“Ready, now, Shag! Ready!” called Colonel Ashley, in tense tones. “Ready with the net!”
“Yes, sah! All ready!”
“I've got him about ready for you! And he's better than I thought!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel! I won't miss!”
“If you do you may look for another place!” At this dire threat Shag turned as white as he would ever become, and took a firmer grip on the “Ready now, Shag!” called the colonel, at the same time directing his helper to come down the bank toward a little pool whither he was leading the now well-played fish. “Ready!”
Shag did not speak, but while the colonel slowly reeled in and the tip of the slender pole bent like a bow, he slipped the net into the water, under the fish, and, a moment later, had it out on the grass.
“There!” exclaimed the famous detective, with a sigh of relief. “There he is, and as fine a fish as I've ever landed in these parts! Now, Shag—”
But there came an interruption. Reasoning that now was a most propitious time to make his appeal, Harry Bartlett advanced to where the colonel and Shag were bending over the panting bass. As the detective, with a smart blow back of its head, put his catch out of misery, Bartlett spoke.
“Excuse me,” he said, deferentially enough, for he saw the type of man with whom he had to deal, “but are you not Colonel Ashley?”
“I am, sir!” and the colonel looked up as he slipped the fish into his grass-lined creel.
“I am Mr. Bartlett. I followed you here from New York, and I wish to—”
“If it's anything about business, Mr. Bartlett, let me save your time and my own—both valuable, I take it—by stating that I came here to fish, and not to talk business. Excuse me for putting it thus bluntly, but I see no reason for many words. I can not consider any business. That is all attended to at my New York office, and I am surprised that they should even have given you my address. I told them not to.”
“It was no easy matter to get it, Colonel, I assure you,” and—Bartlett smiled genially. “And please don't blame any one in your office for disclosing your whereabouts. I did not get your address from them, I assure you.”
“From whom, then, if I may ask?”
“From Spotty.” And again Bartlett smiled.
“What? Spotty Morgan?”
“Yes.”
“Are you—do you know him?” and the detective could not keep the interest out of his voice.
“Rather well. I saved him from drowning once some years ago, and he hasn't forgotten it. It was at a summer resort, and Spotty, though he is a good swimmer, didn't estimate the force of the undertow. I pulled him out just in time.”
“Strange,” murmured the colonel. “A strange coincidence.”
“I beg pardon,” said Harry politely.
“Oh, nothing,” went on the detective. “Only, as it happens, Spotty saved my life some time ago. It's just a coincidence, that's all. So Spotty gave you my address, did he?”
“Yes. I had called at your New York office, and, as you say, your clerks had orders not to disclose your whereabouts. I used every cajolery and device of which I was master, but it was no avail. I urged the importance it was to myself and others to know where you were, but they were obdurate. I was coming out, much disappointed, when I saw Spotty emerging from an inner office. He knew me at once, though it is years since we met, and going down in the elevator I mentioned that I was looking for you. I told him something of the reason for wanting to find you and—Well, he told me you were here.”
“And he is about the only person in New York outside of my most confidential man who could have done that,” observed the colonel, as he slowly reeled up his line. “One reason why the clerks in my office could not give you my address was because they did not have it. So Spotty, who must just have finished his bit, told.”
“But please don't hold that against him,” urged Bartlett. “If he violated a confidence—”
“He did, in a way, yes,” observed the disciple of Izaak Walton. “But I shall have to forgive him, I suppose. It must have been rather a strong reason that induced him to tell you where I had gone.”
“It was, Colonel Ashley, the strongest reason in the world. It is to help clear up the mystery—”
“Stop!” fairly shouted the colonel. “If it's a detective case I don't want to hear it! Not a word! Shag, show this gentleman the door—I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to be rude,” went on the colonel with his usual politeness. “But I really can not listen. I came here to rest and fish, not to take up new detective cases. You know where my office is. They will attend to you there. I have given up business for the time being.”
“And yet, Colonel Ashley, the person who sent me will have no one but you. She says you are the only one who can get at the bottom of the puzzling case.”
In spite of himself the colonel's face lighted up at the words “puzzling case,” but as his eyes fell on the creel containing his fish he turned aside. “No,” he said, “I am sorry, but I can not listen to you. Shag, kindly—”
Harry Bartlett was not a successful business man for nothing. He knew how to make an appeal. “I came to see you at the request of Miss Viola Carwell,” he said slowly. “She sent me to find you—told me not to come back to her without you. A change came over the colonel's face at the mention of Viola's name.
“You came from her—from the daughter of Horace Carwell?” he asked quickly.
“I did,” answered Bartlett.
“Well, of course, that might make a difference. I hope my old friend is not in trouble—nor his daughter,” and there was a new quality in the voice.
“Mr. Carwell's troubles are all over—if he had any,” returned Bartlett simply.
“You mean—”
“He is dead.”
The colonel uttered an exclamation.
“Pardon my rather brusk reception of you,” he apologized. “I did not know that. Was it recently—suddenly?”
“Both recently and suddenly.”
“I did not know that I seldom read the papers, and have not looked at one lately. I had not heard that he was ill.”
