CHAPTER XX
IN THE SHADOWS
Colonel Ashley, after a night's sleep, was about to prepare for the trip, when he thought of Darcy in jail.
"I've got to send him word," he reasoned. "No, I'll let his sweetheart take it to him. It will be all the sweeter. Here, Shag!" he called.
"Yes, sah, Colonel! Whut is it?"
"Get me an auto, Shag—any kind of car will do. I want to take a run out to Pompey where Miss Mason lives. I won't trust the telephone, and I'll have time enough before I leave for the West. Get an auto."
"Yes, sah, Colonel!" and Shag hurried down to the hotel office.
It was while getting into the machine that a message was handed the colonel. Hastily he tore the note open. It was from James Darcy and read:
"Have just been informed they are going to put me on trial to-morrow for the murder of Mrs. Darcy. I don't know what this unexpected move on the part of the prosecutor means, but I would like to see you."
"Whew!" whistled the colonel. "I never counted on this. Maybe the prosecution has something up their sleeve they're waiting to spring. They're trying to get ahead of me. Well, by gad, sir, they shan't! I'll beat 'em yet. This trip West will have to wait. Shag, you keep this auto here. I'm going into the hotel to telephone."
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
Getting Kenneth on the wire, the detective ascertained that the message from Darcy was correct—the trial was to go on unexpectedly.
"I may be able to get a postponement," said the lawyer, "but it would not be safe to count on it. We had better prepare our defense. Are you all ready, Colonel?"
"Not quite. I've got to get a certain man back here from the West, but I can send for him. I'll not go myself, it's too risky. See what you can do about getting a postponement. It will be so much better if we can. I was going to tell Miss Mason to go and give some good news to Darcy, but maybe I'd better wait now."
"Can you produce the real murderer, Colonel Ashley?"
"I can, Mr. Kenneth. Don't let that worry you. When I want him I can lay my hands on the real murderer! He can't get away! We'll have our little surprise, too!"
"Good! That will make Darcy feel better. I think I'll go to see him!"
"All right. And if you want to arrange for Miss Mason to visit him I think it would be a good thing. He may never go to trial, and then again he might, and, as you never can count on legal tangles, all the sentiment you can work up in his favor will be so much gained. You might let a discreet reporter know about Miss Mason's going to the jail."
"I will, Colonel, and thanks for the tip!"
But James Darcy did not go to trial the next day. Up to the last minute it looked as though he would, and he was even brought down from jail to the courtroom where a great crowd had assembled in anticipation of the opening of the now celebrated case.
But, when the judge took his place on the bench, and the criers had proclaimed silence, there was a whispered conference among the prosecutor and his detectives, in which Carroll and Thong took part. Then the judge was consulted and Darcy's lawyer was called to the bench. He was observed to be protesting against something, and finally the prosecutor went back to his seat at the table opposite the one where Darcy sat with his counsel.
"Have you any cases to move this morning, Mr. Prosecutor?" asked the court in formal tones.
"May it please your Honor," began Mr. Bardon, "I had hoped to move the case of the State against James Darcy, indicted for murder, but, at the last minute, I find that one of my important witnesses is unable to be in attendance and, under those circumstances, I am compelled to ask for an adjournment of two weeks.
"I regret, as regards the counsel on the other side, having to do this, as he assures me he is ready and anxious to go to trial, but it is unavoidable, and I promise this, that if the witness referred to is not here two weeks from to-day, I will go on with the case anyhow."
"Have you anything to say, Mr. Kenneth?" asked the judge of Darcy's lawyer.
"Only that I regret the delay as much as does the prosecutor, and that we will be ready any time. I should prefer to go on with the trial now, but I realize that the matter is out my hands."
"The case then stands adjourned for two weeks," announced the court, and the officer, arising, announced:
"The case of the State against James Darcy postponed for two weeks, and all witnesses for the prosecution and for the defence will then appear without further notice."
There was a hum of disappointment, and most of the crowd filed out when the prosecutor moved a case of assault and battery. Darcy, with a look at Amy Mason, which she returned with one of assurance and confidence, was taken back to jail.
Colonel Ashley read:
"Let your bait be as big a red worm as you can find."
"Spotty is certainly red," mused the fisherman. He was sitting, after the adjournment, in his hotel room. "Red and freckled. As for bait—"
Musingly he closed the little green book and watched the smoke curl lazily from his cigar.
Several days went by. The colonel was seated in his hotel room, his finger between the leaves of a little green book, smoking and reading. The telephone rang sharply.
"Hello. Oh, it's you, is it, Basset. So you got back with Spotty, did you? Good! No trouble on the trip? Fine! All right, I'll wait here for you. No, the trial went off for two weeks. You're in plenty of time. I'll expect you soon. Good-bye."
An hour later the man he had sent West to bring on Spotty Morgan entered his room. This man, a detective from the colonel's office, had been instructed by wire to go to a certain city and there, without the formality of requisition papers, which Spotty more or less generously waived, bring on the prisoner.
"Well, what does he say, Basset?" asked the colonel, when he had provided his man with a cigar. "What does he say?" and the voice was eager.
"Oh, he says he did it all right. And there's the cross," and Basset tossed on the table beside the colonel a battered cross of gold in which sparkled many stones with the limpid fire of hidden rainbows.
"Did he give any particulars?"
"Oh, yes, he come across with the whole story."
"What made him hold back on me then? He might have known I'd find out.
Why didn't he confess to me, Basset?"
"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, Basset, 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! Basset, 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 pawnshops. 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 Basset. "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.
"Hello," 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. Basset 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, Basset 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 Basset. "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 Basset 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 Basset.
"No, I can't say. Make yourself at home here. I'll tell 'em at the desk. Shag 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."