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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golf Course Mystery, by Chester K. Steele
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Golf Course Mystery
+
+Author: Chester K. Steele
+
+Posting Date: August 20, 2008 [EBook #1495]
+Release Date: October, 1998
+[Last Updated: May 25, 2012]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLF COURSE MYSTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Polly Stratton
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GOLF COURSE MYSTERY
+
+
+by Chester K. Steele
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     I         PUTTING OUT
+     II        THE NINETEENTH HOLE
+     III       "Why?"
+     IV        VIOLA'S DECISION
+     V         HARRY'S MISSION
+     VI        By A QUIET STREAM
+     VII       THE INQUEST
+     VIII      ON SUSPICION
+     IX        58 C. H--161*
+     X         A WATER HAZARD
+     XI        POISONOUS PLANTS
+     XII       BLOSSOM'S SUSPICIONS
+     XIII      CAPTAIN POLAND CONFESSES
+     XIV       THE PRIVATE SAFE
+     XV        POOR FISHING
+     XVI       SOME LETTERS
+     XVII      OVER THE TELEPHONE
+     XVIII     A LARGE BLONDE LADY
+     XIX       "UNKNOWN"
+     XX        A MEETING
+     XXI       THE LIBRARY POSTA
+     XXII      THE LARGE BLONDE AGAIN
+     XXIII     MOROCCO KATE, ALLY
+     XXIV      STILL WATERS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. PUTTING OUT
+
+
+There was nothing in that clear, calm day, with its blue sky and its
+flooding sunshine, to suggest in the slightest degree the awful tragedy
+so close at hand--that tragedy which so puzzled the authorities and
+which came so close to wrecking the happiness of several innocent
+people.
+
+The waters of the inlet sparkled like silver, and over those waters
+poised the osprey, his rapidly moving wings and fan-spread tail
+suspending him almost stationary in one spot, while, with eager and
+far-seeing eyes, he peered into the depths below. The bird was a dark
+blotch against the perfect blue sky for several seconds, and then,
+suddenly folding his pinions and closing his tail, he darted downward
+like a bomb dropped from an aeroplane.
+
+There was a splash in the water, a shower of sparkling drops as the
+osprey arose, a fish vainly struggling in its talons, and from a dusty
+gray roadster, which had halted along the highway while the occupant
+watched the hawk, there came an exclamation of satisfaction.
+
+"Did you see that, Harry?" called the occupant of the gray car to
+a slightly built, bronzed companion in a machine of vivid yellow,
+christened by some who had ridden in it the "Spanish Omelet." "Did you
+see that kill? As clean as a hound's tooth, and not a lost motion of a
+feather. Some sport-that fish-hawk! Gad!"
+
+"Yes, it was a neat bit of work, Gerry. But rather out of keeping with
+the day."
+
+"Out of keeping? What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, out of tune, if you like that better. It's altogether too perfect
+a day for a killing of any sort, seems to me."
+
+"Oh, you're getting sentimental all at once, aren't you, Harry?" asked
+Captain Gerry Poland, with just the trace of a covert sneer in his
+voice. "I suppose you wouldn't have even a fish-hawk get a much needed
+meal on a bright, sunshiny day, when, if ever, he must have a whale of
+an appetite. You'd have him wait until it was dark and gloomy and rainy,
+with a north-east wind blowing, and all that sort of thing. Now for me,
+a kill is a kill, no matter what the weather."
+
+"The better the day the worse the deed, I suppose," and Harry Bartlett
+smiled as he leaned forward preparatory to throwing the switch of his
+machine's self-starter, for both automobiles had come to a stop to watch
+the osprey.
+
+"Oh, well, I don't know that the day has anything to do with it," said
+the captain--a courtesy title, bestowed because he was president of the
+Maraposa Yacht Club. "I was just interested in the clean way the beggar
+dived after that fish. Flounder, wasn't it?"
+
+"Yes, though usually the birds are glad enough to get a moss-bunker.
+Well, the fish will soon be a dead one, I suppose."
+
+"Yes, food for the little ospreys, I imagine. Well, it's a good death to
+die--serving some useful purpose, even if it's only to be eaten. Gad! I
+didn't expect to get on such a gruesome subject when we started out.
+By the way, speaking of killings, I expect to make a neat one to-day on
+this cup-winners' match."
+
+"How? I didn't know there was much betting."
+
+"Oh, but there is; and I've picked up some tidy odds against our friend
+Carwell. I'm taking his end, and I think he's going to win."
+
+"Better be careful, Gerry. Golf is an uncertain game, especially when
+there's a match on among the old boys like Horace Carwell and the crowd
+of past-performers and cup-winners he trails along with. He's just as
+likely to pull or slice as the veriest novice, and once he starts to
+slide he's a goner. No reserve comeback, you know."
+
+"Oh, I'm not so sure about that. He'll be all right if he'll let the
+champagne alone before he starts to play. I'm banking on him. At the
+same time I haven't bet all my money. I've a ten spot left that says
+I can beat you to the clubhouse, even if one of my cylinders has been
+missing the last two miles. How about it?"
+
+"You're on!" said Harry Bartlett shortly.
+
+There was a throb from each machine as the electric motors started the
+engines, and then they shot down the wide road in clouds of dust--the
+sinister gray car and the more showy yellow--while above them, driving
+its talons deeper into the sides of the fish it had caught, the osprey
+circled off toward its nest of rough sticks in a dead pine tree on the
+edge of the forest.
+
+And on the white of the flounder appeared bright red spots of blood,
+some of which dripped to the ground as the cruel talons closed until
+they met inside.
+
+It was only a little tragedy, such as went on every day in the inlet and
+adjacent ocean, and yet, somehow, Harry Bartlett, as he drove on with
+ever-increasing speed in an endeavor to gain a length on his opponent,
+could not help thinking of it in contrast to the perfect blue of the
+sky, in which there was not a cloud. Was it prophetic?
+
+Ruddy-faced men, bronze-faced men, pale-faced men; young women, girls,
+matrons and "flappers"; caddies burdened with bags of golf clubs and
+pockets bulging with cunningly found balls; skillful waiters hurrying
+here and there with trays on which glasses of various shapes, sizes,
+and of diversified contents tinkled musically-such was the scene at the
+Maraposa Club on this June morning when Captain Gerry Poland and Harry
+Bartlett were racing their cars toward it.
+
+It was the chief day of the year for the Maraposa Golf Club, for on it
+were to be played several matches, not the least in importance being
+that of the cup-winners, open only to such members as had won prizes in
+hotly contested contests on the home links.
+
+In spite of the fact that on this day there were to be played several
+matches, in which visiting and local champions were to try their
+skill against one another, to the delight of a large gallery, interest
+centered in the cup-winners' battle. For it was rumored, and not without
+semblance of truth, that large sums of money would change hands on the
+result.
+
+Not that it was gambling-oh, my no! In fact any laying of wagers was
+strictly prohibited by the club's constitution. But there are ways and
+means of getting cattle through a fence without taking down the bars,
+and there was talk that Horace Carwell had made a pretty stiff bet with
+Major Turpin Wardell as to the outcome of the match, the major and Mr.
+Carwell being rivals of long standing in the matter of drives and putts.
+
+"Beastly fine day, eh, what?" exclaimed Bruce Garrigan, as he set down
+on a tray a waiter held out to him a glass he had just emptied with
+every indication of delight in its contents. "If it had been made to
+order couldn't be improved on," and he flicked from the lapel of Tom
+Sharwell's coat some ashes which had blown there from the cigarette
+which Garrigan had lighted.
+
+"You're right for once, Bruce, old man," was the laughing response.
+"Never mind the ashes now, you'll make a spot if you rub any harder."
+
+"Right for once? 'm always right!" cried Garrigan "And it may interest
+you to know that the total precipitation, including rain and melted snow
+in Yuma, Arizona, for the calendar year 1917, was three and one tenth
+inches, being the smallest in the United States."
+
+"It doesn't interest me a bit, Bruce!" laughed Sharwell. "And to prevent
+you getting any more of those statistics out of your system, come on
+over and we'll do a little precipitating on our own account. I can stand
+another Bronx cocktail."
+
+"I'm with you! But, speaking of statistics, did you know that from the
+national forests of the United States in the last year there was cut
+840,612,030 board feet of lumber? What the thirty feet were for I don't
+know, but--"
+
+"And I don't care to know," interrupted Tom. "If you spring any more of
+those beastly dry figures--Say, there comes something that does interest
+me, though!" he broke in with. "Look at those cars take that turn!"
+
+"Some speed," murmured Garrigan. "It's Bartlett and Poland," he went
+on, as a shift of wind blew the dust to one side and revealed the gray
+roadster and the Spanish Omelet. "The rivals are at it again."
+
+Bruce Garrigan, who had a name among the golf club members as a human
+encyclopaedia, and who, at times, would inform his companions on almost
+any subject that chanced to come uppermost, tossed away his cigarette
+and, with Tom Sharwell, watched the oncoming automobile racers.
+
+"They're rivals in more ways than one," remarked Sharwell. "And it
+looks, now, as though the captain rather had the edge on Harry, in spite
+of the fast color of Harry's car."
+
+"That's right," admitted Garrigan. "Is it true what I've heard about
+both of them-that each hopes to place the diamond hoop of proprietorship
+on the fair Viola?"
+
+"I guess if you've heard that they're both trying for her, it's true
+enough," answered Sharwell. "And it also happens, if that old lady, Mrs.
+G. 0. 5. Sipp, is to be believed, that there, also, the captain has the
+advantage."
+
+"How's that? I thought Harry had made a tidy sum on that ship-building
+project he put through."
+
+"He did, but it seems that he and his family have a penchant for doing
+that sort of thing, and, some years ago, in one of the big mergers in
+which his family took a prominent part, they, or some one connected with
+them, pinched the Honorable Horace Carwell so that he squealed for mercy
+like a lamb led to the Wall street slaughter house."
+
+"So that's the game, is it?"
+
+"Yes. And ever since then, though Viola Carwell has been just as nice
+to Harry as she has to Gerry--as far as any one can tell-there has been
+talk that Harry is persona non grata as far as her father goes. He never
+forgives any business beat, I understand."
+
+"Was it anything serious?" asked Garrigan, as they watched the racing
+automobiles swing around the turn of the road that led to the clubhouse.
+
+"I don't know the particulars. It was before my time--I mean before I
+paid much attention to business."
+
+"Rot! You don't now. You only think you do. But I'm interested. I expect
+to have some business dealing with Carwell myself, and if I could get a
+line--"
+
+"Sorry, but I can't help you out, old man. Better see Harry. He
+knows the whole story, and he insists that it was all straight on his
+relatives' part. But it's like shaking a mince pie at a Thanksgiving
+turkey to mention the matter to Carwell. He hasn't gone so far as to
+forbid Harry the house, but there's a bit of coldness just the same."
+
+"I see. And that's why the captain has the inside edge on the love game.
+Well, Miss Carwell has a mind of her own, I fancy."
+
+"Indeed she has! She's more like her mother used to be. I remember Mrs.
+Carwell when I was a boy. She was a dear, somewhat conventional lady.
+How she ever came to take up with the sporty Horace, or he with her, was
+a seven-days' wonder. But they lived happily, I believe."
+
+"Then Mrs. Carwell is dead?"
+
+"Oh, yes-some years. Mr. Carwell's sister, Miss Mary, keeps The Haven up
+to date for him. You've been there?"
+
+"Once, at a reception. I'm not on the regular calling list, though Miss
+Viola is pretty enough to--"
+
+"Look out!" suddenly cried Sharwell, as though appealing to the two
+automobilists, far off as they were. For the yellow car made a sudden
+swerve and seemed about to turn turtle.
+
+But Bartlett skillfully brought the Spanish Omelet back on the road
+again, and swung up alongside his rival for the home stretch-the broad
+highway that ran in front of the clubhouse.
+
+The players who were soon to start out on the links; the guests, the
+gallery, and the servants gathered to see the finish of the impromptu
+race, murmurs arising as it was seen how close it was likely to be.
+And close it was, for when the two machines, with doleful whinings of
+brakes, came to a stop in front of the house, the front wheels were in
+such perfect alignment that there was scarcely an inch of difference.
+
+"A dead heat!" exclaimed Bartlett, as he leaped out and motioned for one
+of the servants to take the car around to the garage.
+
+"Yes, you win!" agreed Captain Poland, as he pushed his goggles back on
+his cap. He held out a bill.
+
+"What's it for?" asked Bartlett, drawing back.
+
+"Why, I put up a ten spot that I'd beat you. I didn't, and you win."
+
+"Buy drinks with your money!" laughed Bartlett. "The race was to be for
+a finish, not a dead heat. We'll try it again, sometime."
+
+"All right-any time you like!" said the captain crisply, as he sat down
+at a table after greeting some friends. "But you won't refuse to split a
+quart with me?"
+
+"No. My throat is as dusty as a vacuum cleaner. Have any of the matches
+started yet, Bruce?" he asked, turning to the Human Encyclopedia.
+
+"Only some of the novices. And, speaking of novices, do you know that in
+Scotland there are fourteen thousand, seven hundred--"
+
+"Cut it, Bruce! Cut it!" begged the captain. "Sit in--you and Tom--and
+we'll make it two bottles. Anything to choke off your flow of useless
+statistics!" and he laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"When does the cup-winners' match start?" asked Bartlett, as the four
+young men sat about the table under the veranda. "That's the one I'm
+interested in."
+
+"In about an hour," announced Sharwell, as he consulted a card. "Hardly
+any of the veterans are here yet."
+
+"Has Mr. Carwell arrived?" asked Captain Poland, as he raised his glass
+and seemed to be studying the bubbles that spiraled upward from the
+hollow stem.
+
+"You'll know when he gets here," answered Bruce Garrigan.
+
+"How so?" asked the captain. "Does he have an official announcer?"
+
+"No, but you'll hear his car before you see it."
+
+"New horn?"
+
+"No, new car-new color-new everything!" said Garrigan. "He's just bought
+a new ten thousand dollar French car, and it's painted red, white and
+blue, and-"
+
+"Red, white and blue?" chorused the other three men.
+
+"Yes. Very patriotic. His friends don't know whether he's honoring Uncle
+Sam or the French Republic. However, it's all the same. His car is a
+wonder."
+
+"I must have a brush with him!" murmured Captain Poland.
+
+"Don't. You'll lose out," advised Garrigan. "It can do eighty on fourth
+speed, and Carwell is sporty enough to slip it into that gear if he
+needed to."
+
+"Um! Guess I'll wait until I get my new machine, then," decided the
+captain.
+
+There was more talk, but Bartlett gradually dropped out of the
+conversation and went to walk about the club grounds.
+
+Maraposa was a social, as well as a golfing, club, and the scene of many
+dances and other affairs. It lay a few miles back from the shore near
+Lakeside, in New Jersey. The clubhouse was large and elaborate, and the
+grounds around it were spacious and well laid out.
+
+Not far away was Loch Harbor, where the yachts of the club of which
+Captain Gerry Poland was president anchored, and a mile or so in the
+opposite direction was Lake Tacoma, on the shore of which was Lakeside.
+A rather exclusive colony summered there, the hotel numbering many
+wealthy persons among its patrons.
+
+Harry Bartlett, rather wishing he had gone in for golf more devotedly,
+was wandering about, casually greeting friends and acquaintances,
+when he heard his name called from the cool and shady depths of a
+summer-house on the edge of the golf links.
+
+"Oh, Minnie! How are you?" he cordially greeted a rather tall and dark
+girl who extended her slim hand to him. "I didn't expect to see you
+today."
+
+"Oh, I take in all the big matches, though I don't play much myself,"
+answered Minnie Webb. "I'm surprised to find you without a caddy,
+though, Harry."
+
+"Too lazy, I'm afraid. I'm going to join the gallery to-day. Meanwhile,
+if you don't mind, I'll sit in here and help you keep cool."
+
+"It isn't very hard to do that to-day," and she moved over to make room
+for him. "Isn't it just perfect weather!"
+
+At one time Minnie Webb and Harry Bartlett had been very close
+friends--engaged some rumors had it. But now they were jolly good
+companions, that was all.
+
+"Seen the Carwells' new machine?" asked Bartlett.
+
+"No, but I've heard about it. I presume they'll drive up in it to-day."
+
+"Does Viola run it?"
+
+"I haven't heard. It's a powerful machine, some one said-more of a racer
+than a touring car, Mr. Blossom was remarking."
+
+"Well, he ought to know. I understand he's soon to be taken into
+partnership with Mr. Carwell."
+
+"I don't know," murmured Minnie, and she seemed suddenly very much
+interested in the vein structure of a leaf she pulled from a vine that
+covered the summer-house.
+
+Bartlett smiled. Gossip had it that Minnie Webb and Le Grand Blossom,
+Mr. Carwell's private secretary, were engaged. But there had been
+no formal announcement, though the two had been seen together more
+frequently of late than mere friendship would warrant.
+
+There was a stir in front of the clubhouse, followed by a murmur of
+voices, and Minnie, peering through a space in the vines, announced:
+
+"There's the big car now.  Oh, I don't like that color at all!
+I'm as patriotic as any one, but to daub a perfectly good car up like
+that--well, it's--"
+
+"Sporty, I suppose Carwell thinks," finished Bartlett. He had risen as
+though to leave the summerhouse, but as he saw Captain Poland step up
+and offer his hand to Viola Carwell, he drew back and again sat down
+beside Minnie.
+
+A group gathered about the big French car, obviously to the delight of
+Mr. Carwell, who was proud of the furor created by his latest purchase.