“'He wasn't, Colonel Ashley. Mr. Carwell died very suddenly on the Maraposa Golf Club links, after making a stroke that gave him the championship.”
“Heart disease or apoplexy?”
“Neither one. It was poison.”
“You amaze me, Mr.—er—Mr.—”
“Bartlett. Yes, Mr. Carwell died of poison, as the autopsy showed.”
“'Was he—did he—”
“That is what we want to find out,” interrupted the messenger eagerly. “The county physician says Mr. Carwell is a suicide. His daughter, Miss Viola, can not believe it. Nor can I. There has been some talk that his affairs are involved. As you may have known, he was somewhat of a—”
“His sporting proclivities were somewhat different from mine,” said the old detective dryly. “You needn't explain. Every man must live his own life. But tell me more.”
Thereupon Bartlett gave the details as he knew them, bearing on the death of the father of the girl he loved.
“And she sent you to find me?” asked the detective.
“Yes. Miss Viola said you were an old friend of her father's, and if any one could solve the mystery of his death you could. For that there is a mystery about it, many of us believe.”
“There may be. Poison is always more or less of a mystery. But just what do you want me to do?”
“Come back with me if you will, Colonel Ashley. Miss Carwell wants you to aid her—aid all of us, for we are all at sea. Will you? She sent me to plead with you. I went to your New York office, and from Spotty Morgan learned you were here. I—”
“I suppose I shall have to forgive Spotty,” murmured the fisherman.
“They told me at the hotel you had come here,” went on Bartlett, “so I followed. I was lucky in finding you.”
“I don't know about that,” murmured the colonel, smiling. “It may be unfortunate. Well, I am deeply shocked at my old friend's death—and such a tragic taking off. Horace Carwell was my very good friend. He once did me a great service, when I needed money badly, by helping me make an investment in copper that turned out extremely well. I feel myself under obligations to him; and, since he is no more, I must transfer that obligation to his daughter.”
“Then you'll come with me to see her, Colonel Ashley?”
“Yes. Shag, pack up! We're going back to civilization.”
The colored man's face was a study. He looked at the quiet stream, at the drooping willows, at the fish rod in his master's hand, and at the creel. He opened his mouth and spoke:
“But, Colonel, yo' done tole me t'—”
“No matter what I told you, Shag, these are new orders. Pack up!” came the crisp command. “We're going back to town. I'll do what I can in this case,” he went on to Bartlett. “I came here for some quiet fishing, and to get my mind off detective work. I was dragged into a diamond cross mystery not long since, sorely against my will, and now—”
“I am sorry—” began Bartlett.
“Oh, well, it can't be helped,” the colonel said. “I'd give up more than a fishing trip for a daughter of Horace Carwell. You may let her know that I'll come, if it will give her any comfort. Though, mind you,” the colonel's manner was impressive, “I promise nothing.”
“That is understood,” said Bartlett eagerly. “I'll wire her that you are coming. There's a train that leaves right after supper. We can get that—”
“I'll take it!” decided the colonel. Now that he had given up his cherished fishing he was all business again. “Shag!”
“Yes, sah, Colonel!”
“Pack up for the evening train. Give that fish to the cook and have it served for Mr. Bartlett and myself. You'll dine with me,” he went on. It was an order, not an invitation, but Bartlett understood, and accepted with a bow.
A few hours later he and the colonel left the little town where the detective had gone for such a short vacation, and were on their way to Lakeside, which they reached early in the morning.
“Now if you'll tell me the best hotel to stop at here,” said the colonel, as they alighted from the train, “I'll put up there and see Miss Carwell.”
“She requested me to bring you at once to her home,” said Bartlett. “You are to be her guest. She thought perhaps you would want to examine the— to see Mr. Carwell's body—before—”
“Oh, yes. I suppose I had better. Then the funeral has not been held?”
“No, it was postponed at the request of the county physician.”
“Has there been a coroner's inquest?”
“No. None was deemed necessary at the time I left, at the solicitation of Miss Carwell, to get you.”
“I see. Inquests are less often held in New Jersey than in some of the other states. Well, then I suppose I may as well go to the Carwell home with you.”
“Yes. I wired for my car to meet us. It's here I see. Right over here.”
Bartlett led the way, the colonel following, and Shag bringing up the rear with the bags.
As the machine started from the station Bartlett looked up to the morning sky. There was a little speck in it, no larger than a man's hand. It grew larger, and became an osprey on its way to the sea in search of a fish.
As the car drew up in front of the Carwell mansion, from the bell of which fluttered a dismal length of crepe, a man stepped from the shadow of the gate posts and held out a paper to Harry Bartlett.
“What is it?” asked Bartlett.
“A subpoena,” was the rather gruff answer.
“A subpoena? What for?”
“The coroner's inquest. You'll have to appear and give evidence. They're going to have an inquest to find out more about Mr. Carwell's death. That's all I know. I'm from police headquarters. I was told to wait around here, as you were expected, and to serve that on you. Don't forget to be there. It's a court order,” and the man slunk away.
“An inquest,” murmured Bartlett, as he looked at the paper in his hand. “I thought they weren't going to have any,” and he glanced quickly at Colonel Ashley.
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