"That wouldn't hurt, Colonel. I reckon maybe I did lose one or two on the way back, careless like."
"You lost some of those diamonds?" The colonel's voice was sharp.
"Diamonds? Diamonds nothin'! Them's paste, Colonel. That's what made Spotty sore. His pal done him dirt, and that's why he split. The whole cross is made of phoney diamonds—paste!"
"Paste diamonds! Spotty's pal fooled him! What do you mean?" gasped the colonel, his apprehension growing. "Isn't this the diamond cross that Mrs. Larch owned? And yet, if this is here, how could her husband send it to her? And Spotty! Basset, what does it all mean?"
"Well, Colonel, I don't know whose cross this is, but whoever lost it didn't lose much. It's worth about ten dollars, I guess, and say, if ever there was a sore crook it's Spotty! He says when he and Blue Ike planned to rob Grafton's store they thought there was some real jewelry there."
"Rob Grafton's store!" cried the colonel. "Didn't Spotty confess to stealing this diamond cross from Mrs. Darcy, and killing her because she wouldn't let him get away with it?"
"Colonel this is the first I've come on the case, and all I know is I was sent on to bring Spotty back. I wasn't told he was charged with murder."
"He wasn't exactly charged with it, but— Well, go on, what did he confess to?"
"Just robbery, that's all, and he didn't get much. He and Blue Ike cracked a crib here one night. From what Spotty says they got in Aaron Grafton's department store, opened the safe the way Ike always does, by listening to the tumblers in the lock, and took out some jewelry. There wasn't much—they picked the wrong safe I guess, but anyhow they took this cross. Had a fight over it, too, and it got stepped on, or banged up in some way, Spotty says. Then they heard a noise and skipped. Spotty kept the cross, and thought he'd have enough salted down, when he sold it, to live easy for a while.
"He and Ike met out West and tried to sell the diamond cross to a fence and got pinched as suspicious characters by the bulls who were making their regular round of the pawnshops. Ike squealed on Spotty for another job after they give him the third degree, and when Spotty heard of that it made him sore, as it would anybody. Then when the two bulls who pinched Spotty and Ike tested the diamonds in the cross and found they was phoney—as they might have guessed coming from a department store—Spotty was fit to be tied, he was so wild! So he up and confessed. Said he knew you wanted him for the job and was sorry he made so much trouble. To send word to you that he'd come on and stand trial."