Characteristic as it was of Colonel Ashley not to show surprise, he could hardly restrain an indication of it when he reached The Haven, and found Miss Mary Carwell and Viola there. They were not expected until the next day, but while her niece was temporarily absent Miss Carwell explained the matter.
“She couldn't stand it another minute. She insisted that I should pack and come with her. Something seemed to drive her home.”
“I hope,” said the Colonel gently, “that she didn't imagine that I wasn't doing all possible, under the circumstances.”
“Oh, no, it wasn't anything like that. She just wanted to be at home. And I think, too,” and Miss Carwell lowered her voice, after a glance at the door, “that she wanted to see him.”
“You mean—?”
“Mr. Bartlett! There's no use disguising the fact that his family and ours aren't on friendly terms. I think he did a grave injustice to my brother in a business way, and I'll never forgive him for it. I don't want to see Viola marry him—that is I didn't. I hardly believe, now, after he has been arrested, that she will. But there is no doubt she cares for him, and would do anything to prove that this charge was groundless.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that's natural,” assented the detective. “I'd be glad, myself, to believe that Harry Bartlett had nothing to do with the death of Mr. Carwell.”
“But you believe he did have, don't you?”
“I haven't yet made up my mind,” was the cautious answer. “The golf course mystery, I don't mind admitting, is one of the most puzzling I've ever run across. It won't do to make up one's mind at once.”
“But my brother either committed suicide, or else he was deliberately poisoned!” insisted Miss Carwell. “And those of us who knew him feel sure he would never take his own life. He must have been killed, and if Harry Bartlett didn't do it who did?”
“I don't know,” frankly replied the colonel. “That's what I'm going to try to find out. So Miss Viola feels much sympathy for him, does she?”
“Yes. And she wants to go to see him at the jail. Of course I know they don't exactly call it a jail, but that's what I call it!”
Miss Carwell was nothing if not determined in her language.
“Would you let her go if you were I—go to see him?” she asked.
“I don't see how you are going to prevent it,” replied the colonel. “Miss Viola is of legal age, and she seems to have a will of her own. But I hardly believe that she will see Mr. Bartlett.”
“Oh, but she said she was going to. That's one reason she made me come home ahead of time, I believe. She says she's going to see him, and what she says she'll do she generally does.”
“However I don't believe she'll see him,” went on the detective. “The prosecutor has given orders since yesterday that no one except Mr. Bartlett's legal adviser must communicate with him; so I don't believe Miss Viola will be admitted.”
This proved to be correct. Viola was very insistent, but to no avail. The warden at the jail would not admit her to the witness rooms, where Harry Bartlett paced up and down, wondering, wondering, and wondering. And much of his wonder had to do with the girl who tried so hard to see him.
She had sent word by his lawyer that she believed in his innocence and that she would do all she could for him, but he wanted more than that. He wanted to see her—to feast his hungry eyes on her—to hold her hand, to—Oh, well, what was the use? he wearily asked himself. Would the horrible tangle ever be straightened out? He shook his head and resumed his pacing of the rooms—for there were two at his disposal. He was weary to death of the dismal view to be had through the barred windows.
“Did you see him?” asked her aunt, when Viola, much dispirited, returned home.
“No, and I suppose you're glad of it!”
“I am. There's no use saying I'm not.”
“Aunt Mary, I think it's perfectly horrid of you to think, even for a moment, that Harry had anything to do with this terrible thing. He'd never dream of it, not if he had quarreled with my father a dozen times. And I don't see what they quarreled about, either. I'm sure I was with Harry a good deal of the time before the game, and I didn't hear him and my father have any words.”
“Perhaps, as it was about you, they took care you shouldn't hear.”
“Who says it was about me?”
“Can't you easily guess that it was, and that's why Harry doesn't want to tell?” asked Miss Mary.
“I don't believe anything of the sort!” declared Viola.
