Colonel Ashley, in silence, looked over one document after another, including the torn ones. When he had finished he looked across the table at Viola.
“What do you make of it?” she asked. “I don't know,” he frankly confessed. “But we must find out if your father owed the captain anything—for money advanced in an emergency, or for anything else. Who would know about the money affairs?”
“Mr. Blossom. He has full charge of the office now, and access to all the books. Aunt Mary and I have to trust to him for everything. It is all we can do.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed the detective. And he did not speak of the scene of which he had recently been a witness.
“Then if you will come with me, we will go the first thing in the morning to father's office and see LeGrand Blossom,” decided Viola. “We will ask Mr. Blossom if he knows anything about the debt between my father and Captain Poland.”
“It would be wise, I think.”
And as the colonel retired that night he said, musingly:
“Another angle, and another tangle. I must read a little Izaak Walton to compose my mind.”
So he opened the little green book and read this observation from the Venator:
“And as for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excellency to that height which they deserve? How perfect is the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, but follows it through so many changes and varieties of other scents, even over and in the water, and into the earth.”