Ashley and Barker have been silent and interested listeners to this yarn by the major. As the latter and his friends rise Ashley rises also and taps the major on the shoulder. “Pardon the intrusion,” he says, with an engaging smile. “I have been vastly interested in your poker story, sir, for the reason that I think I know one of the players—Felton, I believe you called him. Do you happen to recall what sort of a looking chap he was?”
“Hanged if I remember,” replies the major, wondering at the other’s earnestness.
“Was he a rather tall, good-looking young fellow, with light-brown hair and eyes and a tawny mustache?” persists Ashley.
“Now that you speak of the mustache, I believe that your description fits him. He had a heavy, yellowish mustache, which he was in the habit of biting, as though his dinner did not suit him.”
“Thank you,” says Ashley. “Will you have something more to drink, gentlemen?”
But the major and his party take themselves off and Ashley resumes his seat with a satisfied smile.
“So, Barker, we hit it about right after all, eh?”
“It would appear so,” returns the detective complacently. “We now know what we have assumed to have been the case—that Ernest Stanley suffered imprisonment two years for another’s crime, and that the real criminal, the man who forged Cyrus Felton’s name, was none other than his son, Ralph Felton.”
As Barker pronounces these words Ashley hears a smothered exclamation behind him and turns quickly. But all he sees is a gentleman and lady gathering their wraps preparatory to taking their departure. The man’s back is toward Ashley, but the latter waits until the party faces his way and then for the space of a second their eyes meet.
“There is only one more selection, and it does not amount to much,” Van Zandt tells Mrs. Harding, and they join the crowd that is leaving the garden.