Continuing his musing, and with a satisfied smile on his face, a smile that might indicate that the colonel was not so very much averse to giving over his fishing for the time being to take up his profession once more, he followed Aaron Grafton as the merchant left the jewelry store.
"I wonder," mused the colonel, "what his object was in coming to the Darcy place, and nosing around as he did? There must have been some object. A man such as he is doesn't do things like that for fun. And it wasn't mere curiosity, either. If it was, he'd have been at the place before, when the evidences of the crime were there to be stared at by those who care for such things.
"And that Aaron Grafton hasn't been there since I was forced into this thing, I'm positive. For I was forced into it," grumbled the old detective. "I just couldn't resist the pleading of her eyes. It isn't the first time a man has made a fool of himself over a woman, and it won't be the last. But maybe I'll make fools of some of these folks, instead of being made a fool of myself. Fooled out of my fishing though. By gad! that's what I have been!
"But no matter. I must see what friend Aaron is up to and what his little game is. Of course, he may have been at the store the day of the murder—before I arrived. I must ask Darcy about that. Poor lad, he's in tough luck—just when he ought to be thinking of getting married. Well, I'll do what I can."
There were few tricks known to modern detectives of which Colonel Ashley was not master, among them being the ability to disguise himself—not by clumsy beards and false moustaches, though he used them at times—but by a few simple alterations to his face and carriage.
Of course costume played its part when needed, but the time had not yet come for that. He was now following Grafton without the latter being aware of it—no very difficult matter in a city the size of Colchester, and on one of its main streets.
"I think I want to know a little more about him," mused the colonel. "I'd like to have a talk with him, and see how he acts. But I won't chance that yet. I'll play 'possum for a while."
Having followed his man to the latter's store, and even inside it, where he made a trifling purchase, and having seen Mr. Grafton enter his private office, the detective paid a visit to Darcy in the jail.
"How is she, Colonel?" were the first words of the prisoner, when they were in the warden's office with a detective from the prosecutor's office seated a few chairs away. It was only under such arrangements that visitors were allowed to see the jewelry worker. "How is Amy?"
"Why, she's very well, the last I saw of her. But I came to talk about something else."