“Well,” sighed Miss Carwell, “I don't know what to believe. If your poor, dear father wasn't a suicide, some one must have killed him, and it may well have been—”
“Don't dare say it was Harry!” cried Viola excitedly. “Oh, this is terrible! I'm going to see Colonel Ashley and ask him if he can't end this horrible suspense.”
“I wish that as eagerly as you do,” said Miss Mary. “You'll find the colonel in the library. He's poring over some papers, and Shag, that funny colored man, is getting some fish lines ready; so it's easy enough to guess where the colonel is going. If you want to speak to him you'd better hurry. But there's another matter I want to call to your attention. What about our business affairs? Have we money enough to go on living here and keeping up our big winter house? We must think of that, Viola.”
“Yes, we must think of that,” agreed the girl. “That's one of the reasons why I wanted to come back. Father's affairs must be gone into carefully. He left no will, and the lawyer says it will take quite a while to find out just how things stand. If only Harry were here to help. He's such a good business man.”
“There are others,” sniffed Miss Mary. “Why don't you ask the colonel—or Captain Poland?”
“Captain Poland!” exclaimed Viola, startled.
“Yes. He helped us out in the matter of the bank when more collateral was asked for, and he'll be glad to go over the affairs with us, I'm sure.”
“I don't want him to!” snapped Viola. “Mr. Blossom is the proper one to do that. He is the chief clerk, and since he was going to form a partnership with father he will, most likely, know all the details. We'll have him up here and ask him how matters stand.”
“Perhaps that will be wise,” agreed Miss Carwell. “But I can't forget how careless LeGrand Blossom was in the matter of the loan your father had from the bank. If he's that careless, his word won't be worth much, I'm afraid.”
“Oh, any one is likely to make a mistake,” said Viola. “I'll telephone to Mr. Blossom and ask him to come here and have a talk with us. It will give me something to think about. Besides—”
She did not finish, but went to the instrument and was soon talking to the chief clerk in the office Mr. Carwell maintained while at his summer home.
“He'll be up within an hour,” Viola reported. “Now I'm going to have a talk with the colonel,” and she hastened to the library.
The old detective was smoking a cigar, which he hastened to lay aside when Viola made her entrance, but she raised a restraining hand.
“Smoke as much as you like,” she said. “I am used to it.”
“Thank you,” and he pulled forward a chair for her.
“Oh, haven't you found out anything yet?” she burst out. “Can't you say anything definite?”
Colonel Ashley shook his head in negation.
“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I'm just as sorry about it as you are. But I have seldom had a case in which there were so many clews that lead into blind allies. I was just trying to arrange a plan of procedure that I thought might lead to something.”
“Can you?” she asked eagerly.
“I haven't finished yet. What I need most is a book on poisons-a comprehensive chemistry would do, but I haven't been able to find one around here,” and he glanced at the books lining the library walls. “Your father didn't go in for that sort of thing.”
“No. But can't you send to New York for one?”
“I suppose I could—yes. I wonder if they might have one in the local library?”
“I'm sure I don't know,” and Viola leaned over to pick a thread from the carpet. “I don't draw books from there. When it was first opened I took out a card, but when I saw how unclean some of the volumes were I never afterward patronized the place.”
“Then you wouldn't know whether they had a book on poisons, or poison plants or not?”
“I wouldn't in the least,” she answered, as she arose. “As I said, I don't believe I have been in the place more than twice, and that was two years ago.”
“Then I'll have to inquire myself,” said the colonel, and he remained standing while Viola left the room. And for some little time he stood looking at the door as it closed after her. And on Colonel Ashley's face there was a peculiar look.
LeGrand Blossom came to The Haven bearing a bundle of books and papers, and with rather a wry face—for he had no heart for business of this nature. Miss Mary Carwell sat down at the table with him and Viola.
“We want to know just where we stand financially,” said Viola. “What is the condition of my father's affairs, Mr. Blossom?”
The confidential clerk hesitated a moment before answering. Then he said slowly:
“Well, the affairs are anything but good. There is a great deal of money gone, and some of the securities left are pledged for loans.”
