"Well, it's your business, of course—yours and that of the prosecutor—to prove him guilty," said the colonel. "And you can't quarrel with me if I try to prove him innocent."
"Sure not, Colonel. Every man's got to earn his bread and butter somehow. Only I hate to see you kid yourself along believing this guy didn't do the job. He done it, I tell you!"
"Maybe," half assented the colonel. "Thank you, Dr. Warren. We shall meet again," and, with a military salute, the colonel went out of police headquarters. As he descended the steps he silently mused:
"I wonder what Carroll and Thong would say if they knew about the diamond cross, and heard that Spotty Morgan had it? I guess they would change some of their theories then. Which reminds me that I have more irons in the fire than I suspected. I must not lose sight of Cynthia. She will be getting anxious about her diamonds, and I would like to see what she says when she hears the truth."
Though Colonel Ashley had given up all hopes of having a use for his beloved fishing rods and flies, at least on this trip to Colchester, he did not give up his perusal of Walton's book.
It was one evening while sitting in his room at the hotel, idly turning over the pages, hardly able to concentrate his mind on what he read for much thinking of the diamond cross mystery, that his eye chanced on page 170, where he saw the passage:
"There be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot, that are all without scales—"
The book dropped from the detective's hand.
"Gad!" he exclaimed. "That's what I've been forgetting—the little fish. I must get after some of them. They may turn the scale in our favor. Little fish! That's it. Small fry, when you can't get big ones! I wonder—"
There was a knock at the door and Shag entered, bowing and saluting military style at the same time.