+
+Though he kept up his talk with Minnie in the summer-house, Harry
+Bartlett's attention was very plainly not on his present companion nor
+the conversation. At any other time Minnie Webb would have noticed it
+and taxed him with it, but now, she, too, had her attention centered
+elsewhere. She watched eagerly the group about the big machine, and her
+eyes followed the figure of a man who descended from the rear seat and
+made his way out along a path that led to a quiet spot.
+
+"I think I'll go in now," murmured Minnie Webb. "I have to see--"
+Bartlett was not listening. In fact he was glad of the diversion, for
+he saw Viola Carwell turn with what he thought was impatience aside from
+Captain Poland, and that was the very chance the other young man had
+been waiting for.
+
+He followed Minnie Webb from the little pavilion, paying no attention to
+where she drifted. But he made his way through the press of persons to
+where Viola stood, and he saw her eyes light up as he approached. His,
+too, seemed brighter.
+
+"I was wondering if you would come to see dad win," she murmured to
+him, as he took her hand, and Captain Poland, with a little bow, stepped
+back.
+
+"You knew I'd come, didn't you?" Bartlett asked in a low voice.
+
+"I hoped so," she murmured. "Now, Harry," she went on in a low voice,
+as they moved aside, "this will be a good time for you to smooth
+things over with father. If he wins, as he feels sure he will, you must
+congratulate him very heartily--exceptionally so. Make a fuss over him,
+so to speak. He'll be club champion, and it will seem natural for you to
+bubble over about it."
+
+"But why should I, Viola? I haven't done anything to merit his
+displeasure."
+
+"I know. But you remember what a touch-fire he is. He's always held that
+business matter against you, though I'm sure you had nothing to do with
+it. Now, if he wins, and I hope he will, you can take advantage of it to
+get on better terms with him, and--"
+
+"Well, I'm willing to be friends, you know that, Viola. But I can't
+pretend--I never could!"
+
+"You're stubborn, Harry!" and Viola pouted.
+
+"Well, perhaps I am. When I know I'm right--"
+
+"Couldn't you forget it just once?"
+
+"I don't see how!"
+
+"Oh, you provoke me! But if you won't you won't, I suppose. Only it
+would be such a good chance--"
+
+"Well, I'll see him after the match, Viola. I'll do my best to be
+decent."
+
+"You must go a little farther than that, Harry. Dad will be all worked
+up if he wins, and he'll want a fuss made over him. It will be the very
+chance for you."
+
+"All right-I'll do my best," murmured Bartlett. And then a servant came
+up to summon him to the telephone.
+
+Viola was not left long alone, for Captain Poland was watching her from
+the tail of his eye, and he was at her side before Harry Bartlett was
+out of sight.
+
+"Perhaps you'd like to come for a little spin with me, Miss Carwell,"
+said the captain. "I just heard that they've postponed the cup-winners'
+match an hour; and unless you want to sit around here--"
+
+"Come on!" cried Viola, impulsively. "It's too perfect a day to sit
+around, and I'm only interested in my father's match."
+
+There was another reason why Viola Carwell was glad of the chance to go
+riding with Captain Poland just then. She really was a little provoked
+with Bartlett's stubbornness, or what she called that, and she thought
+it might "wake him up," as she termed it, to see her with the only man
+who might be classed as his rival.
+
+As for herself, Viola was not sure whether or not she would admit
+Captain Poland to that class. There was time enough yet.
+
+And so, as Bartlett went in to the telephone, to answer a call that had
+come most inopportunely for him, Viola Carwell and Captain Poland swept
+off along the pleasantly shaded country road.
+
+Left to herself, for which just then she was thankful, Minnie Webb
+drifted around until she met LeGrand Blossom.
+
+"What's the matter, Lee?" she asked him in a low voice, and he smiled
+with his eyes at her, though his face showed no great amount of jollity.
+"You're as solemn as though every railroad stock listed had dropped ten
+points just after you bought it."
+
+"No, it isn't quite as bad as that," he said, as he fell into step beside
+her, and they strolled off on one of the less-frequented walks.
+
+"I thought everything was going so well with you. Has there been any
+hitch in the partnership arrangement?" asked Minnie.
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"Have you lost money?"
+
+"No, I can't say that I have."
+
+"Then for goodness' sake what is it? Do I have to pump you like a
+newspaper reporter?" and Minnie Webb laughed, showing a perfect set of
+teeth that contrasted well against the dark red and tan of her cheeks.
+
+"Oh, I don't know that it's anything much," replied LeGrand Blossom.
+
+"It's something!" insisted Minnie.
+
+"Well, yes, it is. And as it'll come out, sooner or later, I might as
+well tell you now," he said, with rather an air of desperation, and as
+though driven to it. "Have you heard any rumors that Mr. Carwell is in
+financial difficulties?"
+
+"Why, no! The idea! I always thought he had plenty of money. Not a
+multi-millionaire, of course, but better off financially than any one
+else in Lakeside."
+
+"He was once; but he won't be soon, if he keeps up the pace he's set of
+late," went on LeGrand Blossom, and his voice was gloomy.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, things don't look so well as they did. He was very foolish to
+buy that ten-thousand-dollar yacht so soon after spending even more than
+that on this red, white and blue monstrosity of his!"
+
+"You don't mean to tell me he's bought a yacht, too?"
+
+"Yes, the Osprey that Colonel Blakeson used to sport up and down the
+coast in. Paid a cool ten thousand for it, though if he had left it to
+me I could have got it for eight, I'm sure."
+
+"Well, twenty thousand dollars oughtn't to worry Mr. Carwell, I should
+think," returned Minnie.
+
+"It wouldn't have, a year ago," answered LeGrand. "But he's been on the
+wrong side of the market for some time. Then, too, something new has
+cropped up about that old Bartlett deal."
+
+"You mean the one over which Harry's uncle and Mr. Carwell had such a
+fuss?"
+
+"Yes. Mr. Carwell's never got over that. And there are rumors that he
+lost quite a sum in a business transaction with Captain Poland."
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed the girl. "Isn't business horrid! I'm glad I'm not a
+man. But what is this about Captain Poland?"
+
+"I don't know? haven't heard it all yet, as Mr. Carwell doesn't tell me
+everything, even if he has planned to take me into partnership with him.
+But now I'm not so keen on it."
+
+"Keen on what, Lee?" and Minnie Webb leaned just the least bit nearer to
+his side.
+
+"On going into partnership with a man who spends money so lavishly when
+he needs all the ready cash he can lay his hands on. But don't mention
+this to any one, Minnie. If it got out it might precipitate matters, and
+then the whole business would tumble down like a house of cards. As it
+is, I may be able to pull him out. But I've put the soft pedal on the
+partnership talk."
+
+"Has Mr. Carwell mentioned it of late?"
+
+"No. All he seems to be interested in is this golf game that may make
+him club champion. But keep secret what I have told you."
+
+Minnie Webb nodded assent, and they turned back toward the clubhouse,
+for they had reached a too secluded part of the grounds.
+
+Meanwhile, Viola Carwell was not enjoying her ride with Captain Poland
+as much as she had expected she would. As a matter of fact it had been
+undertaken largely to cause Bartlett a little uneasiness; and as the
+car spun on she paid less and less attention to the captain.
+
+Seeing this, the latter changed his mind concerning something he had
+fully expected to speak to Viola about that day, if he got the chance.
+
+Captain Poland was genuinely in love with Viola, and he had reason
+to feel that she cared for him, though whether enough to warrant a
+declaration of love on his part was hard to understand.
+
+"But I won't take a chance now," mused the captain, rather moodily; and
+the talk descended to mere monosyllables on the part of both of them.
+"I must see Carwell and have it out with him about that insurance deal.
+Maybe he holds that against me, though the last time I talked with him
+he gave me to understand that I'd stand a better show than Harry. I
+must see him after the game. If he wins he'll be in a mellow humor,
+particularly after a bottle or so. That's what I'll do."
+
+The captain spun his car up in front of the clubhouse and helped Viola
+out. "I think we are in plenty of time for your father's match," he
+remarked.
+
+"Yes," she assented. "I don't see any of the veterans on the field yet,"
+and she looked across the perfect course. "I'll go to look for dad and
+wish him luck. He always wants me to do that before he starts his medal
+play. See you again, Captain;" and with a friendly nod she left the
+somewhat chagrined yachtsman.
+
+When Captain Poland had parked his car he took a short cut along a path
+that led through a little clump of bushes. Midway he heard voices. In
+an instant he recognized them as those of Horace Carwell and Harry
+Bartlett. He heard Bartlett say:
+
+"But don't you see how much better it would be to drop it all--to have
+nothing more to do with her?"
+
+"Look here, young man, you mind your own business!" snapped Mr. Carwell.
+"I know what I'm doing!"
+
+"I haven't any doubt of it, Mr. Carwell; but I ventured to suggest?"
+went on Bartlett.
+
+"Keep your suggestions to yourself, if you please. I've had about all I
+want from you and your family. And if I hear any more of your impudent
+talk--"
+
+Then Captain Poland moved away, for he did not want to hear any more.
+
+In the meantime Viola hurried back to the clubhouse, and forced herself
+to be gay. But, somehow, a cloud seemed to have come over her day.
+
+The throng had increased, and she caught sight, among the press, of Jean
+Forette, their chauffeur.
+
+"Have you seen my father since he arrived, Jean?" asked Viola.
+
+"Oh, he is somewhere about, I suppose," was the answer, and it was given
+in such a surly tone with such a churlish manner that Viola flushed with
+anger and bit her lips to keep back a sharp retort.
+
+At that moment Minnie Webb strolled past. She had heard the question and
+the answer.
+
+"I just saw your father going out with the other contestants, Viola,"
+said Minnie Webb, "for they were friends of some years' standing. I
+think they are going to start to play. I wonder why they say the French
+are such a polite race," she went on, speaking lightly to cover Viola's
+confusion caused by the chauffeur's manner. "He was positively
+insulting."
+
+"He was," agreed Viola. "But I shouldn't mind him, I suppose. He does
+not like the new machine, and father has told him to find another place
+by the end of the month. I suppose that has piqued him."
+
+While there were many matches to be played at the Maraposa Club that
+day, interest, as far as the older members and their friends were
+concerned, was centered in that for cup-winners. These constituted the
+best players--the veterans of the game--and the contest was sure to be
+interesting and close.
+
+Horace Carwell was a "sport," in every meaning of the term. Though a man
+well along in his forties, he was as lithe and active as one ten years
+younger. He motored, fished, played golf, hunted, and of late had added
+yachting to his amusements. He was wealthy, as his father had been
+before him, and owned a fine home in New York, but he spent a large part
+of every year at Lakeside, where he might enjoy the two sports he loved
+best-golfing and yachting.
+
+Viola was an only child, her mother having died when she was about
+sixteen, and since then Mr. Carwell's maiden sister had kept watch and
+ward over the handsome home, The Haven. Viola, though loving her father
+with the natural affection of a daughter and some of the love she had
+lavished on her mother, was not altogether in sympathy with the sporting
+proclivities of Mr. Carwell.
+
+True, she accompanied him to his golf games and sailed with him or
+rode in his big car almost as often as he asked her. And she thoroughly
+enjoyed these things. But what she did not enjoy was the rather too
+jovial comradeship that followed on the part of the men and women her
+father associated with. He was a good liver and a good spender, and he
+liked to have about him such persons-men "sleek and fat," who if they
+did not "sleep o' nights," at least had the happy faculty of turning
+night into day for their own amusement.
+
+So, in a measure, Viola and her father were out of sympathy, as had been
+husband and wife before her; though there had never been a whisper of
+real incompatibility; nor was there now, between father and daughter.
+
+"Fore!"
+
+It was the warning cry from the first tee to clear the course for the
+start of the cup-winners' match. In anticipation of some remarkable
+playing, an unusually large gallery would follow the contestants around.
+The best caddies had been selected, clubs had been looked to with
+care and tested, new balls were got out, and there was much subdued
+excitement, as befitted the occasion.
+
+Mr. Carwell, his always flushed face perhaps a trifle more like a mild
+sunset than ever, strolled to the first tee. He swung his driver with
+freedom and ease to make sure it was the one that best suited him, and
+then turned to Major Wardell, his chief rival. "Do you want to take any
+more?" he asked meaningly.
+
+"No, thank you," was the laughing response. "I've got all I can carry.
+Not that I'm going to let you beat me, but I'm always a stroke or two
+off in my play when the sun's too bright, as it is now. However, I'm not
+crawling."
+
+"You'd better not!" declared his rival. "As for me, the brighter the sun
+the better I like it. Well, are we all ready?"
+
+The officials held a last consultation and announced that play might
+start. Mr. Carwell was to lead.
+
+The first hole was not the longest in the course, but to place one's ball
+on fair ground meant driving very surely, and for a longer distance than
+most players liked to think about. Also a short distance from the tee
+was a deep ravine, and unless one cleared that it was a handicap hard to
+overcome.
+
+Mr. Carwell made his little tee of sand with care, and placed the ball
+on the apex. Then he took his place and glanced back for a moment to
+where Viola stood between Captain Poland and Harry Bartlett. Something
+like a little frown gathered on the face of Horace Carwell as he noted
+the presence of Bartlett, but it passed almost at once.
+
+"Well, here goes, ladies and gentlemen!" exclaimed Mr. Carwell in rather
+loud tones and with a free and easy manner he did not often assume.
+"Here's where I bring home the bacon and make my friend, the major, eat
+humble pie."
+
+Viola flushed. It was not like her father to thus boast. On the contrary
+he was usually what the Scotch call a "canny" player. He never predicted
+that he was going to win, except, perhaps, to his close friends. But he
+was now boasting like the veriest schoolboy.
+
+"Here I go!" he exclaimed again, and then he swung at the ball with his
+well-known skill.
+
+It was a marvelous drive, and the murmurs of approbation that greeted it
+seemed to please Mr. Carwell.
+
+"Let's see anybody beat that!" he cried as he stepped off the tee to
+give place to Major Wardell.
+
+Mr. Carwell's white ball had sailed well up on the putting green of the
+first hole, a shot seldom made at Maraposa.
+
+"A few more strokes like that and he'll win the match," murmured
+Bartlett.
+
+"And when he does, don't forget what I told you," whispered Viola to
+him.
+
+He found her hand, hidden at her side in the folds of her dress, and
+pressed it. She smiled up at him, and then they watched the major swing
+at his ball.
+
+"It's going to be a corking match," murmured more than one member of the
+gallery, as they followed the players down the field.
+
+"If any one asked me, I should say that Carwell had taken just a little
+too much champagne to make his strokes true toward the last hole," said
+Tom Sharwell to Bruce Garrigan.
+
+"Perhaps," was the admission. "But I'd like to see him win. And, for
+the sake of saying something, let me inform you that in Africa last year
+there were used in nose rings alone for the natives seventeen thousand
+four hundred and twenty-one pounds of copper wire. While for anklets--"
+
+"I'll buy you a drink if you chop it off short!" offered Sharwell.
+
+"Taken!" exclaimed Garrigan, with a grin.
+
+The cup play went on, the four contestants being well matched, and the
+shots duly applauded from hole to hole.
+
+The turn was made and the homeward course began, with the excitement
+increasing as it was seen that there would be the closest possible
+finish, between the major and Mr. Carwell at least.
+
+"What's the row over there?" asked Bartlett suddenly, as he walked along
+with Viola and Captain Poland.
+
+"Where?" inquired the captain.
+
+"Among those autos. Looks as if one was on fire."
+
+"It does," agreed Viola. "But I can see our patriotic palfrey, so I
+guess it's all right. There are enough people over there, anyhow. But it
+is something!"
+
+There was a dense cloud of smoke hovering over the place where some of
+the many automobiles were parked at one corner of the course. Still it
+might be some one starting his machine, with too much oil being burned
+in the cylinders.
+
+"Now for the last hole!" exulted Mr. Carwell, as they approached the
+eighteenth. "I've got you two strokes now, Major, and I'll have you
+four by the end of the match."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that," was the laughing and good-natured reply.
+
+There was silence in the gallery while the players made ready for the
+last hole.
+
+There was a sharp impact as Mr. Carwell's driver struck the little white
+ball and sent it sailing in a graceful curve well toward the last hole.
+
+"A marvelous shot!" exclaimed Captain Poland. "On the green again!
+Another like that and he'll win the game!"
+
+"And I can do it, too!" boasted Carwell, who overheard what was said.
+
+The others drove off in turn, and the play reached the final stage of
+putting. Viola turned as though to go over and see what the trouble was
+among the automobiles. She looked back as she saw her father stoop to
+send the ball into the little depressed cup. She felt sure that he
+would win, for she had kept a record of his strokes and those of his
+opponents. The game was all but over.
+
+"I wonder if there can be anything the matter with our car?" mused
+Viola, as she saw the smoke growing denser. "Dad's won, so I'm going
+over to see. Perhaps that chauffeur--"
+
+She did not finish the sentence. She turned to look back at her father
+once more, and saw him make the putt that won the game at the last
+hole. Then, to her horror she saw him reel, throw up his hands, and fall
+heavily in a heap, while startled cries reached her ears.
+
+"Oh! Oh! What has happened?" she exclaimed, and deadly fear clutched at
+her heart--and not without good cause.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE NINETEENTH HOLE
+
+
+For several seconds after Mr. Carwell fell so heavily on the putting
+green, having completed the last stroke that sent the white ball into
+the cup and made him club champion, there was not a stir among the other
+players grouped about him; nor did the gallery, grouped some distance
+back, rush up. The most natural thought, and one that was in the minds
+of the majority, was that the clubman had overbalanced himself in making
+his stance for the putt shot, and had fallen. There was even a little
+thoughtless laughter from some in the gallery. But it was almost
+instantly hushed, for it needed but a second glance to tell that
+something more serious than a simple fall had occurred.
