"That's good! May I come to see you? I have something important to
ask you."

"Yes, or I will come to see you, Miss Mason."

"No, I had rather come to your hotel, if you will meet me in the
ladies' parlor. It will be secluded enough at this time."

And a little later Amy and the colonel were talking. The girl's
haggard look told plainly of her distress.

"Tell me, frankly," she begged, "doesn't this make it look a little
worse for Mr. Darcy?"

"Yes, Miss Mason, it does. I had best be frank with you. The
prosecutor is bound to show that the presence of the wires, controlled
by a switch from Mr. Darcy's table, were so arranged that he might
shock his cousin, or any one who put his hands on the showcase. And
they will, undoubtedly, argue that he planned this to make her
insensible for his own purposes, whether it was that he did it in a fit
of passion to kill her for his fancied troubles, or to cover up a
robbery. I am only making it thus bald that you may know and face the
worst."

"I appreciate that, and I thank you. Then it does look bad for him?"

"It does."

"And how does he bear up under it?"

"Very well. His chief anxiety is regarding you. I realize this is a
test of friendship, Miss Mason. A test of both the loyalty of yourself
and your father, and--"

"Oh, you needn't worry about dad! He'll stick by Jimmie through thick
and thin, for he says he knows he's innocent,"

"And yourself? How does your loyalty meet the test?"

Amy Mason drew herself up, a splendid figure of beautiful womanhood.
She flashed a look at the detective that made him stand to his full
military height and bearing, and then she said:

"Do you think I'm going to let dad beat _me_? Oh, no, Colonel Ashley!"

So Amy Mason met the test.




CHAPTER XIX

WORD FROM SPOTTY

"Well," remarked Jack Young, as he critically observed the smoke from
his cigar curling upward toward the ceiling in the colonel's hotel
room, "we have our work cut out for us all right."

"I should say so!" agreed Mr. Kettridge, who sat before a little table,
on top of which were strewed parts of a watch. Mr. Kettridge had a
jeweler's magnifying glass stuck in one eye, and it gave him a most
grotesque appearance as he glanced from the wheels, springs and levers,
spread out in front of him, over to Colonel Ashley.

"There is only one thing to do, gentlemen," observed the detective, who
had one finger keeping a certain place in a certain green book. "And
that is--"

"Make an arrest at once!" exclaimed Young. "He may get away from us if
we don't, drunk as he is."

"No, there's time enough for that," objected the colonel. "What I was
going to say is that we must take one thing at a time. Otherwise we'll
get into a tangle."

"I think we're in one now," said Young. "For the life of me I can't
figure out who did the killing, and the only reason I said we ought to
arrest Harry King is because there's some game on between him and
Larch, and those diamonds King is trying to dispose of may be part of
some of those Mrs. Darcy had, and about which she never said anything.
If King took them, he may have killed the old lady and he ought to be
locked up and take his chance with Darcy."

"If he did it--yes," admitted the colonel. "But I haven't said he
_did_. I haven't said Larch did it. I just don't know. Certainly
King and Larch have been pretty thick of late, and Larch's bailing
Harry out showed there was more than mere friendliness in it. And, as
you say, Jack, if King or Larch sold some loose diamonds, it looks as
though there was something wrong. But we don't want to make a mistake."

"If we don't do something pretty soon they'll so fasten this crime on
Jimmie Darcy that you'll never be able to get him out of the tangle,"
said Mr. Kettridge, as he poked a pair of pliers among the parts of the
watch. "Carroll and Thong, now that they know about the electrical
wires, think they have all the evidence they need, and the prosecutor
agrees with them, I guess."

"Still, we may be able to combat that," observed the colonel. "Now let
me understand you about this watch, Mr. Kettridge. You don't believe


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