"He won't require much sticking to at present. He and Larch are both
so well pickled that they'll easily keep until morning."

"Well, watch them after that. Maybe you'd better put up at the
Homestead."

"I will, though I guess it won't be the Homestead long."

"Why not?"

"Well, Larch is going to lose it, I hear. It's mortgaged up to the
roof and he can't meet his payments. The old place has gone to the
bow-wows since he started drinking, gambling, speculating and since his
wife left him. All the decent crowd stopped coming."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the colonel. "Well, keep watch of Harry
King. He may provide us with a clew that will make it possible to
prove Darcy innocent more directly than by the inference of Singa Phut."

"And do you think Singa Phut killed his partner with the watch also,
Colonel?" asked Jack.

"No. I imagine they quarreled over the possession of the watch, and
Shere Ali, perhaps forgetting the deadly nature of it, or knowing the
time mechanism was set not to go off for some hours, grabbed it away
from Singa. Then came a quarrel and the killing with the candlestick.
However I don't want to speculate too far afield. We have certain
matters settled at any rate."

"Yes, and I'll get back to the Homestead and watch King," observed Jack
Young with a laugh.

"And I must get back to the shop," said Mr. Kettridge. "I have some
work to do. Shall I leave the watch apart this way, Colonel?"

"Yes, I may need it to show to the jury. Leave it as it is, but put it
under glass, and the needle away carefully. We may have to kill a rat
in court as we did in Singa Phut's cell."

"I think we are coming on," mused Colonel Ashley, when his two visitors
had gone. "I am entitled to a bit of recreation," and, opening his
book, he read:

"Thus you having found and fitted for the place and depth thereof, then
go home and prepare your ground-bait, which is, next to the fruit of
your labors, to be regarded."

"I wonder," mused the colonel, "If my ground bait is all prepared? Am
I right or wrong? If I could see the diamond cross that Grafton says
Larch sent back to his wife--if I knew where he got it--"

The telephone rang.

"Yes, what is it?"

"A telegram for you, Colonel."

"Send it up!"

Tearing open the envelope Colonel Ashley read:


"Spotty Morgan has confessed everything and agrees to extradition.
Shall we send him on?"


"Send him on? I should say so!" cried the colonel to himself, as he
made a grab for the telephone to dictate a message telling the police
of Sango, the Western city, to hold Spotty Morgan until he could come
for him. "And so Spotty has confessed? Well, that let's me out, even
if he did save my, life! But it was a close call!"




CHAPTER XX

IN THE SHADOWS

Colonel Ashley, after a night's sleep, was about to prepare for the
trip, when he thought of Darcy in jail.

"I've got to send him word," he reasoned. "No, I'll let his sweetheart
take it to him. It will be all the sweeter. Here, Shag!" he called.

"Yes, sah, Colonel! Whut is it?"

"Get me an auto, Shag--any kind of car will do. I want to take a run
out to Pompey where Miss Mason lives. I won't trust the telephone, and
I'll have time enough before I leave for the West. Get an auto."

"Yes, sah, Colonel!" and Shag hurried down to the hotel office.

It was while getting into the machine that a message was handed the
colonel. Hastily he tore the note open. It was from James Darcy and
read:


"Have just been informed they are going to put me on trial to-morrow


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