Why didn't he confess to me, Ba.s.set?"

"Well, I guess it's just as he says--he didn't want to split on a pal.

But when his pal went back on him--"

"What do you mean--his pal went back on him?" asked the colonel, and there was uneasiness in his voice. "And, while you're about it, Ba.s.set, don't handle that cross so carelessly. It's worth several thousand dollars--a small fortune maybe--and some of the stones may be loose. They might fall out."

"That wouldn't hurt, Colonel. I reckon maybe I did lose one or two on the way back, careless like."

"You lost some of those diamonds?" The colonel's voice was sharp.

"Diamonds? Diamonds nothin'! Them's paste, Colonel. That's what made Spotty sore. His pal done him dirt, and that's why he split. The whole cross is made of phoney diamonds--paste!"

"Paste diamonds! Spotty's pal fooled him! What do you mean?" gasped the colonel, his apprehension growing. "Isn't this the diamond cross that Mrs. Larch owned? And yet, if this is here, how could her husband send it to her? And Spotty! Ba.s.set, what _does_ it all mean?"

"Well, Colonel, I don't know whose cross this is, but whoever lost it didn't lose much. It's worth about ten dollars, I guess, and say, if ever there was a sore crook it's Spotty! He says when he and Blue Ike planned to rob Grafton's store they thought there was some real jewelry there."

"Rob Grafton's store!" cried the colonel. "Didn't Spotty confess to stealing this diamond cross from Mrs. Darcy, and killing her because she wouldn't let him get away with it?"

"Colonel this is the first I've come on the case, and all I know is I was sent on to bring Spotty back. I wasn't told he was charged with murder."

"He wasn't exactly _charged_ with it, but-- Well, go on, what did he confess to?"

"Just robbery, that's all, and he didn't get much. He and Blue Ike cracked a crib here one night. From what Spotty says they got in Aaron Grafton's department store, opened the safe the way Ike always does, by listening to the tumblers in the lock, and took out some jewelry.

There wasn't much--they picked the wrong safe I guess, but anyhow they took this cross. Had a fight over it, too, and it got stepped on, or banged up in some way, Spotty says. Then they heard a noise and skipped. Spotty kept the cross, and thought he'd have enough salted down, when he sold it, to live easy for a while.

"He and Ike met out West and tried to sell the diamond cross to a fence and got pinched as suspicious characters by the bulls who were making their regular round of the p.a.w.nshops. Ike squealed on Spotty for another job after they give him the third degree, and when Spotty heard of that it made him sore, as it would anybody. Then when the two bulls who pinched Spotty and Ike tested the diamonds in the cross and found they was phoney--as they might have guessed coming from a department store--Spotty was fit to be tied, he was so wild! So he up and confessed. Said he knew you wanted him for the job and was sorry he made so much trouble. To send word to you that he'd come on and stand trial."

"But, stars and stripes! I didn't want him for this little robbery job!" cried the colonel, "I didn't even know he did it! I was after him for the murder of Mrs. Darcy, where I thought he got the diamond cross. And to think the jewels are paste!" and the colonel looked at them sparkling in the electric light as bravely as though they were worth a fortune instead of being what a poor shop girl might wear to a bricklayer's ball.

"Well, that's all I know about it," said Ba.s.set. "Spotty wanted me to tell you he'd confessed, and he's dead sore on Blue Ike."

For several seconds the colonel said nothing, and then he shook his head as a dog might on emerging from deep water, and remarked:

"Well, I've got to take another tack, I guess. Tell Spotty I'll arrange to have him bailed. It'll be easy on a mere theft charge. But how in thunder am I going to get Darcy off if I haven't any one to offer--"

The tinkle of the telephone bell interrupted the colonel's half-aloud musing.

"h.e.l.lo," he said into the transmitter. "Oh, that you, Jack? Well, what's up now?"

For a moment the colonel listened intently, many emotions flashing across his face. Ba.s.set toyed idly with the jeweled cross, which sparkled as bravely as the real stones might have done.

"Yes--yes," said the colonel impatiently. "Go on, Jack!"

And in a few more seconds the colonel added:

"All right! I'll get right after him! Out toward Pompey you say? All right, I'll shadow him! By the way, Ba.s.set is here. He brought on Spotty Morgan. Come on over to my room and have a talk with him.

He'll tell you the yarn--It'll surprise you--I haven't time. I'm going to get right out!" and the receiver went on the hook with a bang.

"Anything I can do, Colonel?" asked Ba.s.set. "I'm sorry to have to disappoint you about this cross, but--"

"Oh, that was my own fault, for taking too much for granted. I should have asked Grafton more questions, and gotten a description of Mrs.

Larch's ornament. He never said anything to me about being robbed."

"Maybe he didn't count this, it not being worth much," and Ba.s.set flipped the sparkling cross half way across the table.

"Maybe not, and yet--"

But if the colonel had any thoughts regarding Aaron Grafton he kept them to himself as he made ready to go out.

"Know when you'll be back?" asked Ba.s.set.

"No, I can't say. Make yourself at home here. I'll tell 'em at the desk. s.h.a.g will be over presently. One of you stay here so I can telephone in if I have to. You'd better plan to stay all night if I don't get back."

"Want to say where you're going?"

"I suppose I'd better. I'm going to Pompey."

"Out where you said Mrs. Larch is staying?"

"Yes, only she doesn't call herself that now."

"I understand."

"She's taken her maiden name again since the separation. Yes, I'm going to Pompey, and it may be night when I get there. I'll have to do any shadowing among the shadows I guess, as I've often cast for trout.

But, dark or light, I think I'll bring home the right fish this time."

And so, as the early shadows of the late afternoon were slanting over Colchester the old detective boarded a train, keeping in view a well-dressed, freshly-shaven individual, who, for all his slickness and sleekness, seemed to have about him the air of a tiger. His hands, in new gloves, slowly clasped and unclasped, as though he would have liked to twine the fingers about the soft throat of a victim.

"Yes," murmured the colonel, as he sank into his seat, "I think I'll bring home the big fish this time."

CHAPTER XXI

SWIRLING WATERS

At the little station of Pompey the colonel saw his man leave the train. For the wily fisherman to slip from the car on the other side of the track and get behind a tool shanty, was the work of but a moment, and as the train pulled out, and puffed on its way, the detective, peering around the corner of the shed, which housed a handcar and other tools of the section hands, had a glimpse of his "fish," as he facetiously termed him, standing rather irresolutely on the station platform.

"Now for the next move," murmured the colonel.

It was not long in being played.

The man went inside the station, but the detective did not come from his post of observation. The depot was so small that any one leaving it, even on the side away from the tracks, would be seen as soon as he had pa.s.sed beyond the shadows. But the man evidently had no intention of going away. He came out again on the front platform, accompanied by a boy--one, seemingly, who ran errands and delivered telegrams when any came to disturb the peaceful solitude of Pompey.

"I must see that note!" murmured Colonel Ashley, as he saw one handed to the boy. "If he goes in the direction I think he will, I'll get it too! I think I know the lady to whom it is addressed."

The boy talked with the man a little, nodded his head as if understanding, and then started off up the tracks, toward a path that led across a field and toward a cl.u.s.ter of village houses.