+
+Or if it was a fall caused by an unsteady position, taken when he
+made his last shot, it had been such a heavy one that Mr. Carwell was
+overlong in recovering from it. He remained in a huddled heap on the
+short-cropped, velvety turf of the putting green.
+
+Then the murmurs of wonder came, surging from many throats, and the
+friends of Mr. Carwell closed around to help him to his feet-to render
+what aid was needed. Among them were Captain Poland and Harry Bartlett,
+and as the latter stepped forward he glanced up, for an instant, at the
+blue sky.
+
+Far above the Maraposa golf links circled a lone osprey on its way to
+the inlet or ocean. Rather idly Bartlett wondered if it was the same one
+he and Captain Poland had seen dart down and kill the fish just before
+the beginning of the big match.
+
+"What's the matter, Horace? Sun too much for you?" asked Major Wardell,
+as he leaned over his friend and rival. "It is a bit hot; I feel it
+myself. But I didn't think it would knock you out. Or are you done up
+because you beat me? Come--"
+
+He ceased his rather railing talk, and a look came over his face that
+told those near him something serious had happened. There was a rush
+toward the prostrate man.
+
+"Keep back, please!" exclaimed the major. "He seems to have fainted. He
+needs air. Is Dr. Rowland here? I thought I saw him at the clubhouse a
+while ago. Some one get him, please. If not--"
+
+"I'll get him!" some one offered
+
+"Here, give him a sip of this--it's brandy!" and an automobilist, who
+had come across the links from the nearest point to the highway, offered
+his flask.
+
+The major unscrewed the silver top, which formed a tiny cup, and tried
+to let some of the potent liquor trickle between the purplish lips of
+the unconscious victor in the cup-winners' match. But more of the liquid
+was spilled on his face and neck than went into his mouth. The air
+reeked with the odor of it.
+
+"What has happened? Is he hurt?" gasped Viola, who made her way through
+the press of people, which opened for her, till she stood close beside
+her father. "What is it? Oh, is he--?"
+
+"He fell," some one said.
+
+"Just as he made his winning stroke," added another.
+
+"Oh!" and Viola herself reeled unsteadily.
+
+"It's all right," a voice said in her ear, and though it was in the
+ordinary tones of Captain Poland, to the alarmed girl it seemed as
+though it came from the distant peaks of the hills. "He'll be all right
+presently," went on the captain, as he supported Viola and led her out
+of the throng.
+
+"It's just a touch of the sun, I fancy. They've gone for a doctor."
+
+"Oh, but, Captain Poland--father was never like this before--he was
+always so strong and well--I never knew him to complain of the heat. And
+as for fainting--why I believe I almost did it myself, just now, didn't
+I?"
+
+"Almost, yes."
+
+"But father never did. Oh, I must go to him!"
+
+She struggled a little and moved away from his half encircling arm, for
+he had seen that her strength was failing her and had supported her as
+he led her away. "I must go to him!"
+
+"Better not just now," said Captain Poland gently. "Harry is there with
+him, the major and other friends. They will look after him. You had
+better come with me to the clubhouse and lie down. I will get you a cup
+of tea."
+
+"No! I must be with my father!" she insisted. "He will need me when
+he--when he revives. Please let me go to him!"
+
+The captain saw that it was of little use to oppose her so he led her
+back toward the throng that was still about the prostrate player. A
+clubman was hurrying back with a young man who carried a small black
+bag.
+
+"They've got a doctor, I think," said Gerry. "Not Dr. Rowland, though.
+However, I dare say it will be all right."
+
+A fit of trembling seized Viola, and it was so violent that, for a
+moment, Captain Poland thought she would fall. He had to hold her close,
+and he wished there was some place near at hand to which he might
+take her. But the clubhouse was some distance away, and there were no
+conveyances within call.
+
+However, Viola soon recovered her composure, or at least seemed to, and
+smiled up at him, though there was no mirth in it.
+
+"I'll be all right now," she said. "Please take me to him. He will ask
+for me as soon as he recovers."
+
+The young doctor had made his way through the throng and now knelt
+beside the prostrate man. The examination was brief--a raising of the
+eyelids, an ear pressed over the heart, supplemented by the use of the
+stethoscope, and then the young medical man looked up, searching the
+ring of faces about him as though seeking for some one in authority to
+whom information might be imparted. Then he announced, generally:
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"Dead!" exclaimed several.
+
+"Hush!" cautioned Harry Bartlett "She'll hear you!"
+
+He looked in the direction whence Viola and Captain Poland were
+approaching the scene.
+
+"Are you sure, Dr. Baird?" he asked.
+
+"Positive. The heart action has entirely stopped."
+
+"But might that not be from some cause--some temporary cause?"
+
+"Yes, but not in this case. Mr. Carwell is dead. I can do nothing for
+him."
+
+It sounded brutal, but it was only a medical man's plain statement of
+the case.
+
+"Some one must tell her," murmured Minnie Webb, who had been attracted
+to the crowd, though she was not much of a golf enthusiast. "Poor Viola!
+Some one must tell her."
+
+"I will," offered Bartlett, and he made his way through a living lane
+that opened for him. Then it closed again, hiding the body from sight.
+Some one placed a sweater over the face that had been so ruddy, and was
+now so pale.
+
+Captain Poland, still supporting Viola on his arm, saw Bartlett
+approaching. Somehow he surmised what his fellow clubman was going to
+say.
+
+"Oh, Harry!" exclaimed Viola, impulsively holding out her hands to him.
+"Is he all right? Is he better?"
+
+"I am sorry," began Harry, and then she seemed to sense what he was
+going to add.
+
+"He isn't--Oh, don't tell me he is--"
+
+"The doctor says he is dead, Viola," answered Bartlett gently. "He
+passed away without pain or suffering. It must have been heart disease."
+
+But Viola Carwell never heard the last words, for she really fainted
+this time, and Captain Poland laid her gently down on the soft, green
+grass.
+
+"Better get the doctor for her," he advised Bartlett. "She'll need him,
+if her father doesn't." As Harry Bartlett turned aside, waving back
+the curiosity seekers that were already leaving the former scene of
+excitement for the latest, LeGrand Blossom came up. He seemed very cool
+and not at all excited, considering what had happened.
+
+"I will look after Miss Carwell," he said.
+
+"Perhaps you had better see to Mr. Carwell--Mr. Carwell's remains,
+Blossom," suggested Captain Poland. "Miss Carwell will be herself very
+soon. She has only fainted. Her father is dead.
+
+"Dead? Are you sure?" asked LeGrand Blossom, and his manner seemed a
+trifle more naturally excited.
+
+"Dr. Baird says so. You'd better go to him. He may want to ask some
+questions, and you were more closely associated with Carwell than any of
+the rest of us."
+
+"Very well, I'll look after the body," said the secretary. "Did the
+doctor say what killed him?"
+
+"No. That will be gone into later, I dare say. Probably heart disease;
+though I never knew he had it," said Bartlett.
+
+"Nor I," added Blossom. "I'd be more inclined to suspect apoplexy. But
+are you sure Miss Carwell will be all right?"
+
+"Yes," answered Captain Poland, who had raised her head after sprinkling
+in her face some water a caddy brought in his cap. "She is reviving."
+
+Dr. Baird came up just then and gave her some aromatic spirits of
+ammonia.
+
+Viola opened her eyes. There was no comprehension in them, and she
+looked about in wonder. Then, as her benumbed brain again took up its
+work, she exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true! Tell me it isn't!"
+
+"I am sorry, but it seems to be but too true," said Captain Poland
+gently. "Did he ever speak of trouble with his heart, Viola?"
+
+"Never, Gerry. He was always so well and strong."
+
+"You had better come to the clubhouse," suggested Bartlett, and she went
+with them both.
+
+A little later the body of Horace Carwell was carried to the "nineteenth
+hole"--that place where all games are played over again in detail as the
+contestants put away their clubs.
+
+A throng followed the silent figure, borne on the shoulders of some
+grounds workmen, but only club members were admitted to the house. And
+among them buzzed talk of the tragedy that had so suddenly ended the day
+of sports.
+
+"He looked all right when he started to play," said one. "Never saw him
+in better form, and some of his shots were marvelous."
+
+"He'd been drinking a little too much for a man to play his best,
+especially on a hot day," ventured another. "He must have been taken ill
+from that, and the excitement of trying to win over the major, and it
+affected his heart."
+
+"Never knew him to have heart disease," declared Bruce Garrigan.
+
+"Lots of us have it and don't know it," commented Tom Sharwell. "I
+suppose it will take an autopsy to decide."
+
+"Rather tough on Miss Carwell," was another comment.
+
+"That's true!" several agreed.
+
+The body of Horace Carwell was placed in one of the small card rooms,
+and the door locked. Then followed some quick telephoning on the part of
+Dr. Baird, who had recently joined the golf club, and who had arrived at
+the clubhouse shortly before Mr. Carwell dropped dead.
+
+It was at the suggestion of Harry Bartlett that Dr. Addison Lambert,
+the Carwell family physician, was sent for, and that rather aged
+practitioner arrived as soon as possible.
+
+He was taken in to view the body, together with Dr. Baird, who was
+almost pathetically deferential to his senior colleague. The two medical
+men were together in the room with the body for some time, and when they
+came out Viola Carwell was there to meet them. Dr. Lambert put his arms
+about her. He had known her all her life--since she first ventured into
+this world, in fact--and his manner was most fatherly.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Add!" she murmured to him--for she had long called him by
+this endearing title--Oh, Uncle Add! What is it? Is my father--is he
+really--"
+
+"My dear little girl, your father is dead, I am sorry to say. You must
+be very brave, and bear up. Be the brave woman he would want you to be."
+
+"I will, Uncle Add. But, oh, it is so hard! He was all I had! Oh, what
+made him die?"
+
+She questioned almost as a little child might have done.
+
+"That I don't know, my dear," answered Dr. Lambert gently. "We shall
+have to find that out later by--Well, we'll find out later, Dr. Baird
+and I. You had better go home now. I'll have your car brought around. Is
+that--that Frenchman here--your chauffeur?"
+
+"Yes, he was here a little while ago. But I had rather not go home with
+him--at least, unless some one else comes with me. I don't like--I don't
+like that big, new car.
+
+"If you will come with me, Viola--" began Bartlett.
+
+"Yes, Harry, I'll go with you. Oh, poor Aunt Mary! This will be a
+terrible shock to her. I--"
+
+"I'll telephone," offered Dr. Lambert. "She'll know when you arrive. And
+I'll be over to see you, Viola, as soon as I make some arrangements."
+
+"And will you look after--after poor father?"
+
+"Yes, you may leave it all to me."
+
+And so, while the body of the dead clubman remained at the nineteenth
+hole, Viola Carwell was taken to 'The Haven' by Harry Bartlett, while
+Captain Poland, nodding farewell to LeGrand Blossom and some of his
+other friends, left the grounds in his gray car.
+
+And as he rode down past the inlet where the tide was now running out to
+the sea, he saw an osprey dart down and strike at an unseen fish.
+
+But the bird rose with dripping pinions, its talons empty.
+
+"You didn't get any one that time!" murmured the captain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. "WHY?"
+
+
+Through the silent house echoed the vibration of the electric bell,
+sounding unnecessarily loud, it seemed. The maid who answered took the
+caller's card to Miss Mary Carwell, Viola's aunt.
+
+"He wants to see Miss Viola," the servant reported. "Shall I tell her?"
+
+"You had better, yes. She went to lie down, but she will want to see
+Captain Poland. Wait, I'll tell her myself. Where is he?"
+
+"In the library, ma am.
+
+"Very well. I'll see him."
+
+Mr. Carwell's sister literally swept down the stairs, her black silk
+dress rustling somberly and importantly. She was a large woman, and her
+bearing and air were in keeping.
+
+"It was very good of you to come," she murmured, as she sank, with more
+rustling and shimmerings, into a chair, while the captain waited for her
+to be settled, like a boat at anchor, before he again took his place.
+"Viola will be down presently. I gave her a powder the doctor left for
+her, and she slept, I hope, since we were both awake nearly all of last
+night."
+
+"I should imagine so. The strain and shock must have been intense. But
+please don't disturb her if she is resting. I merely called to see if I
+could do anything."
+
+"Thank you so much. We are waiting for the doctors' report. It was
+necessary to have an autopsy, I understand?" she questioned.
+
+"Yes. The law requires it in all cases of sudden and mysterious death."
+
+"Mysterious death, Captain Poland!"
+
+Mary Carwell seemed to swell up like a fretful turkey.
+
+"Well, by that I mean unexplained. Mr. Carwell dropped dead suddenly and
+from no apparent cause."
+
+"But it was heart disease--or apoplexy--of course! What else could it
+be?"
+
+"It must have been one or the other of those, Miss Carwell, I am sure,"
+the captain murmured sympathetically. "But the law requires that such a
+fact be established to the satisfaction of the county physician."
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"Dr. Rowland."
+
+"Will there be a coroner's inquest, such as I have read about? I
+couldn't bear anything like that."
+
+"It is not at all necessary, Miss Carwell," went on the captain.
+"The law of New Jersey does not demand that in cases of sudden and
+unexplained death, unless the county physician is not satisfied with his
+investigation. In that matter New Jersey differs from some of the other
+states. The county physician will make an autopsy to determine the cause
+of death. If he is satisfied that it was from natural causes he gives a
+certificate to that effect, and that ends the matter."
+
+"Oh, then it will be very simple."
+
+"Yes, I imagine so. Dr. Rowland will state that your brother came to his
+death from heart disease, or from apoplexy, or whatever it was, and then
+you may proceed with the funeral arrangements. I shall be glad to help
+you in any way I can."
+
+"It is very kind of you. This has been so terrible--so sudden and
+unexpected. It has perfectly unnerved both poor Viola and myself, and we
+are the only ones to look after matters."
+
+"Then, let me help," urged Captain Poland. "I shall only be too glad.
+The members of the golf club, too, will do all in their power. We had
+a meeting this morning and passed resolutions of sympathy. I have also
+called a meeting of our yacht club, of which your brother was a member.
+We will take suitable action."
+
+"Thank you. And when do you think we may expect the certificate from Dr.
+Rowland?"
+
+"Very soon. He is performing the autopsy now, at the club. Dr. Lambert
+and Dr. Baird are with him. It was thought best to have it there, rather
+than at the undertaking rooms."
+
+"I shall be glad when matters can proceed as they ought to proceed. This
+publicity is very distasteful to me."
+
+"I can readily believe that, Miss Carwell. And now, if you will ask Miss
+Viola if I may be of any service to her, I shall--"
+
+"Before I call her, there is one matter I wish to ask you about," said
+Mr. Carwell's sister. "You are familiar with business, I know. I was
+going to ask Mr. Bartlett, as this seemed more in his line, but perhaps
+you can advise me."
+
+"I shall do my best, Miss Carwell. What is it?"
+
+"One of the clerks came from my brother's office this morning with a
+note from the bank. It seems that Horace borrowed a large sum for some
+business transaction, and put up as collateral certain bonds. He often
+does that, as I have heard him mention here time and again to Mr.
+Blossom, when they sat in consultation in the library.
+
+"But now it appears, according to the note from the bank, that more
+securities are needed. There has been a depreciation, or something--I
+am not familiar with the terms. At any rate the bank sends word that it
+wants more bonds. I was wondering what I had better do. Of course I have
+securities in my own private box that I might send, but--"
+
+"Why didn't Mr. Blossom attend to this?" asked Captain Poland, a bit
+sharply, it would have seemed to a casual listener. "That was his place.
+He knows all about Mr. Carwell's affairs."
+
+"I asked the clerk from the office why Mr. Blossom--did you ever hear
+such an absurd name as he has?--LeGrand Blossom--I asked the clerk why
+the matter was not attended to," went on Miss Carwell, "and he said Mr.
+Blossom must have forgotten it."
+
+"Rather odd," commented the captain. "However, I'll look after it for
+you. If necessary, I'll loan the bank enough additional securities as
+collateral to cover the loan. Don't let it disturb you, Miss Carwell. It
+is merely a small detail of business that often crops up. Securities in
+these days so often fluctuate that banks are forced to call for more,
+and different ones, to cover loans secured by them. I'll attend to the
+matter for you."
+
+"Thank you so much. And now I believe I may safely call Viola. She would
+not forgive me if she knew you had been here and she had not seen you to
+thank you for your care of her yesterday."
+
+"Oh, that was nothing. I was very glad--"
+
+Captain Poland was interrupted by a ring at the door.
+
+"Perhaps that is a message from the doctors now," suggested Miss
+Carwell.
+
+"It is Dr. Lambert himself," announced the captain, looking from a
+window that gave a view of the front porch. "Dr. Baird is with him. They
+must have completed the autopsy. Shall I see them for you?"
+
+"Please do. And please tell me at once that everything is all right, and
+that we may proceed with the funeral arrangements," begged the sister of
+the dead man.
+
+"I will do so, Miss Carwell."
+
+Captain Poland, anticipating the maid, went into the hall and himself
+opened the door for the medical men.
+
+"Oh! I'm glad you're here!" exclaimed the rather gruff voice of Dr.
+Lambert. "Yes, I'm glad you're here."
