“Isn't there some place where you can take her for a few days—some relative's where she can rest and forget, as much as possible, the scenes here?”
“Yes, there is,” replied Miss Mary Carwell to Colonel Ashley's question. “I'll go with her myself to Pentonville. I have a cousin there, and it's the quietest place I know of, outside of Philadelphia,” and she smiled faintly at the detective.
“Good!” he announced. “Then get her away from here. It will do you both good.”
“But what about the case—solving the mystery? Won't you want either Viola or me here to help you?”
“I shall do very well by myself for a few days. Indeed I shall need the help of both of you, but you will be all the better fitted to render it when you return. So take her away—go yourself, and try to forget as much of your grief as possible.”
“And you will stay—”
“I'll stay here, yes. Shag and I will manage very nicely, thank you. I'm glad you have colored help. I can always get along with that kind. I've been used to them since a boy in the South.”
And so Viola and Miss Carwell went away.
It was after the sufficiently imposingly somber funeral of Horace Carwell, for since the adjourned inquest—adjourned at the request of the prosecutor—it was not considered necessary to keep the poor, maimed body out of its last resting place any longer. It had been sufficiently viewed and examined. In fact, parts of it were still in the hands of the chemists.
“And now, Shag, that we're left to ourselves—” said Colonel Ashley, when Viola and Miss Carwell had departed the day following the funeral, “now that we are by ourselves—”
“I reckon as how you'll fix up as to who it were whut done killed de gen'man, an' hab him 'rested, won't yo', Colonel, sah?” asked Shag, with the kindly concern and freedom of an old and loved servant.
“Indeed I'll do nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Colonel Ashley. “I'm going fishing, Shag, and I'll be obliged to you if you'll lay out my Kennebec rod and the sixteen line. I think there are some fighting fish in that little river that runs along at the end of the golf course. Get everything ready and then let me know,” and the colonel, smoking his after-breakfast cigar, sat on the shady porch of The Haven and read:
“O, Sir, doubt not that angling is an art: is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly? a trout! that is more sharp-sighted than any hawk you have named, and more watchful and timorous than your high-mettled merlin is bold; and yet I doubt not to catch a brace or two to-morrow for a friend's breakfast.”
“Um,” mused the colonel. “Too bad it isn't the trout season. That passage from Walton just naturally makes me hungry for the speckled beauties. But I can wait. Meanwhile we'll see what else the stream holds. Shag, are you coming?”
“Yes, sah! Comin' right d'rectly, sah! Yes, sah, Colonel!” and Shag shuffled along the porch with the fishing tackle.
And so Colonel Ashley sat and fished, and as he fished he thought, for the sport was not so good that it took up his whole attention. In fact he was rather glad that the fish were not rising well, for he had entered into this golf course mystery with a zest he seldom brought to any case, and he was anxious to get to the bottom.
“I didn't want to get into that diamond cross affair, but I was dragged in by the heels,” he mused. “And now, just because some years ago Horace Carwell did me a favor and enabled me to make money in the copper market, I am trying to find out who killed him, or if, in a fit of despondency, he killed himself.”
“And yet, if it was despondency, he disguised it marvelously well. And if it was an accident it was a most skillful and fateful one. How he could swallow poison and not know it is beyond me. And now to consider who might have given it to him, arguing that it was not an accident.”
The colonel had walked up and down the stream at the turn of the Maraposa golf course, Shag following at a discreet distance, and, after trying out several places had settled down under a shady tree at an eddy where the waters, after rushing down the bed of the small river, met with an obstruction and turned upon themselves. Here they had worn out a place under an overhanging bank, making a deep pool where, if ever, fish might he expected to lurk.
And there the colonel threw in his bait and waited.
“And now, that I am waiting,” he mused, “let me consider, as my friend Walton would, matters in their sequence. Horace Carwell is dead. Let us argue that some one gave him the poison. Who was it?”
And then, like some file index, the colonel began to pass over in his mind the various persons who had come under his observation, as possible perpetrators of the crime.
“Let us begin with one the law already suspects,” mused the fisherman. “Not that that is any criterion, but that it disposes of him in a certain order—disposes of him or—involves him more deeply,” and the colonel looked to where a ground spider had woven a web in which a small but helpless grass hopper was then struggling.
