“Yes. We have plenty of spare rooms, and I thought you'd want him near you.”
“I want him this moment,” said the detective. “If you will be so good as to send him here I'll get him to open my bag and take out a note-book I wish to use.”
A little later Colonel Ashley had thrown himself heart and soul into the “Golf Course Mystery,” as he marked it on a page in his note-book.
On the preceding page were the last entries in a case, the beginning of which was inscribed “The Diamond Cross Mystery.” It was thus that Colonel Ashley kept the salient facts of his problems before him as he worked.
Between them Viola Carwell and Harry Bartlett told the colonel such facts leading up to the death of Mr. Carwell as they knew. They spoke of the day of the big golf matches, and the exhilaration of Mr. Carwell as he anticipated winning the championship contest.
The scene at the links was portrayed, the little excitement among the parked cars, caused, as developed later, by a blaze in a machine standing next the big red, white, and blue car belonging to Mr. Carwell, and then the sudden collapse of Carwell as he make his winning stroke. The finding of some peculiar poison in the stomach and viscera of the dead man was spoken of, and then Viola made her appeal again for a disclosure of such truth as Colonel Ashley might reveal.
“I'll do my best,” he promised. “But I believe it will be better to wait until after the inquest before I take an active part. And I think I can best work if I remain unknown—that is if it is not published broadcast that I am here in my official capacity.”
To this Viola and Bartlett agreed. As neither of them had, as yet, spoken of bringing the colonel into the case, it was a comparatively easy matter to pass him off as an old friend of the family; which, in truth, he was.
So Colonel Ashley was given the guest chamber, Shag was provided with comfortable quarters, and then Viola seemed more content.
“I know,” she said to her aunt, “that the truth will be found out now.”