“You mean my father spent a lot of money just before he died?” asked Viola.
“He either spent it or—Well, yes, he must have spent it, for it is gone. The car cost ten thousand, and he spent as much, if not more, on the yacht.”
“But they can be sold. I don't want either of them. I'm afraid in the big car,” said Viola, “and the yacht isn't seaworthy, I've heard. I wouldn't take a trip in her.”
“I don't know anything about that,” said LeGrand Blossom. “But even if the car and yacht were sold at a forced sale they would not bring anything like what they cost. I have gone carefully over your father's affairs, as you requested me, and I tell you frankly they are in bad shape.”
“What can be done?” asked Miss Carwell.
“I don't know,” LeGrand Blossom frankly admitted. “You may call in an expert, if you like, to go over the books; but I don't believe he would come to any other conclusion than I have. As a matter of fact, I had a somewhat selfish motive in looking into your father's affairs of late. You know I was thinking of going into partnership with him, and—and—” He did not finish.
Viola nodded.
“Perhaps I might say that he was good enough to offer me the chance,” the young man went on. “And, as I was to invest what was, to me, a large sum, I wanted to see how matters were. So I examined the books carefully, as your father pressed me to do. At that time his affairs were in good shape. But of late he had lost a lot of money.”
“Will it make any difference to us?” and Viola included her aunt in her gesture.
“Well, you, Miss Carwell,” and Blossom nodded to the older lady, “have your own money in trust funds. Mr. Carwell could not touch them. But he did use part of the fortune left you by your mother,” he added to Viola.
“I don't mind that,” was her steady answer. “If my father needed my money he was welcome to it. That is past and gone. What now remains to me?”
“Very little,” answered LeGrand Blossom. “I may be able to pull the business through and save something, but there is a lot of money lost—spent or gone somewhere. I haven't yet found out. Your father speculated too much, and unwisely. I told him, but he would pay no heed to me.”
“Do you think he knew, before his death, that his affairs were in such bad shape?” asked the dead man's sister.
“He must have, for I saw him going over the books several times.”
“Do you think this knowledge impelled him to--to end his life?” faltered Viola.
LeGrand Blossom considered a moment before answering. Then he slowly said:
“It was either that, or—or, well, some one killed him. There are no two ways about it.”
“I believe some one killed him!” burst out Viola. “But I think the authorities have made a horrible mistake in detaining Mr. Bartlett,” she added. “Don't you, Mr. Blossom?”
“I—er—I don't know what to think. Your father had some enemies, it is true. Every business man has. And a person with a temper easily aroused, such as—”
LeGrand Blossom stopped suddenly.
“You were about to name some one?” asked Viola.
“Well, I was about to give, merely as an instance, Jean Forette the chauffeur. Not that I think the Frenchman had a thing to do with the matter. But he has a violent temper at times, and again he is as meek as any one I ever knew. But say a person did give way to violent passion, such as I have seen him do at times when something went wrong with the big, new car, might not such a person, for a fancied wrong, take means of ending the life of a person who had angered him?”
“I never liked Jean Forette,” put in Miss Carwell, “and I was glad when I heard Horace was to let him go.”
“Do you think—do you believe he had anything to do with my father's death?” asked Viola quickly.
“Not the least in the world,” answered the head clerk hastily. “I just used him as an illustration.”
“But he quarreled with my father,” the girl went on. “They had words, I know.”
“Yes, they did, and I heard some of them,” admitted LeGrand Blossom. “But that passed over, and they were friendly enough the day of the golf game. So there could not have been murder in the heart of that Frenchman. No, I don't mean even to hint at him: but I believe some one, angry at, and with a grudge against, your father, ended his life.”
“I believe that, too!” declared Viola firmly. “And while I feel, as you do, about Jean, still it is a clew that must not be overlooked. I'll tell Colonel Ashley.”
“I fancy he knows it already,” said LeGrand Blossom. “There isn't much that escapes that fisherman.”
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