I may be able to bring her as much wealth as she has herself."

"How do you mean if things go right?" asked the detective.

"Well, if I can perfect the electric lathe I am trying to patent," was
the answer.

"Oh, so that's what King heard about an electric lathe?"

"I suppose so. It's no great secret. I've been working on it for some
time, but my cousin objected to my spending my time that way. She
thought I should devote it all to her interests, even outside the shop.
I told her I had my own future to look to, and we often had words about
that. Last night's quarrel wasn't the first, though she was especially
bitter over my work on the lathe. I have been giving it more time than
usual because it is nearly finished, and I want to get it ready to show
at a big Eastern jewelry convention."

"And what was the talk about money?"

"Well, Mrs. Darcy owed me about a thousand dollars. I had done some
special work on making necklaces for her customers, and she had
promised, if they were pleased, to pay me extra for the exclusive
designs I got up. The customers were pleased, and they paid her extra
for the ornaments. So I demanded that she keep her promise, but she
refused, pleading that many other customers owed her and times were
hard. I needed that thousand dollars to help complete my lathe model,
and--well, we had words over that, too."

"Then, do I understand," summed up Carroll, "that the night Mrs. Darcy
was killed you had a quarrel with her over Miss Mason, and about the
money and because you spent too much time working on your patent lathe?"

"Well, yes, though I don't admit I spent too much time, and I surely
will claim she owed me that money. As for Miss Mason--I'd prefer to
have her name left out," faltered the young jeweler.

"We can't always have what we want," said Thong, dryly. "Was the
quarrel specially bitter?"

"Not any more so than others. I had to speak a little loud, for my
cousin was getting a trifle deaf."

"And after the quarrel you went to bed?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't see your cousin again until--when?" and Carroll looked
Darcy straight in the eyes.

"Not until after she was--dead."

"Um! I guess that's all now."

They let the young man go, back to his room in police headquarters. It
was not a cell--yet, though it would seem likely to come to that, for
Thong observed to his partner as they went downstairs:

"Well, there's a motive all right."

"Three, if you like. But none of 'em hardly strong enough for murder."

"Oh, I don't know. I hear he has quite a temper--different from Harry
King's, but enough, especially if he got riled about the old lady
talking against his girl. You never can tell."

"No, that's so."

Left alone, James Darcy threw himself into a chair and looked blankly
at the dull-painted wall.

"This is fierce!" he murmured. "It will be a terrible blow to Amy! I
wonder--I wonder if she'll have anything to do with me after this? The
shame of it--the disgrace! Oh, Amy! if I could only know!" and he
reached out his hand as though to thrust them beyond the confines of
the walls. He bowed his head in his arms and was silent and motionless
a long time.

Up in his hotel room, Colonel Ashley read the story of the case as
printed in the _Times_.

"This does begin to get interesting," he mused, as he finished reading
the account. "There are three possible motives in Darcy's case, and
one in King's. And I've known murder to be done on slighter
provocation. Darcy might have resented being called a fortune hunter,
which, I suppose, is what the old lady meant, or he may have been stung
to sudden passion by the holding back of the thousand dollars and the
taunts about his lathe. Most inventors are crazy anyhow.

"As for King--if he was drunk enough, and wanted money--or thought he
could get some diamonds--it might be--it might be. I wonder who his
lady friend is? He daren't tell, I suppose, on account of his wife. I
wonder--"

"Oh, what am I bothering about it for, anyhow? I came here to rest and
fish, and I'm going to. I've resigned from detective work! There!"
He tossed the paper behind the bed. "I'll not look at another issue.
Now let's see how my rods are. I'm going to get an early start in the
morning, if this infernal rain lets up. Blast that Shag! He's jammed
a ferrule!" and, with blazing eyes, the colonel looked at one of the


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