"Hardly. And yet it is possible that Mrs. Darcy may have been killed by the watch."

"Killed by it?--how?" gasped Jack Young. "I thought she was stabbed, and her skull fractured."

"She had both those injuries, it is true. But what is to have prevented her from having been punctured by the watch just before she received those hurts?

"I mean in this way," went on the colonel. "We will a.s.sume that Singa Phut, finding some trifling thing the matter with his devilish watch, brought it to the Darcy shop, where he was fairly well known.

"Darcy promised to fix the timepiece but neglected or forgot to do it, leaving it on his table. Then, remembering it early in the morning--perhaps feeling guilty at having spent part of the night working on his electric lathe--he got up to do as he had promised, and--"

"Finds his cousin dead!" interrupted Mr. Kettridge.

"So he _says_!" added Jack Young significantly.

"Well, we won't go into that," observed the colonel. "I was going to make another point. Leaving Darcy out of it, and a.s.suming that he had left the watch on his table intending to get up in the morning and fix it, what is to have prevented Mrs. Darcy from coming down to her store--say, before midnight, after Darcy left her.

"She saw the watch on the table, and, picking it up, may have wound it.

This set in motion the death-dealing mechanism, and her hand may have been punctured with the poison."

"But, even then," put in Young, as he puffed out another cloud of smoke, "if the poison from the watch killed her, why would any one strike her on the head and stab her?"

"That may have occurred just after her hand was punctured by the needle of the watch," said the detective, "and before the poison had time to work. It is not instantaneous."

"But who would have struck or stabbed her after that?" asked Mr.

Kettridge. "I mean, of course, leaving Jimmie out, for I don't believe he did it."

"Could not Singa Phut have done it?" asked Colonel Ashley quietly.

"Singa Phut!" cried both his auditors.

"Yes. Suppose, after he had left the watch to be repaired with young Darcy, the East Indian happened to think that he had not warned against winding it up, which a jeweler would be most apt to do after making repairs. Singa Phut had no reason for wishing harm to Darcy. He may have come to the store late at night intending to warn him to be careful."

"Well, a.s.suming that, what next?" asked Jack Young.

"Well, Singa, coming say at eleven o'clock to the jewelry store, finds Mrs. Darcy there. She has picked up the watch--she must have done that, for it was in her hand. Singa sees it and fearful of what might happen he rushes in and tries to take it away from her. She, thinking him a thief, resists and he, fearful that he will be caught and arrested as a robber, struggles to get the watch and to make his escape.

"Now remember that he is of excitable nature, that he is a foreigner, fearful of our laws, and that he knows the deadly nature of the poison in the watch. Could not he have both struck Mrs. Darcy with the hunter statue and stabbed her in trying to get away from her? That would account for the killing."

"But there would have been an alarm--the struggle would have made a noise," objected Jack Young.

"Yes, but there are not many people pa.s.sing the store around midnight.

Every one in the place had gone to bed--the sleeping rooms are quite a distance from the shop. Then, too, very little noise may have been made. I remember in the Peal case two strong and vigorous men battled at midnight, one killing the other, in a store on a main street in a big city. But trolley cars and autos going past drowned all sounds of the fight. It may have been so in this case."

"Are you going to offer that to the jury to clear Darcy?" asked Mr.

Kettridge.

"I may have to," was the colonel's answer. "How does it sound to you, gentlemen?"

"Very plausible," admitted Jack Young. "But what about the electric wires on Darcy's table?"

"They are a problem, I admit. However, though Carroll thinks he can prove they were arranged deliberately to shock any one who, at the proper moment, might touch the showcase, yet I think we can prove that an accidental crossing of perfectly harmless wires to Darcy's lathe with the city's electric light circuit may have caused the two accidents. That is a point I have yet to consider. But we have settled something regarding the watch, anyhow. Now, Jack, I want to talk to you about Harry King."

"He needs to be talked about," was the response. "I don't say he had anything to do with the murder--especially not after what you have said about Singa Phut. But Harry King needs watching."

"I agree with you. You say he and Larch have been looking at a packet of diamonds?"

"Yes; diamonds wrapped in those little squares of white paper that jewelers use. Looks like they'd been robbing a gem store."

"You don't know of any diamonds missing from Mrs. Darcy's stock, do you?" asked the colonel of Mr. Kettridge. "Mr. Young and I talked of this before but didn't settle it."

"No. But then she may have had a private stock of which Darcy nor I knew nothing. It is a point worth looking into."

"I agree with you. So stick to Harry, Jack, my boy."

"He won't require much sticking to at present. He and Larch are both so well pickled that they'll easily keep until morning."

"Well, watch them after that. Maybe you'd better put up at the Homestead."

"I will, though I guess it won't be the Homestead long."

"Why not?"

"Well, Larch is going to lose it, I hear. It's mortgaged up to the roof and he can't meet his payments. The old place has gone to the bow-wows since he started drinking, gambling, speculating and since his wife left him. All the decent crowd stopped coming."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the colonel. "Well, keep watch of Harry King. He may provide us with a clew that will make it possible to prove Darcy innocent more directly than by the inference of Singa Phut."

"And do you think Singa Phut killed his partner with the watch also, Colonel?" asked Jack.

"No. I imagine they quarreled over the possession of the watch, and Shere Ali, perhaps forgetting the deadly nature of it, or knowing the time mechanism was set not to go off for some hours, grabbed it away from Singa. Then came a quarrel and the killing with the candlestick.

However I don't want to speculate too far afield. We have certain matters settled at any rate."

"Yes, and I'll get back to the Homestead and watch King," observed Jack Young with a laugh.

"And I must get back to the shop," said Mr. Kettridge. "I have some work to do. Shall I leave the watch apart this way, Colonel?"

"Yes, I may need it to show to the jury. Leave it as it is, but put it under gla.s.s, and the needle away carefully. We may have to kill a rat in court as we did in Singa Phut's cell."

"I think we are coming on," mused Colonel Ashley, when his two visitors had gone. "I am ent.i.tled to a bit of recreation," and, opening his book, he read:

"Thus you having found and fitted for the place and depth thereof, then go home and prepare your ground-bait, which is, next to the fruit of your labors, to be regarded."

"I wonder," mused the colonel, "If my ground bait is all prepared? Am I right or wrong? If I could see the diamond cross that Grafton says Larch sent back to his wife--if I knew where he got it--"

The telephone rang.

"Yes, what is it?"

"A telegram for you, Colonel."

"Send it up!"