Colonel Ashley fumed, fretted, and fidgeted until he was on the verge of a sleepless night on his way back in the train. Then he bethought himself of his little green book, and he read:
"You are to know, then, that there is a night as well as a day fishing for a trout, and that in the night the best trout come out of their holes."
"Ah, ha," mused the colonel. "I think I shall have to do a little night fishing."
So saying, having read a little farther in his Izaak Walton, he went peacefully to his berth and awoke calmer and himself again.
But if the colonel felt refreshed on reaching Colchester, it was not because he felt that he was in a fair way to solve the problem—or, rather, the many problems connected with the Darcy murder.
"It's worse tangled than before," mused the old detective. "I wonder if Grafton— No, it couldn't be. But I must have a talk with his friend Cynthia. Ticklish business when a man goes out walking with a married woman and steps on her cross. There are complications and complications. I wonder when I'll begin to unravel some of them?"
For reasons of his own, the colonel said nothing to the police or county authorities in Colchester about the arrest of Spotty, nor did he mention that, nor the finding of the diamond cross, to Darcy or Grafton. He wanted to be sure of his ground before he told of this end of the affair.
"I wish I knew what to make of Grafton," mused the colonel, "His share in it—if share he had—is getting more complicated. Can he and Spotty be up to some trick between them and did the gunman get away with the cross? It wouldn't be the first time Spotty had hired out his services to a man who wanted something desperate done! Now in this case, Grafton may have wanted something from Mrs. Darcy she wasn't willing to do. In that case—"
The colonel shook his head.
"I guess," he half-whispered, "that Shag was right. This is going to be a mighty complicated case. Talk about a diamond cross, there may be a double-cross in it on the part of Grafton. I must watch you a bit closer, my friend."