“Could Harry Bartlett have given the poison?” the colonel asked himself. And the answer, naturally, was that such could have been the case.
Then came the question: “Why?”
“Had he an object? What was the quarrel about, concerning which he refuses to speak? Why is Viola so sure Harry could not have done it? I think I can see a reason for the last. She loves him as much as he does her. That's natural. She's a sweet girl!”
And, being unable to decide definitely as to the status of Harry Bartlett, Colonel Ashley mentally passed that card in his file and took up another, bearing the name Captain Gerry Poland.
“Could he have had an object in getting Horace Carwell out of the way?” mused the detective. “At first thought I'd say he could not, and, just because I would say so, I must keep him on my list. He also is in love with Viola,—just as much as Bartlett is. I shall list Captain Poland as a remote possibility. I can't afford to eliminate him altogether, as it may develop that Mr. Carwell objected to his paying his attentions to Viola. Well, we shall see.”
The next mental index card bore the name Jean Forette; and concerning him Colonel Ashley had secured some information the day before. He had got, by adroit questioning, a certain knowledge of the French chauffeur, and this was now spread out on the card that, in fancy, Colonel Ashley could see in his filing cabinet.
“Forette? Oh, yes, I know him,” the mechanician of the best garage in Lakeside had told the detective. “He's a good driver, and knows more about an ignition system than I ever shall. He's a shark at it. But he's a queer Dick.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, sometimes he's a regular devil at driving. Once he had a big Rilat car in here for repairs. He had to tell me what was wrong with it, as I couldn't dope it out. Then when we got it running for him, he took it out for a trial run on the road. Drive! Say, it's a wonder I have any hair on my head!”
“Did he go fast?”
“Fast? Say, a racing man had nothing on that Forette. And yet the next day, when he came to take the car away, after we'd charged the storage battery, he drove like a snail. One of my men went with him a little way, to see that everything was all right, for Mr. Carwell is very particular—I mean he was—and Forette didn't let her out for a cent. My man was disappointed, for he's a fast devil, too, and he asked the Frenchman why he didn't kick her along.”
“What did the chauffeur say?”
“Well, it wasn't so much what he said as how he acted. He was as nervous as a cat. Kept looking behind to see that no other machine was coming, and when he passed anything on the road he almost went in the ditch himself to make sure there was room enough to pass.”
“Seemed afraid, did he?”
“That's it. And considering how bold he was the day I was out with him, I put it down that he must have had a few drinks when he took me for a— Well, I never saw him, but how else can you account for it? Drink will make a man drive like old Nick, and get away with it, too, sometimes, though the stuff'll get 'em sooner or later. But that's how I sized it up.”
“He might have taken something other than drink.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dope!”
“Oh, yes, I s'pose so, and him bein' French might account for it. Anyhow he was like two different men. That one day he was as bold as brass, and I guess he'd have driven one of them there airships if any one had dared him to. Then, the next day he was like a chap trying for his license with the motor inspector lookin' on. I can't account for it. That Jean Forette sure is a card!”
“Then he really seemed afraid to speed the Dilat car?”
“That's it. And he spoke of Mr. Carwell going to get a more powerful French machine. He said then he'd never driven it to the limit, and didn't want to handle it at all. And he spoke the truth, for I heard that he and the old man didn't get along at all with that red, white and blue devil Mr. Carwell imported.”
“So they say. Forette was to leave at the end of the month. Well, I'm much obliged to you. A friend of mine was going to engage him, but if he has such a reputation—not reliable, you know, I guess I'll look farther. Much obliged,” and the colonel, who, it is needless to say, had not revealed his true character to the garage owner, turned aside.
“Oh, I wouldn't want what I said to keep Forette out of a place!” protested the man quickly. “If I'd thought that—”
“You needn't worry. You haven't done him any harm. He's out of a place anyhow, since Mr. Carwell died, and I'll treat what you told me in strict confidence.”
“I wish you would. You know we have to be careful.”
“I understand.”
And this information passed again in review before the mind of the fisherman as he took Jean Forette's card from the pack.
