“Then how do you mix Joe Allison with it all?”
“I don’t know. But he’s such a good one to suspect.” Coley grinned, and tossed his brown mane back like a war horse, prancing. “You see, if he can’t get the fortune, it’s a next best thing to get that big diamond haul. I’m told it was a pretty high-priced gewgaw.”
“Oh, it was. And the Webb ladies were mad as mad that Kimball bought it for me.”
“That’s not enough to stamp them as burglars,—but their disapproval of the match is quite enough to lay them open to suspicion as to the disappearance. And the necklace would be missing in either case.”
“Haven’t you done anything toward finding out how Kim got out of the locked room?”
“Not a thing. If the Webb ladies made up that yarn, there’s no use worrying over it. And if they didn’t, I’ll know soon that they didn’t.”
“How?”
“By finding out where their secret errands take them to.”
CHAPTER XII
COE’S CONCLUSIONS
Coley Coe sat in his somewhat eccentric looking den, in an attitude characteristic of his working hours. He occupied a big over-stuffed chair, and while his head and shoulders rested on one of its wide arms, his feet and legs were draped carelessly over the other. His remarkable hair fountained out over his forehead and almost hid his eyes, which were fairly blinking in the earnestness of his thought.