"I wouldn't admit, even to myself," mused the colonel, "that he had a hand in it, or that he was an accessory before or after. But he certainly knows something about it, and enough to make him worry. That's what Aaron Grafton is doing—worrying. And he's worrying about something that ought to be in the jewelry shop and isn't. Now, what is it?"
This, very evidently, was something for Colonel Ashley to discover, and with all his skill he set himself to this task. For the time being he dropped several other ends—tangled ends of the skein he hoped to unravel—and devoted his time to Grafton. And, at the end of two days the detective learned that the merchant was going to make a hurried trip to New York—a trip not directly connected with his store, for those trips were made at other times of the year.
"Well, if he goes to New York I go too!" said the colonel grimly.
And he went, on the same train with Aaron Grafton, though unknown to the latter.
It was a skilful bit of shadowing the detective did on the journey to the metropolis, so skilful that, though the merchant plainly showed by his nervousness that he thought he might have been followed, he did not, seemingly, suspect the quiet man seated not far from him, reading a little green book. The colonel had adopted a simple but effective disguise.
In New York, which was reached early in the morning, after a night journey, the colonel again took up the trail, keeping near his man.
"Follow that taxi," the colonel ordered the driver of his machine as it rolled out of the Pennsylvania station, just a few lengths behind the one in which Grafton rode.
The following was well done, and, a little later the two machines drew up in front of the big office building in which Colonel Ashley had his headquarters.
"Whew!" whispered the follower of Izaak Walton, "I wonder if he came here to consult my agency?"
All doubts were dissolved a moment later when, keeping somewhat in the background, the detective heard the merchant ask the elevator starter on which floor were the offices of Colonel Ashley's detective agency.