"Sure," agreed Daley. "But don't keep us waiting all day. The presses
are like animals--they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't
wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've
got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in
huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon as you can."

They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which
King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.

Colonel Ashley--or Colonel Brentnall as he had registered at the
hotel--having, by means of a more or less adroit bit of camouflage,
obtained possession of the newspaper containing an account of the
murder of Mrs. Darcy, and of the holding of her cousin and Harry King
on suspicion, tossed the journal on the bed beside his well-worn copy
of the "Complete Angler." Then, to demonstrate his complete mastery
over himself, he picked up the book, never so much as glancing at the
black headlines, and read:

". . . I have found it to be a real truth that the very sitting by the
river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for
contemplation, but will invite the angler to it; . . ."

"I'm a fool!" exploded the colonel. "I came here to fish, and, first
click of the reel, I go nosing around on the trail of a murder, when I
vowed I wouldn't even dream of a case. I won't either,--that's flat!
I'll get my rods in shape to go fishing to-morrow. It may clear. Then
Shag and I--"

Slowly the book slipped from his hand. It fell on the bed with a soft
thud, and a breeze from the partly opened window ruffled a page of the
newspaper. The colonel, looking guiltily around the room, walked
nearer to the bed, and then, as stealthily as though committing a
theft, he picked up the _Times_. Softly he exclaimed:

"Gad! what's the use?"

A moment later, pulling his chair beneath an electric light, he began
to read the account of the murder.

Pete Daley's story of the finding of the dead body of the owner of the
jewelry store was a graphic bit of work. He described how Darcy,
coming down in the gray dawn, had discovered the woman lying stark and
cold, her head crushed and a stab wound in her side.

None of the details was lacking, though the gruesomeness was skilfully
covered with some well-done descriptive writing. The wounds seemed to
have been inflicted at the same time--one by the metal statue of a
hunter found on the floor near the body, the other by a dagger-like
paper cutter, admitted to be owned by Harry King, but which, with the
blade blood-stained, was found on the jewelry bench of her cousin James
Darcy.

The solution of the murder mystery depended on the answers to two
questions, the reporter pointed out. First, which wound killed Mrs.
Darcy? Second, who inflicted either or both wounds?

There were ramifications from these beginnings--such as the motive for
the crime; whether or not there had been a robbery; and, if so, by whom
committed. Then, to get to the more personal problem, did either King
or Darcy commit the murder, and, if so, why?

"Um," mused the colonel, reading the _Times_ on the evening of the day
the crime was discovered. "It may turn out to be a mystery after all,
in spite of the two men who are held. Let's see now," and he went on
with his perusal of the paper.

The autopsy had been performed, and Dr. Warren had said either wound
might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital
organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it,
though it really was a paper cutter of foreign make.

King and Darcy were not, as yet, formally, arrested, being "detained,"
merely, at police headquarters as witnesses, though there was no
question but that suspicion was cast on both. Under the law a formal
charge must be made against them within twenty-four hours, and unless
this was done King's lawyer threatened to bring _habeas corpus_
proceedings for his client.

"Oh, there'll be a charge made before then all right," said Thong
easily, when the legal shyster had, with threatening finger under the
detective's nose, made much of this point. "I'm not saying it will be
against your man, Mr. Fussell, but there'll be a charge made all right."

It is needless to say that both suspected men protested they knew
nothing about the killing. King was frank enough--sober now--to say he
had been drunk all night--spending the hours with boon companions in a
notorious resort, a statement which seemed capable enough of proof.

Darcy told over and over again how he had come downstairs to find his
relative stretched on the floor of the shop, and, aside from that
little restless period of the night, he had heard no disturbance.
Sallie Page could tell nothing, the maid was out of the city, and none
of the clerks knew more of what had happened than they were told.

Playing up Darcy's story, Daley and some of the other reporters
speculated on whether or not a burglar might have entered the store,
leaving no trace of his uncanny skill, and, in his wanderings about the
place, have entered Darcy's room. He might even have attempted to
chloroform the jewelry worker, it was suggested, and perhaps did,
slightly. Then, descending to the store, the intruder might have


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