+
+The captain was on the point of asking why, when Dr. Lambert motioned
+to him to step into a little reception room off the main hall. Somewhat
+wonderingly, Captain Poland obeyed, and when the door had closed,
+shutting him in with the two doctors, he turned to the older physician
+and asked:
+
+"Is anything the matter?"
+
+"Well, we have completed the autopsy," said Dr. Lambert.
+
+"That's good. Then you are ready to sign a certificate, or at least get
+Dr. Rowland to, so that we can proceed with the arrangements. Miss Mary
+Carwell is anxious to have--"
+
+"Well, I suppose the funeral will have to be held," said Dr. Lambert
+slowly. "That can't be held up very long, even if it was worse than it
+is."
+
+"Worse than it is! What do you mean?" cried Captain Poland sharply. "Is
+there any suspicion--"
+
+"There is more than suspicion, my dear sir," went on Dr. Lambert, as
+he sank into a chair as though very, very tired. "There is, I regret to
+say, certainty."
+
+"Certainty of what?"
+
+"Certainty that my old friend, Horace Carwell, committed suicide!"
+
+"Suicide!"
+
+"By poisoning," added Dr. Baird, who had been anxious to get in a word.
+"We found very plain evidences of it when we examined the stomach and
+viscera."
+
+"Poison!" cried Captain Poland. "A suicide? I don't believe it! Why
+should Horace Carwell kill himself? He hadn't a reason in the world for
+it! There must be some mistake! Why did he do it? Why? Why?"
+
+And then suddenly he became strangely thoughtful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. VIOLA'S DECISION
+
+"That is the very question we have been asking ourselves, my dear
+Captain," said Dr. Lambert wearily. "And we are no nearer an answer now
+than, apparently, you are. Why did he do it?"
+
+The three men, two gravely professional, one, the younger, more so than
+his elder colleague, and the third plainly upset over the surprising
+news, looked at one another behind the closed door of the little room
+off the imposing reception hall at The Haven. They were in the house of
+death, and they had to do with more than death, for there was, in the
+reputed action of Horace Carwell, the hint of disgrace which suicide
+always engenders.
+
+"I suppose," began Captain Poland, rather weakly, "that there can be no
+chance of error He looked from one medical man to the other.
+
+"Not the least in the world!" quickly exclaimed Baird. "We made a most
+careful examination of the deceased's organs. They plainly show traces
+of a violent poison, though whether it was irritant or one of the
+neurotics, we are not yet prepared to say."
+
+"It couldn't have been an irritant," said Dr. Lambert gently. It was
+as though he had corrected a too zealous student reciting in class. Dr.
+Baird was painfully young, though much in earnest.
+
+"Perhaps not an irritant," he agreed. "Though I know of no neurotic that
+would produce such effects as we saw.
+
+"You are right there," said Dr. Lambert. "Whatever poison was used it
+was one the effects of which I have never seen before. But we have not
+yet finished our analysis. We have only reached a certain conclusion
+that may ultimately be changed."
+
+"You mean as to whether or not it was suicide?" asked Captain Poland
+eagerly.
+
+"No, I don't see how we can get away from that," said Dr. Lambert. "That
+fact remains. But if we establish the kind of poison used it may lead us
+to the motive. That is what we must find."
+
+"And we will find the kind of poison!" declared Dr. Baird.
+
+The older medical man shook his head.
+
+"There are some animal and vegetable poisons for which there is no known
+test," he said gently. "It may turn out to be one of these."
+
+"Then may it not develop that Mr. Carwell, assuming that he did take
+poison, did it by mistake?" asked the captain.
+
+"I hope so," murmured Dr. Lambert.
+
+"But from the action of the poison, as shown by the condition of the
+mucous coat of the alimentary canal, I hardly see how Mr. Carwell could
+not have known that he took poison," declared Dr. Baird.
+
+"Yet he seemed all right except for a little pardonable exhilaration
+during the game of golf," remarked Captain Poland. "He was feeling
+'pretty good' as we say. I don't see how he could have taken poison
+knowingly or unknowingly."
+
+"There are some poisons which, taken in combination, might mix and form
+a comparatively harmless mixture," said Dr. Lambert. "Though I confess
+this is a very remote possibility. Some poisons are neutralized by an
+alcoholic condition. And some persons, who may have been habitual users
+of a drug, may take a dose of it that would kill several persons not so
+addicted."
+
+"Do you mean that Mr. Carwell was a drug user?" demanded the captain.
+
+"I would hesitate very long before saying so," answered Dr. Lambert,
+"and I have known him many years."
+
+"Then what was it? What in the world does it all mean?" asked Captain
+Poland. "What's the answers in other words?"
+
+"I wish I knew," replied Dr. Lambert, and he shook his head. Something
+more than the weight of years seemed bowing him down. Dr. Baird seemed
+duly impressed by the circumstances that had brought him--a young and as
+yet unestablished physician--to a connection with such a startling case
+in the well known and wealthy Carwell family.
+
+As for Captain Gerry Poland, he was clearly startled by the news the
+physicians had brought. He looked toward the closed door as though
+seeking to see beyond it--into the room where Viola was waiting. To her,
+sooner or later, the tragic verdict must be told.
+
+"Can't you say anything?" he asked, a bit sharply, looking from one
+physician to the other "Is this all you came to tell--that Mr. Carwell
+was a suicide? Isn't there any mitigating circumstance?"
+
+"I believe he poisoned himself before he began his championship game,"
+said Dr. Baird, with startling frankness--almost brutal it seemed.
+
+"But why should he do such a thing?" demanded the captain, rather
+petulantly.
+
+"He may have taken some dope, thinking it would brace him up," went on the
+young medical man, "and it had the opposite effect--a depressing action
+on the heart. Or, he may have taken a overdose of his favorite drug.
+That is what we shall have to find out by making suitable inquiries of
+members of the family."
+
+"Oh, must we tell them," exclaimed Captain Poland in startled tones.
+And it was easy to determine by his voice that by "them" he meant Viola.
+"Must we tell?" he repeated.
+
+"I must do my duty as a physician both to the public and to the family,"
+said Dr. Lambert, and he straightened up as though ready to assume the
+burden he knew would fall heavily on his shoulders. "I must also think
+of Viola. I feel like another father to her now. I have always, more or
+less, regarded her as my little girl, though she is a young lady
+now. But the facts must come out. Even if I were disposed to aid in
+a concealment--which I am far from doing--Dr. Rowland, the county
+physician, was present at the autopsy. He knows."
+
+"Does he know the poison used?" asked Captain Poland quickly, and then,
+almost as soon as the words had left his lips, he seemed sorry he had
+uttered them.
+
+"No, no more than we," said Dr. Baird. "It will require some nice
+work in medical jurisprudence, and also a very delicate analysis, to
+determine that. I am inclined to think--"
+
+But what he thought no one heard or cared to hear at that moment, for,
+even as he spoke, the door of the little room was thrown hastily and
+somewhat violently open, and Viola Carwell confronted the three men. Her
+face showed traces of grief, but it had lost little of the beauty for
+which she was noted.
+
+Tall and dark, with hair of that blue--black sheen so rarely observed,
+with violet eyes and a poise and grace that made her much observed,
+Viola Carwell was at the height of her beauty. In a sense she had the
+gentle grace of her mother and with that the verve and sprightliness of
+her father mingled perfectly. It was no wonder that Captain Poland and
+Harry Bartlett and many others, for that matter, were rivals for her
+favors.
+
+"I thought you were here," she said quietly to Dr. Lambert. "Oh, Uncle
+Add, what is it? Tell me the truth!" she begged as she placed a hand on
+his arm, a hand that trembled in spite of her determination to remain
+calm. "Please tell me the truth!"
+
+"The truth, Viola?" he questioned gently.
+
+"Yes. I'm afraid you are trying to keep something back from me. This
+looks like it--you men in here talking--consulting as to what is best to
+do. Tell me. My father is dead. But that, I know, is not the worst that
+can happen. Tell me! Is there-is there any disgrace? I know--"
+
+Viola stopped as though she herself feared the words she was about to
+utter. Dr. Lambert quickly spoke.
+
+"There has been no disgrace, my dear Viola," he said, gently. "We have
+just come from the--from having made an investigation--Dr. Baird and
+myself and Dr. Rowland. We discovered that your father was poisoned,
+and--"
+
+"Poisoned?" she gasped, and started back as though struck, while her
+rapid glances went from face to face, resting longest on the countenance
+of Captain Poland. It was as though, in this great emergency, she looked
+to him for comfort more than to the old doctor who had ushered her into
+the world.
+
+"I am sorry to have to say it, Viola, but such is the case," went
+on the family physician. "Your father was poisoned. But the kind of
+poison we have not yet determined."
+
+"But who gave it to him?" she cried. "Oh, it doesn't seem that any
+one would hate him so, not even his worst enemy. And he had so many
+friends-too many, perhaps."
+
+"We don't know that any one gave him the poison, Viola," said Dr.
+Lambert, gently. "In fact, it does not seem that any one did, or your
+father would have known it. Certainly if any one had tried to make
+him take poison there would have been a struggle that he would have
+mentioned. But he died of poison, nevertheless."
+
+"Then there can be but one other explanation," she murmured, and her
+voice was tense and strained. "He must have--"
+
+"We fear he took it himself," blurted out Dr. Baird, in spite of the
+warning look cast at him by his colleague.
+
+"Oh, I won't believe that! It can't be true!" cried Viola, and she burst
+into a storm of sobs. Dr. Lambert placed his arms about her.
+
+"Tell me it isn't true, Uncle Add! Tell me it isn't true!" she sobbed.
+
+The three men, looking at one another--Dr. Lambert's glance coming over
+the bowed head of Viola--said nothing for a few moments. Then as her
+sobs died away, and she became calmer, the old physician said:
+
+"You must not take on so, Vi. I know it is hard, but you must meet the
+issue squarely. At the same time you must realize that even the most
+suspicious circumstances may be explained away. While it does look as
+though your father had deliberately taken the poison, it may easily be
+established by an investigation that it was an accident--an accident of
+which even your father was ignorant."
+
+"There are so many poisons that do not manifest themselves for a long
+time--often days--after they are taken, that there is every chance of
+proving this to have been an accident."
+
+"Then there must be an investigation!" was Viola's quick decision.
+There were still tears in her eyes, but she looked through them now,
+as through a veil that must be torn aside. "I can not believe that my
+father was a--a suicide--" she halted at the awful word. "I will not
+believe it!" she went on more firmly. "It can not be true!"
+
+Hardly had she uttered the last word than a figure passed through the
+hall, flitting past the half-opened door of the little room where Viola
+stood with the three men.
+
+"Who is there?" she called sharply, for she had spoken rather loudly,
+and she did not want any of the servants to hear. "Who is there?"
+
+"It is I--Minnie," was the answer. "Dear Viola, I have come to see if I
+could do anything. I rang and rang, but no one answered the bell, and,
+as the door was open, I walked in."
+
+"I'm afraid I didn't close it when I let you in," said Captain Poland to
+Dr. Lambert.
+
+"Dear Viola!" said Minnie Webb, as she placed cheek against that of her
+friend. "Is there anything I can do in your terrible trouble? Please let
+me do something!"
+
+"Thank you, Minnie. You are very kind. I don't know. We are in such
+distress. Tell me--" and Viola seemed to nerve herself for some effort.
+"Tell me! Did you hear what I said just now--as you passed the door?"
+
+"Do you mean about not believing that your father was a suicide?" asked
+Minnie, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I--I heard you."
+
+"Then the only thing you can do is to help me prove otherwise," said
+Viola. "That would be the greatest help. It can't be true, and we want
+that made plain. Father never killed himself. He was not that kind of
+man. He did not fear death, but he would not go deliberately to meet it.
+It is not true that he killed himself!" and Viola's voice seemed to ring
+out.
+
+A strange look came over the face of Minnie Webb. There was a great pity
+shining in her eyes as she said:
+
+"I--I am sorry, Viola, but--but I am afraid it may be true."
+
+"What! That my father committed suicide?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Minnie. "I--I'm afraid it may be true!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. HARRY'S MISSION
+
+
+Minnie Webb's announcement affected her four hearers in four different
+ways. It shocked Viola--shocked her greatly, for she had, naturally,
+expected kindly sympathy and agreement from her friend.
+
+Dr. Baird, who had involuntarily begun to twist his small mustache at
+the entrance of Miss Webb, looked at her in admiration of her good looks
+and because she upheld a theory to which he felt himself committed--a
+theory that Mr. Carwell was a plain out-and-out suicide.
+
+Dr. Lambert was plainly indignant at the bald manner in which Minnie
+Webb made her statement, and at the same time he had pity for the
+ignorance of the lay mind that will pronounce judgment against the more
+cautious opinions of science. And this was not the first poisoning case
+with which the aged practitioner had dealt.
+
+As for Captain Poland, he gazed blankly at Miss Webb for a moment
+following her statement, and then he looked more keenly at the young
+woman, as though seeking to know whence her information came.
+
+And when Viola had recovered from her first shock this was the thought
+that came to her:
+
+"What did Minnie know?"
+
+And Viola asked that very question--asked it sharply and with an air
+which told of her determination to know.
+
+"Oh, please don't ask me!" stammered Minnie Webb. "But I have heard that
+your father's affairs are involved, Viola."
+
+"His affairs? You mean anything in his--private life?" and the
+daughter of Horace Carwell--"Carwell the sport," as he was frequently
+called--seemed to feel this blow more than the shock of death.
+
+"Oh, no, nothing like that!" exclaimed Minnie, as though abashed at
+the mere suggestion. "But I did hear--and I can not tell where I heard
+it--that he was involved financially, and that, perhaps--well, you know
+some men have a horror of facing the world poor and--"
+
+"That can't be true!" declared Viola stoutly. "While I do not know
+anything about my father's financial affairs, I know he had no fear of
+failure--no fear of becoming poor."
+
+"I do not believe he would have feared to face poverty if there was
+need. But there was not, I'm sure. Minnie, who told you this?"
+
+"I--I can not tell!" said Minnie, with a memory of the insinuating
+manner in which LeGrand Blossom had spoken. Bearing in mind her promise
+to him not to mention the matter, she began to wish that she had not
+spoken.
+
+"But you must tell!" insisted Dr. Lambert. "This amounts to an
+accusation against a dead man, and you owe it to Viola to give the
+source of your information."
+
+"No, Doctor, I can not! Please don't ask me, Viola. Oh, I shouldn't have
+spoken, but I thought only to help you solve the problem."
+
+"You have only made it harder, unless you tell us more," said Dr.
+Lambert gently. "Why can not you tell us, Miss Webb?"
+
+"Because I--I promised not to. Oh, can't you find out for yourselves--in
+your own way, about his affairs? Surely an examination--"
+
+"Yes, of course, that would be the proper way," said Dr. Lambert gravely.
+"And it must be done, I suppose."
+
+"It will lead to nothing--it will prove nothing," insisted Viola. "I am
+sure my father's affairs were not involved. Wait, I'll call Aunt Mary.
+She was in close touch with all the money matters of our household.
+Father trusted her with many business matters. Call Aunt Mary!"
+
+Her eyes red with weeping, but bearing up bravely withal, Miss Mary
+Carwell joined the conference. She, it seemed, had guessed something
+when Dr. Lambert and Dr. Baird were closeted so long with Captain Poland.
+
+"We must face the facts, however unpleasant they are," said Dr. Lambert,
+in a low voice. "We must recognize that this will be public talk in
+a little while. A man--so well-known a character as was my old friend
+Horace Carwell--can not die suddenly in the midst of a championship golf
+game, and let the matter rest there."
+
+"The papers will take it up," said Dr. Baird.
+
+"The papers!" broke in Viola.
+
+"Yes, even now I have been besieged by reporters demanding to know
+the cause of death. It will have to come out. The report of the county
+physician, on which only a burial certificate can be obtained, is public
+property. The bureau of vital statistics is open to the public and the
+reporters. There is bound to be an inquiry, and, as I have said, Dr.
+Rowland has already announced it as a suicide. We must face the issue
+bravely."
+
+"But even if it should prove true, that he took the poison, I am sure
+it will turn out to be a mistake!" declared Viola. "As for my father's
+affairs being in danger financially--Aunt Mary, did you ever hear of
+such a thing?"
+
+"Well, my dear, your father kept his affairs pretty much to himself,"
+was the answer of her aunt. "He did tell me some things, and only
+to-day something came up that makes me think--Oh, I don't know what to
+think--now!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Dr. Lambert, quietly but firmly. "It is best to know
+the worst at once."
+
+"I can't say that it is the 'worst,'" replied Miss Carwell; "but there
+was something about a loan to the bank, and not enough collateral to
+cover--Mr. Blossom should have attended to it, but he did not, it seems,
+and--Won't you tell them?" she appealed to Captain Poland.
+
+"Certainly," he responded. "It is a simple matter," he went on. "Mr.
+Carwell, as all of us do at times, borrowed money from his bank, giving
+certain securities as collateral for the loan.
+
+"The bank, as all banks do, kept watch on this security, and when it
+fell in market value below a certain point, where there was no longer
+sufficient margin to cover the loan safely, demanded more collateral.
+
+"This, for some reason, Mr. Carwell did not put up, nor did his clerk,
+Mr. Blossom. I know nothing more in this respect than Miss Carwell told
+me," and he bowed to indicate the dead man's sister. "I offered to see
+to the matter for her, putting up some collateral of my own until Mr.
+Carwell's affairs could be straightened out. It is a mere technicality,
+I imagine, and can have nothing to do with--with the present matter,
+even though Miss Webb seems to think so."
