll need your services any more."

"Not need them?"

"No. And I wish to pay you and thank you. I'm ever so much obliged to you for what you have done--"

"But I haven't done anything yet. I haven't--Oh, I see. You are not satisfied with my work on your behalf. Well, I can't say I blame you, for really I haven't had time to give it as much consideration as I'd like. Still that couldn't be helped and--"

"Oh, don't misunderstand me, Colonel Ashley. I am not at all dissatisfied," and Mr. Grafton held up a protesting hand. "The truth is, I'll not need your services in helping me to recover the diamond cross for Mrs. Larch--or Miss Ratchford, as she calls herself since the separation. You can drop that case, Colonel."

"Drop it?"

"Yes, the diamond cross has been recovered. I just had a letter from Cyn--from Miss Ratchford, saying she has the cross."

"She has the missing diamond cross?" fairly cried the detective.

"Yes."

"Where did she get it. Could Spotty--" The colonel whispered the last name to himself and then stopped short.

"I don't know. I just had a telegram from her, and I am going to see her now to learn the particulars," went on Aaron Grafton. "She is in Pompey, you know--where she used to live as a girl, and where I-- Well, I'm going to see her. I came to tell you the diamond cross mystery is solved and if you will let me know what I owe you I'll send you a check."

"Oh, that part will be all right, Mr. Grafton. But I don't understand."

"Nor do I," flung back Aaron Grafton over his shoulder, as he left the colonel's room, rather hastily. "I'll tell you as soon as I've seen Miss Ratchford. Good-bye!" and he was gone.

For a moment the colonel remained motionless in the middle of the room.

Then a queer look came over his face as he murmured:

"Now I wonder whether he's telling the truth--or lying! Is the diamond cross in her possession, or did Grafton say that so I'd drop the case and--leave him out of it? I wonder. And, by the same token of wondering I think I'd better not let you get too far away from me, Mr.

Grafton. You will bear a little closer watching."

CHAPTER XVII

"A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW"

"Well," remarked Colonel Ashley briskly to himself, "there are two or three things I've got to do, and do them right away. Which shall I tackle first? I wonder if it won't be best to have Kettridge come here and perform the autopsy on that watch," and he looked toward the closet where he had placed the one that had belonged to Singa Phut. "If I can look inside that, and see whether or not the mechanism is so obvious that Darcy must have stumbled on it when he started to repair it--if he did--then, well, that complicates matters. Yes, I think I must see Kettridge."

Once more the colonel started toward his room telephone, intending to summon the jeweler, who was living over the store in Mrs. Darcy's rooms.

The colonel paused at the instrument, recalling that, as he had been about to use it before there had come in a call for him--the call announcing the department-store keeper.

But this time the instrument was mute, and the colonel had soon asked central for the telephone in the apartments now occupied by Mr.

Kettridge. There was a period of waiting.

"I am ringing Marcy 5426," announced the pleasant voice of the girl in the central office.

"Thank you," responded the detective.