The telephone rang sharply.

"Hello. Oh, it's you, is it, Basset. So you got back with Spotty, did
you? Good! No trouble on the trip? Fine! All right, I'll wait here
for you. No, the trial went off for two weeks. You're in plenty of
time. I'll expect you soon. Good-bye."

An hour later the man he had sent West to bring on Spotty Morgan
entered his room. This man, a detective from the colonel's office,
had been instructed by wire to go to a certain city and there, without
the formality of requisition papers, which Spotty more or less
generously waived, bring on the prisoner.

"Well, what does he say, Basset?" asked the colonel, when he had
provided his man with a cigar. "What does he say?" and the voice was
eager.

"Oh, he says he did it all right. And there's the cross," and Basset
tossed on the table beside the colonel a battered cross of gold in
which sparkled many stones with the limpid fire of hidden rainbows.

"Did he give any particulars?"

"Oh, yes, he come across with the whole story."

"What made him hold back on me then? He might have known I'd find out.
Why didn't he confess to me, Basset?"

"Well, I guess it's just as he says--he didn't want to split on a pal.
But when his pal went back on him--"

"What do you mean--his pal went back on him?" asked the colonel, and
there was uneasiness in his voice. "And, while you're about it,
Basset, don't handle that cross so carelessly. It's worth several
thousand dollars--a small fortune maybe--and some of the stones may be
loose. They might fall out."

"That wouldn't hurt, Colonel. I reckon maybe I did lose one or two on
the way back, careless like."

"You lost some of those diamonds?" The colonel's voice was sharp.

"Diamonds? Diamonds nothin'! Them's paste, Colonel. That's what made
Spotty sore. His pal done him dirt, and that's why he split. The
whole cross is made of phoney diamonds--paste!"

"Paste diamonds! Spotty's pal fooled him! What do you mean?" gasped
the colonel, his apprehension growing. "Isn't this the diamond cross
that Mrs. Larch owned? And yet, if this is here, how could her husband
send it to her? And Spotty! Basset, what _does_ it all mean?"

"Well, Colonel, I don't know whose cross this is, but whoever lost it
didn't lose much. It's worth about ten dollars, I guess, and say, if
ever there was a sore crook it's Spotty! He says when he and Blue Ike
planned to rob Grafton's store they thought there was some real jewelry
there."

"Rob Grafton's store!" cried the colonel. "Didn't Spotty confess to
stealing this diamond cross from Mrs. Darcy, and killing her because
she wouldn't let him get away with it?"

"Colonel this is the first I've come on the case, and all I know is I
was sent on to bring Spotty back. I wasn't told he was charged with
murder."

"He wasn't exactly _charged_ with it, but-- Well, go on, what did he
confess to?"

"Just robbery, that's all, and he didn't get much. He and Blue Ike
cracked a crib here one night. From what Spotty says they got in Aaron
Grafton's department store, opened the safe the way Ike always does, by
listening to the tumblers in the lock, and took out some jewelry.
There wasn't much--they picked the wrong safe I guess, but anyhow they
took this cross. Had a fight over it, too, and it got stepped on, or
banged up in some way, Spotty says. Then they heard a noise and
skipped. Spotty kept the cross, and thought he'd have enough salted
down, when he sold it, to live easy for a while.

"He and Ike met out West and tried to sell the diamond cross to a fence
and got pinched as suspicious characters by the bulls who were making
their regular round of the pawnshops. Ike squealed on Spotty for
another job after they give him the third degree, and when Spotty heard
of that it made him sore, as it would anybody. Then when the two bulls
who pinched Spotty and Ike tested the diamonds in the cross and found
they was phoney--as they might have guessed coming from a department
store--Spotty was fit to be tied, he was so wild! So he up and
confessed. Said he knew you wanted him for the job and was sorry he
made so much trouble. To send word to you that he'd come on and stand
trial."

"But, stars and stripes! I didn't want him for this little robbery
job!" cried the colonel, "I didn't even know he did it! I was after
him for the murder of Mrs. Darcy, where I thought he got the diamond
cross. And to think the jewels are paste!" and the colonel looked at
them sparkling in the electric light as bravely as though they were
worth a fortune instead of being what a poor shop girl might wear to a
bricklayer's ball.

"Well, that's all I know about it," said Basset. "Spotty wanted me to
tell you he'd confessed, and he's dead sore on Blue Ike."


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