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry if I have made a mistake!" exclaimed Minnie, now very
+penitent. "But I only thought it would be helping--"
+
+"It will be--to know the truth," said Dr. Lambert. "Is this all that you
+heard, Miss Webb?"
+
+"No, it was nothing like that. It had nothing to do with a bank loan.
+Oh, please don't ask me. I promised not to tell."
+
+"Very well, we won't force you to speak," said the family physician.
+"But this matter must be gone into. What one person knows others are
+sure to find out. We must see Blossom. He is the one who would have
+the most complete knowledge of your father's affairs, Viola. Did I hear
+something about his going into partnership with your father?"
+
+"Yes, there was some such plan. Father decided that he needed help,
+and he spoke of taking in Mr. Blossom. I know no more than that," Viola
+answered.
+
+"Then LeGrand Blossom is the person to throw more light on that
+subject," said Dr. Lambert.
+
+To himself he added a mental reservation that he did not count much on
+what information might come from the head clerk. Blossom, in the mind of
+Dr. Lambert, was a person of not much strength of character. There had
+been certain episodes in his life, information as to which had come
+to the physician in a roundabout way, that did not reflect on him very
+well; though, in truth, he felt that the man was weak rather than bad.
+
+"Then is it to be believed that my father was a suicide?" asked Viola,
+as though seeking to know the worst, that she might fight to make it
+better.
+
+"On the bare facts in the case--yes," answered Dr. Lambert. "But that is
+only a starting point. We will make no hard and fast decision."
+
+"Indeed we will not," declared Viola. "There must be a most rigid
+investigation."
+
+And when the others had gone, Dr. Lambert to make funeral arrangements
+for his old friend, Captain Poland to see the bank officials, Dr. Baird
+to his office, taking Minnie Webb home in his car, and Miss Garwell to
+her room to lie down, Viola, left alone, gave herself up to grief. She
+felt utterly downcast and very much in need of a friend.
+
+And perhaps this feeling made her welcome, more cordially than when
+she had last seen him, Harry Bartlett, who was announced soon after the
+others left.
+
+"Oh, Harry, have you heard the terrible news?" faltered Viola.
+
+"You mean about your father? Yes," he said gently. "But I do not believe
+it. I may as well speak plainly, Viola. Your father, for some reason
+best known to himself, did not care for me. But I respected him, and
+in spite of a feeling between us I admired him. I feel sure he did not
+commit suicide."
+
+"But they say it looks very suspicious, Harry! Oh, tell me what to do!"
+and, impulsively, Viola held out her hands to him. Bartlett pressed them
+warmly.
+
+"I'll serve you in any way I can," he said, gazing fondly into her eyes.
+"But I confess I am puzzled. I don't know what to do. Perhaps it would
+be better, as Dr. Lambert says, to look into your father's affairs."
+
+"Yes. But I want more than that!" declared Viola. "I want his name
+cleared from any suspicion of suicide. And I want you to undertake it,
+Harry!"
+
+"You want me?" he exclaimed, drawing back. "Me?"
+
+"Yes. I feel that you will do better than any one else. Oh, you will
+help me, won't you?" she pleaded.
+
+"Of course, Viola. But I don't know how."
+
+"Then let me tell you," and she seemed to be in better control
+of herself than at any time that day. "This must be gone into
+systematically, and we can best do it through a detective."
+
+"A detective!" cried Harry Bartlett, and he started from his chair.
+"Why, my dear Viola, a detective would be the worst possible person to
+call in on a case like this! Let me investigate, if you think it wise,
+but a detective--"
+
+"I am not speaking of an ordinary detective, Harry. I have in mind
+an elderly man who was a friend of my father. He has an extraordinary
+reputation for solving mysteries."
+
+"Well, of course, if you know the man it makes a difference." Bartlett
+eyed the girl curiously. "I didn't know you knew any detectives."
+
+"The man I have in mind was in some business deal with my father once,
+and they became very well acquainted. I met him several times, and liked
+him immensely. He is well along in years, but I think sharper than many
+younger men. But there is one difficulty."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"More than likely he will shy at having anything to do with the case.
+He told my father he was going to retire and devote his leisure time to
+fishing--that being his great pastime."
+
+"Humph! he can't be much of a detective if he wants to spend most of his
+time fishing," was Bartlett's comment.
+
+"You're mistaken, Harry. My father, and other men too, considered him
+one of the greatest detectives in the world, even though he sometimes
+works in a very peculiar and apparently uninterested manner." "All right
+then, Viola. If you say so, I'll look up this wonderful detective for
+you and get him to take hold of the case."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. BY A QUIET STREAM
+
+
+Drooping willows dipped their pendant branches in the stream that foamed
+and rippled over green, mossy stones. In a meadow that stretched fair
+and wide on either side of the water, innumerable grasshoppers were
+singing their song of summer. On a verdant bank reclined a man, whose
+advanced age might be indicated in his whitening locks, but whose bright
+eyes, and the quick, nervous movements as he leafed the pages of a
+small, green-covered book, made negative the first analysis. A little
+distance from him, where the sun beat down warmly, unhindered by any
+shade, lolled a colored man whose look now and then strayed to the
+reading figure.
+
+A glance over the shoulder of the reader, were one so impolite as to
+take that liberty, would have disclosed, among others, this passage on
+the printed page:
+
+     "But yet you are to note, that as you see some willows or
+     palm trees bud and blossom sooner than others do, so some
+     trouts be, in rivers, sooner in season; and as some hollies
+     or oaks are longer before they cast their leaves, so are
+     some trouts in rivers longer before they go out of season."
+
+The gray-haired man closed the book, thereby revealing the title
+"Walton's Compleat Angler," and looked across the stream. The sunlight
+flickered over its rippling surface, and now and then there was a
+splash in the otherwise quiet waters--a splash that to the reader was
+illuminating indeed.
+
+"Shag!" he suddenly exclaimed, thereby galvanizing into life the
+somnolent negro.
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!" came the response.
+
+"Hum! Asleep, weren't you?"
+
+"Well, no, sah. Not zactly asleep, Colonel. I were jest takin' the fust
+of mah forty winks, an'--"
+
+"Well, postpone the rest for this evening. I think I'll make some
+casts here. I don't expect any trout, my friend Walton to the contrary.
+Besides they're out of season now. But I may get something. Get me the
+rod, Shag!"
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah!"
+
+And while the fishing paraphernalia was being put in readiness by his
+colored servant, Colonel Robert Lee Ashley once more opened the little
+green book, as though to draw inspiration therefrom. And he read:
+
+     "Only thus much is necessary for you to know, and to be
+     mindful and careful of, that if the pike or perch do breed
+     in that river, they will be sure to bite first and must
+     first be taken.  And for the most part they are very large."
+
+"Well, large or small, it doesn't much matter, so I catch some,"
+observed the colonel.
+
+Then he carefully baited the hook, after he had taken the rod and line
+from Shag, who handled it as though it was a rare object of art; which,
+indeed, it was to his master.
+
+"I think we shall go back with a fine mess of perch, Shag," observed the
+fisherman.
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel, dat's what we will," was the cheerful answer.
+
+"And this time we won't, under any consideration, let anything interfere
+with our vacation, Shag."
+
+"No, sah, Colonel. No, sah!"
+
+"If you see me buying a paper, Shag, mind, if you ever hear me asking if
+the last edition is out, stop me at once."
+
+"I will, Colonel."
+
+"And if any one tries to tell me of a murder mystery, of a big robbery,
+or of anything except where the fish are biting best, Shag, why, you
+just--"
+
+"I'll jest natchully knock 'em down, Colonel! Dat's what I'll do!"
+exclaimed the colored man, as cheerfully as though he would relish 
+such [Updater's note: line missing?]
+
+"Well, I can't advise that, of course," said the colonel with a smile,
+"but you may use your own judgment. I came here for a rest, and I don't
+want to run into another diamond cross mystery, or anything like it."
+
+"No, sah, Colonel. But yo' suah did elucidate dat one most expeditious
+like. I nevah saw sech--"
+
+"That will do now, Shag. I don't want to be reminded of it. I came here
+to fish, not to work, nor hold any post-mortems on past cases. Now for
+it!" and the elderly man cast in where a little eddy, under the grassy
+bank, indicated deep water, in which the perch or other fish might lurk
+this sunny day.
+
+And yet, in spite of his determination not to recall the details of the
+diamond cross mystery to which Shag had alluded, Colonel Ashley could
+not help dwelling on one or two phases of what, with justifiable pride,
+he regarded as one of the most successful of his many cases.
+
+Colonel Robert Lee Ashley was a detective by instinct and profession,
+though of late years he had endeavored, but with scant success, to turn
+the more routine matters of his profession over to his able assistants.
+
+To those who have read of his masterly solution of the diamond cross
+mystery the colonel needs no introduction. He was a well known character
+in police and criminal circles, because of his success in catching many
+a slippery representative of the latter.
+
+He had served in the secret service during the Spanish-American war, and
+later had become the head of the police department of a large Eastern
+city. From that he had built up a private business of his own that
+assumed large proportions, until advancing age and a desire to fish and
+reflect caused him virtually to retire from active work. And now, as he
+had so often done before, he had come to this quiet stream to angle.
+
+And yet, even as he dropped his bait into the water, he could not keep
+his active mind from passing in rapid review over some of the events of
+his career--especially the late episode of the Darcy diamond cross.
+
+"Well, I'm glad I helped out in that case," mused the colonel, as he sat
+up more alertly, for there came a tremor to his line that told much to
+his practiced and sensitive hands.
+
+A moment later the reel clicked its song of a strike, and the colonel
+got first to his knees and then to his feet as he prepared to play his
+fish.
+
+"I've hooked one, Shag!" he called in a low but tense voice. "I've
+hooked one, and I think it's a beauty!"
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yes, sah! Dat's fine! I'll be ready as soon as yo'
+is!"
+
+Shag caught up a landing net, for, though the colonel was not
+anticipating any gamy fish in this quiet, country stream, yet for such
+as he caught he used such light tackle that a net was needed to bring
+even a humble perch to shore.
+
+"I've got him, Shag! I've got him!" the colonel cried, as the fish broke
+water, a shimmering shower of sparkling drops falling from his sides.
+"I've got him, and it's a bass, too! I didn't think there were any here!
+I've got him!"
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel! Yo' suah has!" exclaimed the delighted George
+Washington Shag. "You suah has got a beauty!"
+
+And as Shag started forward with the landing net, while the colonel
+was playing with the skill of long years of practice the fish which had
+developed unexpected fighting powers, there was a movement among the
+bushes that lined the stream below the willows, and a young man, showing
+every evidence of eagerness, advanced toward the fisherman. Shag saw him
+and called:
+
+"Keep back! Keep back, sah, if yo' please! De Colonel, he's done got a
+bite, an'--"
+
+"Bite! You mean that something's bitten him?" asked the young man, for
+he could not see the figure of the colonel, who, just then, in allowing
+the bass to have a run, had followed him up stream.
+
+"No, he's catchin' a fish--he's got a strike--a big one! Don't isturb
+him."
+
+"But I must see him. I've come a long distance to--"
+
+"Distance or closeness don't make no mattah of diffunce to de colonel
+when he's got a bite, sah! I'm sorry, but I can't let yo' go any closer,
+an' I'se got to go an' land de fish. Aftah dat, if you wants to hab a
+word wif de colonel, well, maybe he'll see yo', sah," and Shag, with
+a warning gesture, like that of a traffic policeman halting a line of
+automobiles, started toward the colonel, who was still playing his fish.
+
+Harry Bartlett, for he it was who had thus somewhat rudely interrupted
+the detective's fishing, stopped in the shade of the willows, somewhat
+chagrined. He had come a long way for a talk, and now to be thus held
+back by a colored man who seemed to have no idea of the importance of
+the mission was provoking.
+
+But there was something authoritative in Shag's manner, and, being a
+business man, Harry Bartlett knew better than to make an inauspicious
+approach. It would be as bad as slicing his golf ball on the drive.
+
+So he waited beside the silent stream, not so silent as it had been, for
+it was disturbed by the movements, up and down, of Colonel Ashley, who
+was playing his fish with consummate skill.
+
+Seeing a little green book on the grass where it had fallen, Harry
+Bartlett picked it up. Idly opening the pages, he read:
+
+     "There is also a fish called a sticklebag, a fish without
+     scales, but he hath his body fenced with several prickles.
+     I know not where he dwells in winter, nor what he is good
+     for in summer, but only to make sport for boys and women
+     anglers, and to feed other fish that be fish of prey, as
+     trout in particular, who will bite at him as at a penk, and
+     better, if your hook be rightly baited with him; for he may
+     be so baited, as, his tail turning like a sail of a
+     windmill, will make him turn more quick than any penk or
+     minnow can."
+
+"I guess I've got the right man," said Harry Bartlett with a smile.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE INQUEST
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. ON SUSPICION
+
+
+Colonel Robert Lee Ashley was used to surprises. This was natural,
+considering his calling, and at some of the surprises he was a silent
+spectator, while at others he furnished the surprise. In this case he
+served in his former capacity, merely noting the rather startled look
+on the face of Harry Bartlett when handed the subpoena to the coroner's
+inquest.
+
+"I thought they weren't going to have any," Bartlett repeated, but
+whether to himself in a sort of daze, to Colonel Ashley, or to the man
+from headquarters was not clear. At any rate Colonel Ashley answered him
+by saying:
+
+"You never can tell what Jersey justice is going to do. Coroner's
+inquests are not usual in this state, but they are lawful."
+
+"But why do they consider one necessary?" asked Bartlett, as they
+prepared to enter the house of death.
+
+"That, my dear sir, I don't know. Perhaps the county physician may have
+requested it, or the prosecutor of the pleas. He may want to be backed
+up by the verdict of twelve men before taking any action."
+
+"But if Mr. Carwell's death was due to suicide who can be held guilty
+but himself?"
+
+"No one. But I thought you said there was a doubt as to its being
+suicide," commented the detective.
+
+"Miss Carwell doubts," returned Bartlett; "and I admit that it does seem
+strange that a man of Mr. Carwell's character would do such a thing,
+particularly when he had shown no previous signs of being in trouble.
+But you can never tell."
+
+"No, you can never tell," agreed Colonel Ashley, and none knew, better
+than himself, how true that was.
+
+"But why should they subpoena me?" asked Bartlett.
+
+"Don't fret over that," advised his companion, with a calm smile. "You
+probably aren't the only one. A coroner's inquest is, as some one has
+said, a sort of fishing excursion. They start out not expecting much,
+not knowing what they are going to get, and sometimes they catch
+nothing--or no one--and again, a big haul is made. It's merely a sort
+of clearing house, and I, for one, will be glad to listen to what is
+brought out at the hearing."
+
+"Well, then I suppose it will be all right," assented the young man, but
+the manner in which he looked again at the legal document was distinctly
+nervous.
+
+"Had we better tell--her?" and he motioned to the house, on the steps of
+which they stood, Shag having pressed the bell for his master.
+
+"Miss Carwell probably knows all about it," said Colonel Ashley.
+
+They found Viola waiting for them in the library, passing on their way
+the darkened and closed room which held all that was mortal of the late
+owner of The Haven--no, not quite all of him, for certain portions were,
+even then, being subjected to the minute and searching analysis of a
+number of chemists, under the direction of the county prosecutor.
+
+"It was very good of you to come, Colonel Ashley," said Viola quietly.
+"I appreciate it more than I can express--at this time."
+
+"I'm very glad to come," said the colonel as he held her hand in his
+warm, firm clasp. "I am only sorry that it was necessary to send for
+me on such an occasion. Believe me, I will do all I can for you, Miss
+Carwell. Your father was my very good friend."
+
+"Thank you. What most I want is to clear my father's name from the
+imputation of having--of having killed himself," and she halted over the
+words.
+
+"You mean that you suspect--" began Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Oh, I don't know what to think, and certainly I don't dare suspect any
+one!" exclaimed Viola. "It is all so terrible! But one thing I would
+like all father's friends to know--that he did not take his own life. He
+would not do such a thing."
+
+"Then," said Colonel Ashley, "we must show that it was either an
+accident--that he took the fatal dose by mistake or that some one gave
+it to him. Forgive me for thus brutally putting it, but that is what it
+simmers down to."
+
+"Yes, I have thought of that," returned Viola, and her shrinking form
+and the haunted look in her eyes told what an ordeal it was for her. "I
+leave it all to you, Colonel Ashley. Father often spoke of you, and he
+often said, if ever he had any mystery to clear up, that you were the
+only man he would trust. Now that I am alone I must trust you," and she
+smiled at the colonel. It was something of her former smile--a look that
+had turned many a man's head, some even as settled in life and years as
+Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Well, I'll do my best for the sake of you and your father," replied the
+detective. "I don't mind saying that I hoped I was done with all mystery
+cases, but fate seems to be against me.
+
+"Mind, I am not complaining!" he said quickly, as he saw Viola about to
+protest. "It's just my luck. And I can't promise you anything. From what
+Mr. Bartlett told me, there seem to be very few suspicious circumstances
+connected with the case."
+
+"I realize that," answered Viola. "And that makes it all the stranger.
+But tell me, Colonel, haven't you often found that the cases which, at
+first, seemed perfectly plain and simple, afterward turned out to be the
+most mysterious?"
+
+"Jove, but that's true!" exclaimed the former soldier. "You spoke the
+truth then, Miss Viola. My friend Izaak never put a statement more
+plainly. And that's the theory I always go on. Now then, let me have
+all the facts in your possession. And you too," he added, turning to
+Bartlett. "You might remain while Miss Carwell talks to me, and you can
+add anything she may forget, while she can do the same in your case. I
+suppose you know there is to be a coroner's inquest?" he added to the
+girl.
