They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which
King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.
Colonel Ashley—or Colonel Brentnall as he had registered at the hotel—having, by means of a more or less adroit bit of camouflage, obtained possession of the newspaper containing an account of the murder of Mrs. Darcy, and of the holding of her cousin and Harry King on suspicion, tossed the journal on the bed beside his well-worn copy of the "Complete Angler." Then, to demonstrate his complete mastery over himself, he picked up the book, never so much as glancing at the black headlines, and read:
". . . I have found it to be a real truth that the very sitting by the river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for contemplation, but will invite the angler to it; . . ."
"I'm a fool!" exploded the colonel. "I came here to fish, and, first click of the reel, I go nosing around on the trail of a murder, when I vowed I wouldn't even dream of a case. I won't either,—that's flat! I'll get my rods in shape to go fishing to-morrow. It may clear. Then Shag and I—"
Slowly the book slipped from his hand. It fell on the bed with a soft thud, and a breeze from the partly opened window ruffled a page of the newspaper. The colonel, looking guiltily around the room, walked nearer to the bed, and then, as stealthily as though committing a theft, he picked up the Times. Softly he exclaimed:
"Gad! what's the use?"
A moment later, pulling his chair beneath an electric light, he began to read the account of the murder.
Pete Daley's story of the finding of the dead body of the owner of the jewelry store was a graphic bit of work. He described how Darcy, coming down in the gray dawn, had discovered the woman lying stark and cold, her head crushed and a stab wound in her side.
None of the details was lacking, though the gruesomeness was skilfully covered with some well-done descriptive writing. The wounds seemed to have been inflicted at the same time—one by the metal statue of a hunter found on the floor near the body, the other by a dagger-like paper cutter, admitted to be owned by Harry King, but which, with the blade blood-stained, was found on the jewelry bench of her cousin James Darcy.
The solution of the murder mystery depended on the answers to two questions, the reporter pointed out. First, which wound killed Mrs. Darcy? Second, who inflicted either or both wounds?