"If I did I wouldn't still be handling your case, Mr. Darcy," was the answer. "But I don't say that there isn't something to explain. I am, now, giving you the benefit of the doubt."

"Then maybe Amy will do the same."

It was not many hours before the colonel knew this point. The first edition afternoon papers had not long been out when the detective, who had gone to his hotel after an early morning visit to the jail, was telephoned to by Miss Mason.

"I happened to be in town, shopping," she said, and the agitation was plainly audible in her voice, "when I saw this terrible thing about Mr.

Darcy's wires and poor Sallie. Is she in any danger, Colonel?"

"I believe not."

"That's good! May I come to see you? I have something important to ask you."

"Yes, or I will come to see you, Miss Mason."

"No, I had rather come to your hotel, if you will meet me in the ladies' parlor. It will be secluded enough at this time."

And a little later Amy and the colonel were talking. The girl's haggard look told plainly of her distress.

"Tell me, frankly," she begged, "doesn't this make it look a little worse for Mr. Darcy?"

"Yes, Miss Mason, it does. I had best be frank with you. The prosecutor is bound to show that the presence of the wires, controlled by a switch from Mr. Darcy's table, were so arranged that he might shock his cousin, or any one who put his hands on the showcase. And they will, undoubtedly, argue that he planned this to make her insensible for his own purposes, whether it was that he did it in a fit of pa.s.sion to kill her for his fancied troubles, or to cover up a robbery. I am only making it thus bald that you may know and face the worst."

"I appreciate that, and I thank you. Then it does look bad for him?"

"It does."

"And how does he bear up under it?"

"Very well. His chief anxiety is regarding you. I realize this is a test of friendship, Miss Mason. A test of both the loyalty of yourself and your father, and--"

"Oh, you needn't worry about dad! He'll stick by Jimmie through thick and thin, for he says he knows he's innocent,"

"And yourself? How does your loyalty meet the test?"

Amy Mason drew herself up, a splendid figure of beautiful womanhood.

She flashed a look at the detective that made him stand to his full military height and bearing, and then she said:

"Do you think I'm going to let dad beat _me_? Oh, no, Colonel Ashley!"

So Amy Mason met the test.

CHAPTER XIX

WORD FROM SPOTTY

"Well," remarked Jack Young, as he critically observed the smoke from his cigar curling upward toward the ceiling in the colonel's hotel room, "we have our work cut out for us all right."

"I should say so!" agreed Mr. Kettridge, who sat before a little table, on top of which were strewed parts of a watch. Mr. Kettridge had a jeweler's magnifying gla.s.s stuck in one eye, and it gave him a most grotesque appearance as he glanced from the wheels, springs and levers, spread out in front of him, over to Colonel Ashley.

"There is only one thing to do, gentlemen," observed the detective, who had one finger keeping a certain place in a certain green book. "And that is--"

"Make an arrest at once!" exclaimed Young. "He may get away from us if we don't, drunk as he is."

"No, there's time enough for that," objected the colonel. "What I was going to say is that we must take one thing at a time. Otherwise we'll get into a tangle."

"I think we're in one now," said Young. "For the life of me I can't figure out who did the killing, and the only reason I said we ought to arrest Harry King is because there's some game on between him and Larch, and those diamonds King is trying to dispose of may be part of some of those Mrs. Darcy had, and about which she never said anything.

If King took them, he may have killed the old lady and he ought to be locked up and take his chance with Darcy."

"If he did it--yes," admitted the colonel. "But I haven't said he _did_. I haven't said Larch did it. I just don't know. Certainly King and Larch have been pretty thick of late, and Larch's bailing Harry out showed there was more than mere friendliness in it. And, as you say, Jack, if King or Larch sold some loose diamonds, it looks as though there was something wrong. But we don't want to make a mistake."

"If we don't do something pretty soon they'll so fasten this crime on Jimmie Darcy that you'll never be able to get him out of the tangle,"

said Mr. Kettridge, as he poked a pair of pliers among the parts of the watch. "Carroll and Thong, now that they know about the electrical wires, think they have all the evidence they need, and the prosecutor agrees with them, I guess."

"Still, we may be able to combat that," observed the colonel. "Now let me understand you about this watch, Mr. Kettridge. You don't believe Darcy ever put that poison needle arrangement in it?"

"No, I don't. That mechanism was built into the watch after it was originally made, I'm sure. But even so it was done a number of years ago. I can tell that by the type of small screws used. They don't make that kind in this country. Darcy never could have got possession of any, to say nothing of some of the other parts used."

Following some days of strenuous work after Amy Mason had expressed her belief in her lover's innocence in spite of the finding of the electric wires, and had urged the detective to use every endeavor to clear Darcy, the colonel had summoned Mr. Kettridge to hold a sort of autopsy over the Indian watch which was still in possession of the old detective. With the suicide of the East Indian the case had been dropped by Donovan and the authorities, they taking it for granted that Singa Phut had killed Shere Ali and then ended his own life, by help from outside in getting poison. So if Donovan thought anything about the watch, he said nothing.

"Then you think Darcy is cleared of any connection with the poison watch?" asked the colonel.

"I think so--yes," answered the jeweler. "As a matter of fact, I don't believe Jimmie did any repair work on it at all. Singa Phut brought it in to have it fixed, it is true, but Jimmie was a great chap for promising work and then not having it ready on time. I've known him to do that more than once, and he lost Mrs. Darcy customers that way. He probably promised Singa Phut to have the watch ready for him, and then, either in working on his pet invention, the electric lathe, or because of his quarrel with his cousin, forgot about the East Indian's watch.

He may, as he says, have gotten up early to redeem his promise to repair it."

"But he never did?" asked the colonel.

"It bears no evidence of it," and the jeweler focused his gla.s.s on the dismembered timepiece.

"Do you think he knew the deadly nature of the watch?" went on the detective.

"It is doubtful. This watch is of peculiar construction. As I have showed you, the poison needle could only be made to protrude when the watch reached a certain time, which time could be set in advance as an alarm clock is set. I think this is what happened, though I may be wrong.

"Singa Phut, for purposes of his own, had this poisoned watch in his possession. He, of course, knew just what it would do, and how to set it so that if a person, at a certain hour, took it into his or her hands, and exerted any pressure on the rim, the needle would shoot out and puncture the flesh. The poison on the point then caused death."

"And very speedy death," added the colonel. "Witness what happened to poor little Chet. The watch was wound up--I wound it myself as a matter of fact, though I did not dream that the time mechanism had anything to do with the poisoned needle. Then the dog, playing with it, as he would with a bone, bit on the rim, just at the time when the needle was set to operate. It shot out, punctured his lip, and Chet died."

"Did you know it was a poisoned watch?" asked Jack Young.

"I had guessed that after what happened, and that is why I warned Donovan to be careful. But, as I said, I thought it was like a sword cane or a spring dagger--that only pressure on a certain part was needed to force out the needle with its death-carrying smear of some subtle Indian poison. I never dreamed it was like an alarm clock."

"Well, it was," said Mr. Kettridge. "I can easily see all the parts, now that I have taken it apart, and the time-setting arrangement is very compact, simple and effective."

"You were careful not to scratch yourself on the needle?" asked the colonel quickly.

"Oh, yes indeed! I took that out first. But do you think, Colonel, in spite of what I have said about Jimmie not knowing how this watch operated, and, presumably, not having done any work on it--do you think he can have planned to kill Mrs. Darcy with it?"