+
+"Yes," she answered. "I have received a subpoena. I think it is well to
+have it, for it will show the public how mistaken a verdict arrived at
+when all the facts are not known may be. I shall attend."
+
+"I just received a summons," said Bartlett, and he seemed to breathe
+more easily.
+
+"Shag--Where's that black boy of mine?" exclaimed the colonel.
+
+"I sent him to the servants' quarters," said Miss Mary Carwell, coming
+in just then. "How do you do, Colonel Ashley. I don't know whether you
+remember me, but--"
+
+"Indeed I do. And I remember that the last time I dined with you we had
+chicken and waffles that--well, the taste lingers yet!" and the colonel
+bowed gallantly, which seemed to please Miss Carwell very much indeed.
+"So you have looked after Shag, have you?"
+
+"Yes. We have plenty of spare rooms, and I thought you'd want him near
+you."
+
+"I want him this moment," said the detective. "If you will be so good as
+to send him here I'll get him to open my bag and take out a note-book I
+wish to use."
+
+A little later Colonel Ashley had thrown himself heart and soul into the
+"Golf Course Mystery," as he marked it on a page in his note-book.
+
+On the preceding page were the last entries in a case, the beginning
+of which was inscribed "The Diamond Cross Mystery." It was thus that
+Colonel Ashley kept the salient facts of his problems before him as he
+worked.
+
+Between them Viola Carwell and Harry Bartlett told the colonel such
+facts leading up to the death of Mr. Carwell as they knew. They spoke of
+the day of the big golf matches, and the exhilaration of Mr. Carwell as
+he anticipated winning the championship contest.
+
+The scene at the links was portrayed, the little excitement among
+the parked cars, caused, as developed later, by a blaze in a machine
+standing next the big red, white, and blue car belonging to Mr. Carwell,
+and then the sudden collapse of Carwell as he make his winning stroke.
+The finding of some peculiar poison in the stomach and viscera of the
+dead man was spoken of, and then Viola made her appeal again for a
+disclosure of such truth as Colonel Ashley might reveal.
+
+"I'll do my best," he promised. "But I believe it will be better to wait
+until after the inquest before I take an active part. And I think I can
+best work if I remain unknown--that is if it is not published broadcast
+that I am here in my official capacity."
+
+To this Viola and Bartlett agreed. As neither of them had, as yet,
+spoken of bringing the colonel into the case, it was a comparatively
+easy matter to pass him off as an old friend of the family; which, in
+truth, he was.
+
+So Colonel Ashley was given the guest chamber, Shag was provided with
+comfortable quarters, and then Viola seemed more content.
+
+"I know," she said to her aunt, "that the truth will be found out now."
+
+"But suppose the truth is more painful than uncertainty, Viola?"
+
+"How can it be?" asked the girl, as tears filled her eyes.
+
+"I don't know," answered Miss Carwell softly. "It is all so terrible,
+that I don't believe it can be any worse. But we must hope for the best.
+I trust business matters will go along all right. I confess I don't like
+the forgetting, on the part of LeGrand Blossom, of attending to the bank
+matter."
+
+"It was probably only an oversight."
+
+"Yes. But it has started a rumor that your poor father's affairs might
+not be in the best shape. Oh, dear, it's all so terrible!"
+
+But there were other terrors to come.
+
+Following his plan of acting merely as a guest and an old friend of the
+family who had journeyed from afar to attend the funeral, Colonel
+Ashley went about as silent as though on a fishing trip. He looked and
+listened, but said little. He was not yet ready for a cast. He was but
+inspecting the stream--several streams, in fact, to see where he could
+best toss in his baited hook.
+
+And it was in this same spirit that he attended the coroner's inquest,
+which was held in the town hall. Over the deliberations, which were, at
+best, rather informal, Coroner Billy Teller presided.
+
+The office of coroner was, in Lakeside, as in most New Jersey cities or
+towns, much of an empty title. At every election the names of certain
+men were put on the ticket to be voted for as coroners.
+
+Few took the trouble to ballot for them, scarcely any one against them,
+and they were automatically inducted into office by reason of a few
+votes.
+
+Just what their functions were few knew and less cared. There used to
+be a rumor, perhaps it is current yet in many Jersey counties, that a
+coroner was the only official who could legally arrest the sheriff in
+case that official needed taking into custody. As to the truth of this
+it is not important.
+
+Certain it is that Billy Teller had never before found himself in such
+demand and prominence. He was to act in the capacity of judge, though
+the verdict in the case, providing one could be returned, would be given
+by the jury he might impanel.
+
+There was a large throng in attendance at the town hall when the inquest
+began. Reporters had been sent out by metropolitan papers, for Horace
+Carwell was a well known figure in the sporting and the financial world,
+and the mere fact that there was a suspicion that his death was not from
+natural causes was enough to make it a good story.
+
+Billy Teller was, frankly, unacquainted with the method of procedure,
+and he confessed as much to the prosecutor, an astute lawyer. As the
+latter would have the conducting of the case for the state in case it
+came to a trial in the upper courts, Mr. Stryker saw to it that legal
+forms were followed in the selection of a jury and the swearing in of
+the members of the panel. Then began the taking of testimony.
+
+The doctors told of the finding of evidences of poison in Mr. Carwell's
+body. Its nature was as yet undetermined, for it was not of the common
+type.
+
+This much Dr. Lambert stated calmly, and without attempting to go into
+technical details. Not so Dr. Baird. He spoke learnedly of Reinsch's
+test for arsenic, of Bloxam's method, of the distillation process. He
+juggled with words, and finally, when pinned down by a direct but homely
+question from Billy Teller, admitted that he did not know what had
+killed Mr. Carwell.
+
+Testimony to the same effect was given by several chemists who had
+analyzed the stomach and viscera of the dead man. There was a sediment
+of poison present, they admitted, and sufficient had been extracted in a
+free state to end the lives of several guinea pigs on which it had been
+tested. But as to the exact nature of the poison they could not yet say.
+More time for analysis was needed.
+
+It was certain that Mr. Carwell had come to his death by an active
+agent in the nature of some substance, as yet unknown, which he either
+swallowed purposely, by accident, or because some one gave it to
+him either knowingly or unknowingly. This was a sufficiently broad
+hypothesis on which to base almost anything, thought Colonel Ashley, as
+he sat and listened in the corner of the improvised courtroom.
+
+There was a stir of excitement and anticipation when Viola was called,
+but beyond testifying that her father was in his usual health when he
+went with her to the golf game, she could throw no light on the puzzle,
+nor could the dead man's sister or any of the servants.
+
+"Call Jean Forette," said the prosecutor, and the chauffeur, a decidedly
+nervous man on whom the excitement of testifying plainly told, came to
+the stand.
+
+He made a poor showing, and there were several whispers that ran around
+the courtroom, but poor Jean's rather distressing manner was improved
+when Mr. Stryker took him in hand to question him. The prosecutor,
+observing that the man was more frightened than anything else, soon put
+him at his ease, and then the witness told a clear and connected story.
+He admitted frankly that because he had not the faculty, or, perhaps,
+the desire to drive the big, new car, he and his late employer were to
+part company at the end of the month. That was no secret, and there were
+no hard feelings on either side. It was in the course of business, and
+natural.
+
+Yes, he had driven Mr. Carwell and his daughter to the links that day in
+the big red, white and blue machine. Mr. Carwell had been in his usual
+jolly spirits, and had greeted several acquaintances on the road.
+
+Had they stopped at any place? Oh, yes. The golfer was thirsty, and
+halted at a roadhouse for a pint of champagne--his favorite wine. Jean
+had alighted from the car to get it for him, and Viola, recalled to the
+stand, testified that she had seen her father drink some of the bubbling
+liquor. It was obvious why she had not spoken of it before, and that
+point was not pressed. It was known she did not share her father's love
+for sports and high living.
+
+A little delay was caused while the innkeeper was sent for, but pending
+his arrival some other unimportant witnesses were called, among them
+Major Wardell, who was Mr. Carwell's rival in the golf game.
+
+Had he heard his friend speak of feeling ill? No, not until a moment
+before the final stroke was made. Then Mr. Carwell had said he felt
+"queer," and had acted as though dizzy. The major, who was himself quite
+a convivial spirit, attributed it to some highballs he and his friend
+had had in the clubhouse just prior to the game.
+
+Mr. Carwell had drunk nothing during his round of golf, and had
+associated during the progress of the game with no one except the
+players who were with him from the start to the finish. He was not seen
+to have taken any tablets or powders that might have contained poison,
+and a thorough search of his person and clothing after his death had
+revealed nothing.
+
+At this point the innkeeper appeared. He testified to having served Mr.
+Carwell's chauffeur with a pint of champagne which Jean Forette was seen
+to carry directly from the cafe to the waiting automobile. The champagne
+was from a bottle newly opened, and the innkeeper himself had selected a
+clean glass and carefully washed it before pouring in the wine. He knew
+Mr. Carwell was fastidious about such matters, as he had often spent
+many hours in the roadhouse.
+
+"LeGrand Blossom!"
+
+Now something might come out. It was known that Blossom was Mr.
+Carwell's chief clerk, and more than one person knew of the impending
+partnership, for Mr. Carwell was rather talkative at times.
+
+"Mr. Blossom," asked the prosecutor, after some preliminary questions,
+"it has been intimated--not here but outside--that the financial affairs
+of Mr. Carwell were not in such good shape as might be wished. Do you
+know anything about this?"
+
+"I do, sir.
+
+"Tell what you know."
+
+"I know he was hard pushed for money, and had to get loans from the bank
+and otherwise."
+
+"Was that unusual?"
+
+"Yes, it was. Before he bought the big car and the yacht he carried a
+good balance. But I told him--"
+
+"Never mind what you told him or he told you. That is not admissible
+under the circumstances. Just tell what you know."
+
+"Well, then I know that Mr. Carwell's affairs were in bad shape, and
+that he was trying to raise some ready cash."
+
+"How do you know this?"
+
+"Because he asked me to put a large sum into his business and become a
+member of the firm."
+
+"He asked you to invest money and become a partner?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, that is not unusual, is it? Many a business man might do the same
+if he wanted to branch out, mightn't he?"
+
+"Yes. But before this Mr. Carwell had offered to take me into
+partnership without any advance of money on my part. Then he suddenly
+said he needed a large sum. He knew I had inherited eleven thousand
+dollars and had, moreover, made from investments."
+
+"And did you agree to it?"
+
+"I said I'd think it over. I was to give him my answer the day he died."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What would have been your answer?"
+
+"It would have been 'no.' I didn't think I wanted to tie up with a man
+who was on the verge of ruin; and if you ask me I'll say I think he
+committed suicide because he was on the verge of financial ruin and
+couldn't face the music, and--"
+
+"That will do!" came sternly from the prosecutor. "We didn't ask your
+opinion as to the suicide theory, and, what is more, we don't want it.
+I ask, your honor," and he turned to Billy Teller, who was secretly
+delighted at being thus addressed, "that the last remark of the witness
+be stricken from the record."
+
+"Rub it out," ordered the coroner, looking over at the stenographer;
+and the latter, with a smile, ran his pen through the curious hooks and
+curves that represented the "opinion" of LeGrand Blossom.
+
+He was allowed to leave the stand, and Harry Bartlett was called next.
+He nodded and smiled at Viola as he walked forward through the crowd,
+and Captain Poland, who was sitting in front, waved his hand to his
+rival. For the young men were friends, even if both were in love with
+Viola Carwell.
+
+"Mr Bartlett," began the prosecutor, after some unimportant preliminary
+questions, "I have been informed that you had a conversation with Mr.
+Carwell shortly before his death. Is that true?"
+
+"Yes, we had a talk."
+
+Viola started at hearing this--started so visibly that several about her
+noticed it, and even Colonel Ashley turned his head.
+
+"What was the nature of the talk?" asked Mr. Stryker.
+
+"That I can not tell," said Bartlett firmly. "But it had nothing to do
+with the matter in hand."
+
+There was a rustle of expectancy on hearing this, and the prosecutor
+quickly asked:
+
+"What do you mean by 'the matter in hand'?"
+
+"Well, his death."
+
+"Naturally you didn't talk about his death, for it hadn't taken place,"
+said Mr. Stryker. "Nor could it have been foreseen, I imagine. But what
+did you talk about?"
+
+"I decline to answer."
+
+There was a gasp that swept over the courtroom, and Billy Teller banged
+the gavel as he had seen real judges do.
+
+"You decline to answer," repeated the prosecutor. "Is it on the ground
+that it might incriminate you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I must insist on an answer. However, I will not do so now, but at
+the proper time. I will now ask you one other question, and I think
+you will answer that. Did you resume friendly relations with Mr. Carwell
+after your quarrel with him that day?" and Mr. Stryker fairly hurled the
+question at Harry Bartlett.
+
+If this was a trap it was a most skillfully set one. For there must be
+an answer, and either no or yes would involve explanations.
+
+"Answer me!" exclaimed the prosecutor. "Did you make up after the
+quarrel?"
+
+There was a tense silence as Bartlett, whose face showed pale under his
+tan, said:
+
+"I did not."
+
+"Then you admit that you had a quarrel with Mr. Carwell?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+Just at this moment Viola Carwell fainted in the arms of her aunt, the
+resultant commotion being such that an adjournment was taken while she
+was carried to an anteroom, where Dr. Lambert attended her.
+
+"We will resume where we left off," said the prosecutor, when Bartlett
+again took the stand, and it might have been noticed that during the
+temporary recess one of the regular court constables from the county
+building at Loch Harbor remained close at his side. "Will you now state
+the nature of your quarrel with Mr. Carwell?" asked Mr. Stryker.
+
+"I do not feel that I can."
+
+"Very well," was the calm rejoinder. "Then, your honor," and again Billy
+Teller seemed to swell with importance at the title, "I ask that this
+witness be held without bail to await a further session of this court,
+and I ask for an adjournment to summon other witnesses."
+
+"Granted," replied Teller, who had been coached what to answer.
+
+"Held!" exclaimed Bartlett, as he rose to his feet in indignation. "You
+are going to hold me! On what grounds?"
+
+"On suspicion," answered the prosecutor.
+
+"Suspicion of what?"
+
+"Of knowing something concerning the death of Mr. Carwell."
+
+An exclamation broke from the crowd, and Bartlett reeled slightly. He
+was quickly approached by the same constable who had remained at
+his side during the recess, and a moment later Coroner Billy Teller
+adjourned court.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. 58 C. H.--161*
+
+
+There was considerable excitement when it became known to the crowd, as
+it speedily did, that Harry Bartlett, almost universally accepted as the
+fiance of Viola Carwell, had been held as having vital knowledge of her
+father's death. Indeed there were not a few wild rumors which insisted
+that he had been held on a charge of murder.
+
+"Oh, I can't believe it!  I can't believe it!" exclaimed Viola,
+when they told her. "It can't be possible that they can hold him on such
+a charge. It's unfair!"
+
+"Perhaps," gently admitted Dr. Lambert. "The law is not always fair; but
+it seeks to know the truth."
+
+Viola and her aunt were again in the room where Viola had been revived
+from her indisposition caused by the shock of Bartlett's testimony.
+Colonel Ashley, who, truth to tell, had been expecting some such
+summons, went with Dr. Lambert.
+
+"Oh, isn't it terrible, Colonel?" began Viola. "Have they a right to--to
+lock him up on this charge?"
+
+"It isn't exactly a charge, Viola, my dear, and they have, I am sorry to
+say, a right to lock him up. But it will not be in a cell."
+
+"Not in a--a cell?"
+
+"No, as a witness, merely, he has a right to better quarters; and I
+understand that he will be given them on the order of the prosecutor."
+
+"He'll be in jail, though, won't he?"
+
+"Yes; but in very decent quarters. The witness rooms are not at all like
+cells, though they have barred windows."
+
+"But why can't he get out on bail?" asked Viola, rather petulantly. "I'm
+sure the charge, absurd as it is, is not such as would make them keep
+him locked up without being allowed to get bail. I thought only murder
+cases were not bailable."
+
+"That is usually the case," said Colonel Ashley. "But if this is not
+a suicide case it is a murder case, and though Harry is not accused
+of murder, in law the distinction is so fine that the prosecutor,
+doubtless, feels justified in refusing bail."
+
+"But we could give it--I could--I have money!" cried Viola. "Aunt Mary
+has money, too. You'd go his bail, wouldn't you?" and the girl appealed
+to her father's sister.
+
+"Well, Viola, I--of course I'd do anything for you in the world. You
+know that, dearie. But if the law feels that Harry must be locked up I
+wouldn't like to interfere."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Mary!"
+
+"Besides, he says he did quarrel with your father," went on Miss
+Carwell. "And he won't say what it was about. I don't want to talk about
+any one, Vi, but it does look suspicious for Mr. Bartlett."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Mary! Oh, I'll never forgive you for that!" and poor Viola
+broke into tears.
+
+They left the courtroom and returned to The Haven. Harry Bartlett sent a
+hastily written note to Viola, asking her to suspend judgment and trust
+in him, and then he was taken to the county jail by the sheriff--being
+assured that he would be treated with every consideration and lodged in
+one of the witness rooms.
+
+"Isn't there some process by which we could free him?" asked Viola.
+"Seems to me I've heard of some process--a habeas corpus writ, or
+something like that."
+
+"Often persons, who can not be gotten out of the custody of the law in
+any other way, may be temporarily freed by habeas corpus proceedings,"
+said Colonel Ashley. "In brief that means an order from the court,
+calling on the sheriff, or whoever has the custody of a prisoner, to
+produce his body in court. Of course a live body is understood in such
+cases.