“I wonder if he can be a dope fiend?” mused the colonel. “It's worth looking up, at any rate. He'd be a bad kind to drive a car. I'm glad he isn't in my employ, and I'm better pleased that he won't take Viola out. This dope—bad stuff, whether it's morphine, cocaine, or something else. We'll just keep this card up in front where we can get at it easily.”
The next mental card had on it the name of LeGrand Blossom.
“Curious chap, him,” mused the detective. “He's very fond of the sound of his own voice, particularly where he can get an audience, as he had at the inquest. Well, I don't know anything about you, Mr. Blossom, neither for nor against you, but I'll keep your card within reach, also. Can't neglect any possibilities in cases like this. And now for some others.”
There were many cards in the colonel's index, and he ran rapidly over them as he waited for a bite. They bore the names of many members of the golf and yachting clubs of which Mr. Carwell had been a member. There were also the names of the household servants, and the dead man's nearest relatives, including his sister and Viola. But the colonel did not linger long over any of these memoranda. The card of Viola Carwell, however, had mentally penciled on it the somewhat mystic symbol 58 C. H.—161* and this the colonel looked at from every angle.
“I really must get a book on chemistry,” he mused. “I may need it to find out what kind of dope Forette uses—if he takes any.”
And thus the colonel sat in the shade, beside the quiet stream, the little green book by his side. But he did not open it now, and though his gaze was on his line, where it cut the water in a little swirl, he did not seem to see it.
“Shag!” suddenly exclaimed the colonel, breaking a stillness that was little short of idyllic.
“Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!” and the colored man awoke with a skill perfected by long practice under similar circumstances.
“Shag, the fishing here is miserable!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel. Shall we-all move?”
“Might as well. I haven't had a nibble, and from the looks of everything—even the evidence of Mr. Walton himself—it ought to have been a most choice location. However, there will be other days, and—”
The colonel's voice was cut short by a shrill call from his delicate reel, and a moment later he had leaped to his feet and cried:
“Shag, I'm a most monumental liar!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel. Dat's whut yo' suah is!”
“I've got the biggest bite I ever had! Get that landing net and see if you can forget that you're a cross between a snail and a mud turtle!” cried the colonel excitedly.
“Yes, sah!”
Shag moved on nimble feet, and presently stood down on the shore, near the edge of the stream, while the colonel, on the bank above the eddy, played the fish that had taken his bait and sought to depart with it to some watery fastness to devour it at his leisure. But the hook and tackle held him.
Up and down in the pool rushed the fish, and the colonel's rod bent to the strain, but it did not break. It had been tested in other piscatorial battles and was tried and true.
The battle progressed, not so unequal as it might seem, considering the frail means used to ensnare the big fish. And the prize was gradually being brought within reach of the landing net.
“Get ready now, Shag!” ordered the colonel.
“Yes, sah, I'se all ready!”
There was a final rush and swirl in the water. Shag leaned over, his eyes shining in delight, for the fish was an extraordinarily large one. He was about to scoop it up in the net, to take the strain off the rod which was curved like a bow, when there came a streak of something white sailing through the air. It fell with a splash into the water so close to the fish that it must have bruised its scaly side, and then, in some manner, the denizen of the stream, either in a desperate flurry, or because the blow of the white object broke its hold on the hook, was free, and with a dart scurried back into the element that was life itself.
For a moment there was portentous silence on the part of Colonel Ashley. He gazed at his dangling line and at the straightened pole. Then he solemnly said:
“Shag!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel!”
“What happened?”
“By golly, Colonel! dat's whut I'd laik t' know. Must hab been a shootin' star, or suffin laik dat! I never done see—”
At that moment a drawling voice from somewhere back of the fringe of trees and bushes broke in with:
“I fancy I made that water hazard all right, though it was a close call. Which reminds me of the perhaps interesting fact that forty-five and sixty-four hundredths cylindrical feet of water will weigh twenty-two hundred and forty pounds, figuring one cubic foot of salt water at sixty-four and three-tenths pounds, if you get my meaning!” and there was a genial laugh.
“Well, I don't get it, and I don't care to,” was the rejoinder. “But I'm ready to bet you a cold bottle that you've gone into instead of over that water hazard.”
“Done! Come on, we'll take a look!”
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