"Yes, sah, Colonel!"
"Hand me that little green book. I may have to be up all night, and I want something to read that will keep me awake," and the colonel slipped into his coat pocket the green volume. He was taking his fishing by a sort of "correspondence school method" it will be observed.
The detective busied himself about his apartment getting ready to go out, and from a suitcase which was closed with a complicated lock he took a number of articles which he stowed away in various pockets of his garments.
"Is yo' gwine be out all night, Colonel?" asked Shag.
"I can't say. I'm going to do a bit of shadow work and it may take me until sunrise. But you stay right here."
"Yes, sah, Colonel. I will."
"And now we'll see, Mr. Aaron Grafton," said the detective to himself, as he prepared to leave, "whether you're telling the truth or not. I think my one best bet is to follow you when you go to see Miss Cynthia!"
But before the colonel could leave the room there sounded the insistent ringing of his telephone bell.
"I wonder if that can be Kettridge," he mused. "And yet he wouldn't know that I had called him. Answer it, Shag," he directed. "It may be some one I don't care to talk to now. Don't say I'm here until you find out who it is."
"Yes, sah, Colonel!"