+
+"But such an expedient is only temporary. Its use is resorted to in
+order to bring out certain testimony that might be the means of freeing
+the accused. In this case, if Harry persisted in his refusal not to
+tell about the quarrel, the judge would have no other course open but to
+return him to jail. So I can't see that a habeas corpus would be of any
+service."
+
+"In that case, no," sighed Viola. "But, oh, Colonel Ashley, I am sure
+something can be done. You must solve this mystery!"
+
+"I am going to try, my dear Viola. I'll try both for your sake and that
+of the memory of your father. I loved him very much."
+
+The day passed, and night settled down on the house of death. Throughout
+Lakeside and Loch Harbor, as well as the neighboring seaside places,
+talk of the death of Mr. Carwell under suspicious circumstances
+multiplied with the evening editions of many newspapers.
+
+Colonel Ashley in his pleasant room at The Haven--more pleasant it would
+have been except for the dark chamber with its silent occupant--was
+putting his fishing rod together. There came a knock on the door, and
+Shag entered.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed at the sight of the familiar equipment. "Is we--is
+yo' done on dish yeah case, Colonel?"
+
+"No, Shag. I haven't even begun yet."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Yes, I know. I've just heard that there's pretty good fishing at one
+end of the golf course that's so intimately mixed up in this mystery,
+and I don't see why I shouldn't keep my hand in. Come here, you black
+rascal, and see if you can make this joint fit any better. Seems to me
+the ferrule is loose."
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel, I'll 'tend to it immejite. I--er I done brung
+in--you ain't no 'jections to lookin' at papers now, has you?" he asked
+hesitatingly. For when he went fishing the mere sight of a newspaper
+sometimes set Shag's master wild.
+
+"No," was the answer. "In fact I was going to send you out for the
+latest editions, Shag."
+
+"I'se done got 'em," was the chuckling answer, and Shag pulled out from
+under his coat a bundle of papers that he had been hiding until he saw
+that it was safe to display them.
+
+And while Shag was occupied with the rod, the colonel read the papers,
+which contained little he did not already know.
+
+The next day he went fishing.
+
+It was on his return from a successful day of sport, which was added
+to by some quiet and intensive thinking, that Viola spoke to him in the
+library. The colonel laid aside a paper he had been reading, and looked
+up.
+
+In lieu of other news one of the reporters had written an interview
+with Dr. Baird, in which that physician discoursed learnedly on various
+poisons and the tests for them, such as might be made to determine what
+caused the death of Mr. Carwell. The young doctor went very much into
+details, even so far as giving the various chemical symbols of poison,
+dwelling long on arsenious acid, whose symbol, he told the reporter, was
+As2O5, while if one desired to test the organs for traces of strychnine,
+it would be necessary to use "sodium and potassium hydroxide, ammonia
+and alkaline carbonate, to precipitate the free base strychnine from
+aqueous solutions of its salts as a white, crystalline solid," while
+this imposing formula was given:
+
+      "C21H22 + NaOH C21H22 + H20 + NaNO3."
+
+And so on for a column and a half.
+
+"Oh, Colonel! Have you found out anything yet?" the girl besought.
+
+"Nothing of importance, I am sorry to say."
+
+"But you are working on it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Have you anything to tell me?"
+
+"No; except that I am perfectly miserable. It is all so terrible. And we
+can't even put poor father's body in the grave, where he might rest."
+
+"No, the coroner is waiting for permission from the prosecutor. It seems
+they are trying to find some one who knows about the quarrel between
+Harry and your father."
+
+"I don't believe there was a quarrel--at least not a serious one. Harry
+isn't that kind. I'm sure he is not guilty. Harry Bartlett had nothing
+to do with his death. If my father was not a suicide--"
+
+"But if he was not a suicide, for the sake of justice and to prove Harry
+Bartlett innocent, we must find out who did kill your father," said the
+colonel.
+
+"You don't believe Harry did it, do you?" Viola asked appealingly.
+
+Colonel Ashley did not answer for a moment. Then he said slowly:
+
+"My dear Viola, if some one were ill of a desperate disease, in which
+the crisis had not yet been passed, you would not expect a physician to
+say for certainty that such a person was to recover, would you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I am in much the same predicament. I am a sort of physician in
+this mystery case. It has only begun. The crisis is still far off, and
+nothing can be said with certainty. I prefer not to express an opinion."
+
+"I'm not afraid!" cried Viola. "I know Harry Bartlett is not guilty!"
+
+"If he is not--who then?" asked the colonel.
+
+"Oh, I don't know! I don't know what to think! I suspect--No, I mustn't
+say that--Oh, I'm almost distracted!" And, with sobs shaking her frame,
+Viola Carwell rushed from the room.
+
+Colonel Ashley looked after her for a moment, as though half of a mind
+to follow, and then, slowly shaking his head, he again picked up the
+paper he had been reading, delving through a maze of technical
+poisoning detection formulae, from Vortmann's nitroprusside test to a
+consideration of the best method of estimating the toxicity of chemical
+compounds by blood hemolysis. The reporter and young Dr. Baird certainly
+left little to the imagination.
+
+Colonel Ashley read until rather late that evening, and his reading was
+not altogether from Izaak Walton's "Compleat Angler." He delved into
+several books, and again read, very carefully, the article on the effects
+of various poisons as it appeared in the paper he had been glancing over
+when Viola talked with him.
+
+As the colonel was getting ready to retire a servant brought him a note.
+It was damp, as though it had been splashed with water, and when the
+detective had read it and had noted Viola's signature, he knew that her
+tears had blurred the writing.
+
+"Please excuse my impulsiveness," she penned. "I am distracted. I know
+Harry is not guilty. Please do something!"
+
+"I am trying to," mused the colonel as he got into bed, and turned his
+thoughts to a passage he had read in Walton just before switching off
+his light. It was an old rhyme, the source of which was not given, but
+which seemed wonderfully comforting under the circumstances. It was
+a bit of advice given by our friend Izaak, and as part of what a good
+fisherman should provide specified:
+
+     "My rod and my line, my float and my lead,
+      My hook and my plummet, my whetstone and knife.
+      My basket, my baits, both living and dead,
+      My net and my meat (for that is the chief):
+      Then I must have thread, and hairs green and small,
+      With mine angling purse--and so you have all."
+
+"And," reflected Colonel Ashley, as he dozed off, "I guess I'll need all
+that and more to solve this mystery."
+
+The detective was up betimes the next morning, as he would have said
+had he been discoursing in the talk of Mr. Walton, and on going to the
+window to fill his lungs with fresh air, he saw a letter slipped under
+his door.
+
+"From Viola, I imagine," he mused, as he picked it up. "Unless it's from
+Shag, telling me the fish are biting unusually well. I hope they're not,
+for I must do considerable to-day, and I don't want to be tempted to
+stray to the fields.
+
+"It isn't from Shag, though. He never could muster as neat a pen as
+this. Nor yet is it from Viola. Printed, too! The old device to prevent
+detection of the handwriting. Well, mysterious missive, what have you to
+say this fine morning?"
+
+He opened the envelope carefully, preserving it and not tearing the
+address, which, as he had said, was printed, not written. It bore his
+name, and nothing else.
+
+Within the envelope was a small piece of paper on which was printed
+this:
+
+"Ask Miss Viola what this means.  58 C. H.--161*."
+
+Colonel Ashley read the message through three times without saying a
+word. Then he held the paper and envelope up to the light to see if they
+bore a water mark. Neither did, and the paper was of a cheap, common
+variety which might be come upon in almost any stationery store. The
+colonel read the message again, looked at the back and front of the
+envelope, and then, placing both in his pocket, went down to breakfast,
+the bell for which he heard just as he finished his simple breathing
+exercises.
+
+The morning papers were at his place, which was the only one at the
+table. Either Viola and her aunt had already breakfasted, or would do so
+later. The colonel ate and read.
+
+There was not much new in the papers. Harry Bartlett was still held as a
+witness, and the prosecutor's detectives were still working on the case.
+As yet no one had connected Colonel Ashley officially with the matter.
+The reporters seemed to have missed noting that a celebrated--not to
+say successful--detective was the guest of Viola Carwell. It was an hour
+after the morning meal, and the colonel was in the library, rather idly
+glancing over the titles of the books, which included a goodly number on
+yachting and golfing, when Viola entered.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know you were here!" she exclaimed, drawing back.
+
+"Oh, come in! Come in!" invited the colonel. "I am just going out. I was
+wondering if there happened to be a book on chemistry here--or one on
+poisons."
+
+"Poisons!" exclaimed the girl, half drawing back.
+
+"Yes. I have one, but I left it in New York. If there happened to be
+one--Or perhaps you can tell me. Did you ever study chemistry?"
+
+"As a girl in school, yes. But I'm afraid I've forgotten all I ever
+knew."
+
+"My case, too," said the colonel with a laugh. "Then there isn't a book
+giving the different symbols of chemicals?"
+
+"Not that I know of," Viola answered. "Still I might help you out if
+it wasn't too complicated. I remember that water is H two O and that
+sulphuric acid is H two S O four. But that's about all."
+
+"Would you know what fifty-eight C H one sixty-one, with a period after
+the C, a dash after the H and a star after the last number was?" the
+colonel asked casually.
+
+Viola shook her head.
+
+"I'm afraid I wouldn't," she answered. "That is too complicated for me.
+Isn't it a shame we learn so much that we forget?'
+
+"Still it may have its uses," said the colonel. "I'll have to get a book
+on chemistry, I think."
+
+He turned to go out.
+
+"Have you learned anything more?" Viola asked timidly.
+
+"Nothing to speak about," was the answer.
+
+"Oh, I wish you would find out something--and soon," she murmured. "This
+suspense is terrible!" and she shuddered as the detective went out.
+
+It was late that afternoon when Colonel Ashley, having seen Miss Mary
+Carwell and Viola walking at the far end of the garden, went softly up
+the stairs to the room of the girl who had summoned him to The Haven.
+With a skill of which he was master he looked quickly but carefully
+through Viola's desk, which was littered with many letters and telegrams
+of condolence that had been answered.
+
+Colonel Ashley worked quickly and silently, and he was about to give up,
+a look of disappointment on his face, when he found a slip of paper in
+one of the pigeon holes. And the slip bore this, written in pencil:
+
+58 C. H.--161*
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. A WATER HAZARD
+
+
+"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!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. POISONOUS PLANTS
+
+
+Colonel Ashley still stood, holding his now useless rod and line,
+gazing first at that, then at Shag and, anon, at the little swirl of the
+waters, marking where the big fish had disappeared from view.
+
+"Shag!" exclaimed the colonel in an ominously, quiet voice.
+
+"Yes, sah!"
+
+"Do you know what that was?"
+
+"No, sab, Colonel, I don't."
+
+"Well, that was a spirit manifestation of Izaak Walton. It was jealous
+of my success and took that revenge. It was the spirit of the old
+fisherman himself."
+
+"Good land ob massy!" gasped Shag. "Does yo'--does yo' mean a--ghost?"
+
+"You might call it that, Shag. Yes, a ghost."
+
+The colored man looked frightened for a moment, and then a broad grin
+spread over his face.
+
+"Well, sah, Colonel," he began, deferentially, "maybe yo' kin call
+it dat, but hit looks t' me mo' laik one ob dem li'l white balls de
+gen'mens an' ladies done knock aroun' wif iron-headed clubs. Dat's whut
+it looks laik t' me, sah, Colonel," and Shag picked up a golf ball from
+the water, where it floated.
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed the fisherman. "If it was that--"
+
+His indignant protest was interrupted by the appearance, breaking
+through the underbrush on the edge of the stream, of two men, each one
+carrying a bag of golf clubs.
+
+"Did you--" began one, and then, as he caught sight of Shag holding up
+in his black fingers the white ball, there was added:
+
+"I see you did! Thank you. You were right, Tom. I did go into the water.
+I sliced worse than I thought."
+
+Then the two men seemed, for the first time, to have caught sight of
+Colonel Ashley. They noticed his attitude, the dangling line and his
+disappointed look.
+
+"I beg pardon," said the one who had already spoken, "but did we
+interfere with your fishing?"
+
+"Did you interfere with it?" stormed the colonel. "You just naturally
+knocked it all to the devil, sir! That's what you did!" And then, as he
+saw a curious look on the faces of the two men, he added:
+
+"I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that. I'm an interloper, I
+realize--a trespasser. It's my own fault for fishing so near the golf
+course. But I--"
+
+"Excuse me," broke in the other man. "But you are Colonel Ashley, aren't
+you?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"My name is Sharwell--Tom Sharwell, and this is Bruce Garrigan. I
+thought I had seen you at the club. Pray excuse our interruption of your
+sport. We had no idea any one was fishing here."
+
+"It's entirely my fault," declared the colonel, as he removed his cap
+and bowed, a courtesy the two golfers, after a moment of hesitation,
+returned. "I was taking chances when I threw in here."
+
+"And did we scare the fish?" asked Garrigan. "I suppose so. Never was
+much of a fisherman myself. All I know about them is seventeen million,
+four hundred and eighty-eight thousand nine hundred and twenty one boxes
+of sardines were imported into the United States last year. I read it in
+the paper so it must be true. I know I ate the one box."
+
+"Be quiet, Bruce," said Sharwell in a low voice, but the colonel smiled.
+There was no affront to his dignity, as the golfer had feared.
+
+"I had on a most beautiful catch," said the colonel, "and then what I
+thought, at first, was the embodied spirit of Izaak Walton suddenly came
+zipping into the water just as Shag was about to land the beauty, and
+knocked it off the hook. Since then I have been informed by my servant
+that it was no spirit, but a golf ball."
+
+"It was mine," confessed Garrigan. "I'm all kinds of sorry about it.
+Never had the least notion any one was here. Never saw any one fish here
+before; did we, Tom?"
+
+"Well, I thought there were fish here, and events proved I was
+right," said the colonel. "I hope the water isn't posted?" he inquired
+anxiously, for he was a stickler for the rights of others.
+
+"Oh, no, nothing like that!" Garrigan hastened to add. "You're welcome
+to fish here as long and as often as you like. Only, as this water
+hazard is often played from the fifth hole, it would be advisable to
+post a sign just outside the trees, or station your man there to give
+notice."
+
+"I'll do it after this," said the colonel, as he reeled in.
+
+"You're not going to quit just because I was so unfortunate as to spoil
+your first catch, are you?" asked Garrigan.
+
+"I think I'd better," the colonel said. "I don't believe I could land
+anything after what happened. The fish must have thought it was a
+thunderbolt, from the way that ball landed."
+
+"I did drive rather hard," admitted Garrigan. "But we can cut this out
+of our game, take a stroke apiece and go on with the play. That is,
+I'm willing. I don't feel very keen for the game to-day. How about you,
+Tom?"
+
+"I'm ready to quit, and I think the least we can do, considering that we
+have spoiled Colonel Ashley's day, is to ask him if he won't share with
+us the bottle I won from you on the water hazard."
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Garrigan. "There were eleven million, four hundred and
+ten thousand six hundred and six dollars' worth of soya beans imported
+into the United States in 1917," he added, "which, of course, has
+nothing to do with the number of cold bottles of champagne the steward,
+at the nineteenth hole, has on the ice for us. So I suggest that we
+adjourn and--"
+
+"I will, on one condition," said Sharwell.
+
+"What is it?" asked his companion.
+
+"That you kindly refrain from telling us how many spools of thread were
+sent to the cannibals of the Friendly Islands for the fiscal year ending
+June 30, 1884."
+
+"Done!" cried Garrigan with a laugh. "I'll never hint of it. Colonel,
+will you accept our hospitality? I believe you are already put up at the
+club?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Carwell was kind enough to secure a visitor's card for me."
+
+"Then let's forget our sorrows; drown them in the bubbling glasses with
+hollow stems!" cried Garrigan, gayly.
+
+"Here, Shag," called the colonel, as he gave his rod to his colored
+servant. "I don't know when I'll be back."
+
+"Well said!" exclaimed Sharwell.
+
+Then they adjourned to the nineteenth hole.
+
+If it is always good weather when good fellows get together, it was
+certainly a most delightful day as the colonel and his two hosts sat on
+the shady veranda of the Maraposa Golf Club. They talked of many things,
+and, naturally, the conversation veered around to the death of Mr.
+Carwell. Out of respect to his memory, an important match had been
+called off on the day of his funeral. But now those last rites were
+over, the clubhouse was the same gay place it had been. Though more than
+one veteran member sat in silent reverie over his cigar as he recalled
+the friend who never again would tee a ball with him.
+
+"It certainly is queer why Harry Bartlett doesn't come out and say what
+it was that he and Mr. Carwell had words about," commented Sharwell.
+"There he stays, in that rotten jail. Bah! I can smell it yet, for I
+called to see if I could do anything. And yet he won't talk."
+
+"It is queer," said Garrigan. "If he'd only let his friends speak for
+him it could be cleared. We all know what the quarrel was about."
+
+"What?" asked the colonel. He had his own theory, but he wanted to see
+how it jibed with another's.
+
+"It's an old story," went on Bruce Garrigan. "It goes back to the time,
+about three years ago, when the fair Viola and Harry began to be talked
+about as more than ordinary friends. Just about then Mr. Carwell lost a
+large sum of money in a stock deal, or a bond issue, or something--I've
+forgotten what--and he always said that Harry and his clique engineered
+the plan by which he was mulcted."
