"Now I wonder whether he's telling the truth—or lying! Is the diamond cross in her possession, or did Grafton say that so I'd drop the case and—leave him out of it? I wonder. And, by the same token of wondering I think I'd better not let you get too far away from me, Mr. Grafton. You will bear a little closer watching."
CHAPTER XVII
"A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW"
"Well," remarked Colonel Ashley briskly to himself, "there are two or three things I've got to do, and do them right away. Which shall I tackle first? I wonder if it won't be best to have Kettridge come here and perform the autopsy on that watch," and he looked toward the closet where he had placed the one that had belonged to Singa Phut. "If I can look inside that, and see whether or not the mechanism is so obvious that Darcy must have stumbled on it when he started to repair it—if he did—then, well, that complicates matters. Yes, I think I must see Kettridge."
Once more the colonel started toward his room telephone, intending to summon the jeweler, who was living over the store in Mrs. Darcy's rooms.
The colonel paused at the instrument, recalling that, as he had been about to use it before there had come in a call for him—the call announcing the department-store keeper.
But this time the instrument was mute, and the colonel had soon asked central for the telephone in the apartments now occupied by Mr. Kettridge. There was a period of waiting.
"I am ringing Marcy 5426," announced the pleasant voice of the girl in the central office.
"Thank you," responded the detective.
Another period of waiting, and again the announcement of the girl, though the colonel had not manifested any impatience.