support her after the separation. She could have had a regular divorce
and big alimony--that is if he could have paid."

"Maybe that's it--he couldn't. Anyhow, she seems not to have wanted to
accept any of his money after he had spoiled her life. It was a
foolish marriage, though at the time it may have seemed advantageous to
her--or her mother. After the murder, or let us call it killing, for
Larch with his last breath protested he never meant it--after that,
which Cynthia seems to have guessed--she was even more strong in her
determination not to take any of his money. She was prepared, too, in
case Jimmie had been found guilty, to make a statement implicating her
husband, though, under the law she could not be compelled to testify
against him in a murder trial."

"Well, I'm glad it's all over, Colonel," said Mr. Mason, with a sigh of
relief. "There are two happy ones, if ever there were any," and he
motioned to Amy and Darcy, walking slowly across the meadow in the
golden glow of the setting sun.

"Yes, I'm glad I had a hand in helping them."

The young people, turning, saw the two men, and Amy waved her hand.
Slowly she and her lover approached.

"What luck, Colonel?" she asked gaily.

"The very best! You didn't exaggerate when you spoke of your trout
stream."

"I'm glad you like it. Jimmie and I were just talking about you."

"I wondered why my ears burned," and the old detective laughed.

"Colonel Ashley," put in Darcy, "there's just one thing I can't seem to
clear up in all this business."

"What's that?"

"Well, what made all the clocks stop at different times? I thought I
knew something of the jewelry business, but this puzzles me."

"Just because it's so simple," laughed the detective. "Larch stopped
those of the clocks that didn't run down and stop themselves. He
figured out, crazily enough in his fear and drunken frenzy, that if no
clocks or watches were going no one would know exactly what time the
killing took place. So, after Mrs. Darcy was dead, he hurried about
the store, with no one in the wet and deserted street to watch him,
and, stopping the timepieces, moved the hands of many of them to suit
his fancy. But he forgot the ticking watch."

"It was simple," murmured Darcy. "No wonder I didn't think of it.
Have you so simple a theory regarding the queer state I was in that
night--I mean awakening and going to sleep again after feeling
something brush my face?"

"Not unless Larch tried to chloroform you after he had killed Mrs.
Darcy, and was afraid you might come down and discover what had
happened," answered the detective. "That will remain a mystery, but
its solution is not important."

"Not as long as you have cleared Jimmie boy!" laughed Amy, and yet
there was a look of sadness on her face, for it had been an ordeal for
all of them.

"Oh, well, he'd have been cleared anyhow, if the worst had come to the
worst," said the colonel. "However, now that it's all over, I can give
proper attention to my fishing."

"And I," murmured James Darcy, "can--"

But a soft hand over his lips prevented further utterance.


Lightly as a feather the colonel flicked a fly over the quiet pool
where the waters swirled in a lazy eddy. There was a splash in the
sun, a shrill song of the reel, and a fish leaped high in the air,
trying to shake the barb from its mouth.

"No, you don't!" laughed the old detective. "I've hooked you this
time!"

"As you hooked Langford Larch," murmured Jack Young, who sat on the
bank in the shade, while the colonel fished and Shag was setting out
lunch under the trees.

"This _is_ my last case!" exclaimed the detective as he slipped his
prize into the grass-lined creel. "Positively my _last_! I never
would have gone on with this, even after I started, except for the
pleading of Miss Mason. But I'm through! No more detective cases for
me! I've retired!"

Jack looked at the trim and upright figure and keen, handsome face,
neither of which showed the old colonel's age. Then the younger
detective glanced at Shag, winked an eye, and murmured:

"Through until the next time; eh Shag?"

"Yo' done said it!" exclaimed the colored man with a grin. "Now, sah,
Colonel, lunch am served!"



<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 |