+
+"And did Mr. Bartlett have anything to do with it?" asked the colonel.
+
+"Well, some say he did, and some say he didn't. Harry himself denied
+all knowledge of it. Anyhow the colonel lost a stiffish sum, and some
+of Harry's people took in a goodly pile. Naturally there was a bit
+of coldness between the families, and I did hear Harry was told his
+presence around Viola wasn't desired.
+
+"If he was so warned he didn't heed it, for they went out together as
+much as ever, though I can't say he called at the house very often."
+
+"And you think it was about this he and Mr. Carwell quarreled just
+before Mr. Carwell was stricken?" asked the colonel.
+
+"I think so, yes," answered Garrigan. "And I think Harry refuses to
+admit it, from a notion that it would be dragging in a lady's name. But
+it wouldn't be airing anything that isn't already pretty well known. Mr.
+Carwell has a violent temper--or he had one--and Harry isn't exactly an
+angel when he's roused, though I'll say say for him that I have rarely
+seen him angry. And there you are. Boy, another bottle, and have it
+colder than the last."
+
+"Yes," mused the colonel, "there you are--or aren't, according to your
+viewpoint."
+
+And so the day grew more sunshiny and mellow, and Colonel Ashley did not
+regret the fish that the golf ball cheated him of, for he added several
+new cards to his index file and jotted down, mentally, new facts on some
+already in it.
+
+"Will return to-morrow.  Viola too restless here."
+
+That was the telegram Colonel Ashley received the day following
+his acquaintance at the nineteenth hole with Bruce Garrigan and Tom
+Sharwell.
+
+"She stayed away longer than I thought she would," mused the detective,
+"Yes, sah!"
+
+"See if that French chauffeur, Forette, can drive me into town."
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel."
+
+A little later Jean brought the roadster to the front of the house and
+waited for Colonel Ashley. The latter came forth holding a slip of paper
+in his hand, and, to the chauffeur, he said:
+
+"Do you know where Dr. Baird lives?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir."
+
+"Take me there, please. He was one of the physicians called in when Mr.
+Carwell was poisoned, was he not?"
+
+"Yes," and the chauffeur nodded and smiled. "You are not ill, I hope,
+monsieur. If you are, there is a physician nearer--"
+
+"Oh, no. I'm all right. I just want to have a talk with the doctor. Did
+you ever consult him?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no, monsieur, I have no need of a doctor. I am never sick. I
+feel most excellent!" and certainly he looked it. There was a sparkle
+in his eyes--perhaps too brilliant a sparkle, but he did not look like a
+"dope fiend."
+
+"If you are in a hurry," went on the chauffeur, "I can--"
+
+"No, no hurry," responded the colonel. "Why, do you feel like driving
+fast?"
+
+"Very fast, monsieur. I always like to drive fast, only there is seldom
+call for it. Mr. Carwell, he at times would like speed, and again he was
+like the tortoise. But as for me--poof! What would you?" and he shrugged
+his shoulders and reverted to his own tongue.
+
+"Hum," mused the colonel. "Rather a different story from the garage
+man's. However, we shall see."
+
+Dr. Baird was in. In fact, being a very young doctor indeed, he was
+rather more in than out--too much in to suit his own inclination and
+pocketbook, for, as yet, the number of his patients was small.
+
+"I did not come to see you for myself, professionally," said Colonel
+Ashley, as he took a seat in the office, and introduced himself. "I
+am trying to establish, for the satisfaction of Miss Carwell, that her
+father was not a suicide, and--"
+
+"What else could it be?" asked Dr. Baird.
+
+"I do not know. But I read with great interest the interview, you gave
+the Globe on the effects and detection of various poisons."
+
+"Yes?" and young Dr. Baird rubbed his hands in delight, and stroked his
+still younger moustache.
+
+"Yes. And I called to ask what poison or chemical symbol that might be."
+
+The colonel extended a paper on which was inscribed: 58 C. H.--161*
+
+"That! Hum, why that is not a chemical symbol at all!" promptly declared
+Dr. Baird.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Positive."
+
+"Could it be some formula for poison?"
+
+"It could not. Of course that is not to say it could not be some
+person's private memorandum for some combination of elements. C might
+stand for carbon and H for hydrogen. But that would not make a poison in
+the ordinary accepted meaning of the term. I am sure you are mistaken if
+you think that is a chemical symbol."
+
+"I am sure, also," said the detective with a smile. "I just wanted your
+opinion, that is all. Then those letters and figures would mean nothing
+to you?"
+
+"Nothing at all. Wait though--"
+
+Young Dr. Percy Baird looked at the slip again. "No, it would mean
+nothing to me," he said finally.
+
+"Thank you," said the colonel.
+
+He came out of the physician's office to find Jean Forette calmly
+reading in his side of the car. The paper was put away at once, and with
+a whirr from the self-starter the motor throbbed.
+
+"It there a free public library in town, Jean?" asked the detective.
+
+"Yes, monsieur.
+
+"Take me there."
+
+The library was one built partly with the money donated by a celebrated
+millionaire, and contained a fair variety of books. To the main desk,
+behind which sat a pretty girl, marched Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Have you any books on poisons?" he asked.
+
+"Poisons?" She looked up at him, startled, a flush mantling her fair
+cheeks.
+
+"Yes. Any works on poisons--a chemistry would do."
+
+"Oh, yes, we have books on poisons. I'll jot down the numbers for you.
+We have not many, I'm afraid. It is--it isn't a pleasant subject."
+
+"No, I imagine not."
+
+She busied herself with the card index, and came back to him in a moment
+with a slip of paper.
+
+"I'm sorry," said the pretty girl, "but we seem to have only one book
+on poisons, and I'm afraid that isn't what you want. It is entitled
+'Poisonous Plants of New Jersey,' and is one of the bulletins of the New
+Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at New Brunswick. But it is out
+at present. Here is the number of it, and if it comes in--"
+
+"I should be glad to see it," interrupted the colonel pleasantly.
+
+"Here is the number," and the pretty girl extended to him a slip which
+read: 58 C. H--161*
+
+"What is the star for?" asked the colonel.
+
+"It indicates that the book was donated by the state and was not
+purchased with the endowment appropriation," she informed him.
+
+"And it is out now. I wonder if you could tell me who has it?"
+
+"Why, yes, sir. Just a moment."
+
+She looked at some more cards, and came back to him. She looked a bit
+disturbed.
+
+"The book, 'Poisonous Plants of New Jersey' was taken out by Miss Viola
+Carwell," said the girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. BLOSSOM'S SUSPICIONS
+
+
+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."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. CAPTAIN POLAND CONFESSES
+
+
+When LeGrand Blossom had taken his departure, carrying with him the
+books and papers, he left behind two very disconsolate persons.
+
+"It's terrible!" exclaimed Mr. Carwell's sister. "To think that poor
+Horace could be so careless! I knew his sporting life would bring
+trouble, but I never dreamed of this."
+
+"We must face it, terrible as it is," said Viola. "Nothing would matter
+if he--if he were only left to us. I'm sure he never meant to spend so
+much money. It was just because--he didn't think."
+
+"That always was a fault of his," sighed Miss Mary, "even when a boy.
+It's terrible!"
+
+"It's terrible to have him gone and to think of the terrible way he was
+taken," sighed Viola. "But any one is likely to lose money."
+
+She no more approved of many of her late father's sporting proclivities
+than did her aunt, and there were many rather startling stories and
+rumors that came to Viola as mere whispers to which she turned a deaf
+ear. Since her mother's death her father had, it was common knowledge,
+associated with a fast set, and he had been seen in company with persons
+of both sexes who were rather notorious for their excesses.
+
+"Well, Mr. Blossom will do the best he can, I suppose," said Miss
+Carwell, with rather an intimation that the head clerk's best would be
+very bad indeed.
+
+"I'm sure he will," assented Viola. "He knows all the details of poor
+father's affairs, and he alone can straighten them out. Oh, if we had
+only known of this before, we might have stopped it."
+
+"But your father was always very close about his matters," said his
+sister. "He resented even your mother knowing how much money he made,
+and how. I think she felt that, too, for she liked to have a share in
+all he did. He was kindness itself to her, but she wanted more than
+that. She wanted to have a part in his success, and he kept her
+out--or she felt that he did. Well, I'm sure I hope all mistakes are
+straightened out in Heaven. It's certain they aren't here."
+
+Viola pondered rather long and deeply on what LeGrand Blossom had told
+her. She made it a point to go for a drive the next afternoon with Jean
+Forette in the small car, taking a maid with her on a pretense of doing
+some shopping. And Viola closely observed the conduct of the chauffeur.
+
+On her return, the girl could not help admitting that the Frenchman was
+all a careful car driver should be. He had shown skill and foresight in
+guiding the car through the summer-crowded traffic of Lakeside, and had
+been cheerful and polite.
+
+"I am sorry you are going to leave us, Jean," she said, when he had
+brought her back to The Haven.
+
+"I, too, am regretful," he said in his careful English. "But your father
+had other ideas, and I--I am really afraid of that big new car. It is
+not a machine, mademoiselle, it is--pardon--it is a devil! It will be
+the death of some one yet. I could never drive it."
+
+"But if we sold that car, Jean, as we are going to do--"
+
+"I could not stay, Miss Viola. I have a new place, and to that I go in
+two weeks. I am sorry, for I liked it here, though--Oh, well, of what
+use?" and he shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Was there something you did not like? Did my father not treat you
+well?" asked Viola quickly.
+
+"Oh, as to that, mademoiselle, I should not speak. I liked your father.
+We, at times, did have difference; as who has not? But he was a friend
+to me. What would you have? I am sorry!" And he touched his hat and
+drove around to the garage.
+
+As Viola was about to enter the house she chanced to look down the
+street and saw Minnie Webb approaching. She looked so thoroughly
+downcast that Viola was surprised.
+
+"Hello, Minnie!" she exclaimed pleasantly. "Anything new or startling?"
+
+"Nothing," was the somewhat listless reply. "Is there anything new
+here?" and Minnie Webb's face showed a momentary interest.
+
+"I can't say that there is," returned Viola. She paused for a moment.
+"Won't you come in?"
+
+"I don't think so-not to-day," stammered the other girl. And then as she
+looked at Viola her face began to flush. "I--I don't feel very well. I
+have a terrible headache. I think I'll go home and lie down," and she
+hurried on without another word.
+
+"There is certainly something wrong with Minnie," speculated Viola, as
+she looked after her friend. "I wonder if it is on account of LeGrand
+Blossom."
+
+She did not know how much Minnie Webb was in love with the man who had
+been her father's confidential clerk and who was now in charge of Mr.
+Carwell's business affairs, and, not knowing this, she could, of course,
+not realize under what a strain Minnie was now living with so many
+suspicions against Blossom.
+
+Divesting herself of her street dress for a more simple gown, Viola
+inquired of the maid whether Colonel Ashley was in the house. When
+informed that he had gone fishing with Shag, the girl, with a little
+gesture of impatience, took her seat near a window to look over some
+mail that had come during her absence.
+
+As she glanced up after reading a belated letter of sympathy she saw,
+alighting from his car which had stopped in front of The Haven, Captain
+Gerry Poland. He caught sight of her, and waved his hand.
+
+"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Viola. "If he hadn't seen me I could have said I
+was not at home, but now--"
+
+She heard his ring at the door and resigned herself to meeting him, but
+if the captain had not been so much in love with Viola Carwell he could
+not have helped noticing her rather cold greeting.
+
+"I called," he said, "to see if there was anything more I could do for
+you or for your aunt. I saw Blossom, and he says he is working over the
+books. I've had a good deal of experience in helping settle up estates
+that were involved. I mean--" he added hastily--"where no will was left,
+and, my dear Viola, if I could be of any assistance--"
+
+"Thank you," broke in Viola rather coldly, "I don't know that there is
+anything you can do. It is very kind of you, but Mr. Blossom has charge
+and--"
+
+"Oh, of course I realize that," went on Captain Poland quickly. "But I
+thought there might be something."
+
+"There is nothing," and now the yachtsman could not help noticing the
+coldness in Viola's voice. He seemed to nerve himself for an effort as
+he said:
+
+"Viola"--he paused a moment before adding--"why can't we be friends?
+You were decent enough to me some days ago, and now--Have I done
+anything--said anything? I want to be friends with you. I want to be--"
+
+He took a step nearer her, but she drew back.
+
+"Please don't think, Captain Poland, that I am not appreciative of what
+you have done for me," the girl said quickly. "But--Oh, I really don't
+know what to think. It has all been so terrible."
+
+"Indeed it has," said the captain, in a low voice. "But I would like to
+help."
+
+"Then perhaps you can!" suddenly exclaimed Viola, and there was a new
+note in her voice. "Have you been to see Harry Bartlett in--in jail?"
+and she faltered over that word.
+
+"No, I have not," said the captain, and there was a sharp tone in his
+answer. "I understood no one was allowed to see him."
+
+"That is true enough," agreed Viola. "They wouldn't let me see him, and
+I wanted to--so much. I presume you know how he comes to be in prison."
+
+"It isn't exactly a prison."
+
+"To him it is-and to me," she said. "But you know how he comes to be
+there?"
+
+"Yes. I was present at the inquest. By the way, they are to resume it
+this week, I heard. The chemists have finished their analyses and are
+ready to testify."
+
+"Oh, I didn't know that."
+
+"Yes. But, speaking of Harry--poor chap--it's terrible, of course, but
+he may be able to clear himself."
+
+"Clear himself, Captain Poland? What do you mean?" and indignant Viola
+faced her caller.
+
+"Oh, well, I mean--" He seemed in some confusion.
+
+"I want to know something," went on Viola. "Did you bring it to the
+attention of the coroner or the prosecutor that Harry Bartlett saw my
+father just before-before his death, and quarreled with him? Did you
+tell that, Captain Poland?"
+
+Viola Carwell was like a stem accuser now.
+
+"Did you?" she demanded again.
+
+"I did," answered Captain Poland, not, however, without an effort. "I
+felt that it was my duty to do so. I merely offered it as a suggestion,
+however, to one of the prosecutor's detectives. I didn't think it would
+lead to anything. I happened to hear your father and Harry having some
+words-about what I couldn't catch-and I thought it no more than right
+that all the facts should be brought out in court. I made no secret
+about it. I did not send word anonymously to the coroner, as I might
+have done. He knew the source of the information, and he could have
+called me to the stand had he so desired."
+
+"Would you have told the same story on the stand?"
+
+"I would. It was the truth."
+
+"Even if it sent him--sent Harry to jail?"
+
+"I would--yes. I felt it was my duty, and--"
+
+"Oh-duty!"
+
+Viola made a gesture of impatience.
+
+"So-you-you told, Captain Poland! That is enough! Please don't try to
+see me again."
+
+"Viola!" he pleaded. "Please listen--"
+
+"I mean it!" she said, sternly. "Go! I never want to see you again! Oh,
+to do such a thing!"
+
+The captain, nonplussed for a moment, lingered, as though to appeal from
+the decision. Then, without a word, he turned sharply on his heel and
+left the room.
+
+Viola sank on a sofa, and gave way to her emotion.
+
+"It can't be true! It can't!" she sobbed. "I won't believe it. It must
+not be true! Oh, how can I prove otherwise? But I will! I must! Harry
+never did that horrible thing, and I will prove it!
+
+"Why should Captain Poland try to throw suspicion on him? It isn't
+right. He had no need to tell the detective that! I must see Colonel
+Ashley at once and tell him what I think. Oh, Captain Poland, if I--"
+
+Viola twisted in her slender hands a sofa cushion, and then threw it
+violently from her.
+
+"I'll see Colonel Ashley at once!" she decided.
+
+Inquiry of a maid disclosed the fact that the colonel was still fishing,
+and from Patrick, the gardener, she learned that he had gone to try his
+luck at a spot in the river at the end of the golf course where Patrick
+himself had hooked more than one fish.
+
+"I'll follow him there," said Viola. "I suppose he won't want to be
+interrupted while he's fishing, but I can't help it! I must talk to some
+one--tell somebody what I think."
+
+She donned a walking skirt and stout shoes, for the way to the river was
+rough, and set out. On the way she thought of many things, and chiefly
+of the man pacing his lonely walk back and forth behind windows that had
+steel bars on them.
+
+Viola became aware of some one walking toward her as she neared the bend
+of the river whither Patrick had directed her, and a second glance told
+her it was the faithful Shag.
+
+He bowed with a funny little jerk and took off his cap.
+
+"Is the colonel there?" and she indicated what seemed to be an ideal
+fishing place among the willows.
+
+"He was, Miss Viola, but he done gone now."
+
+"Gone? Where? Do you mean back to the house?"
+
+"No'm. He done gone t' N'York."
+
+"New York?"
+
+"Yes'm. On de afternoon train. He say he may be back t'night, an' mebby
+not 'twell mornin'."
+
+"But New York-and so suddenly! Why did he go, Shag?"
+
+"I don't know all de 'ticklers, Miss Viola, but I heah him say he got t'
+git a book on poisons."
+
+"A book on poisons?" and Viola started.
+
+"Yes'm. He done want one fo' de case he's wukin' on, an' he can't git
+none at de library, so he go to N'York after one. I'se bringin' back his
+tackle. De fish didn't bite nohow, so he went away, de colonel did."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Viola stood irresolute a moment, and then turned back toward the house,
+Shag walking beside her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE PRIVATE SAFE
+
+
+Divided as she was among several opinions, torn by doubts and sufferings
+from grief, Viola Carwell found distinct relief in a message that
+awaited her on her return to the house after her failure to find Colonel
+Ashley. The message, given her by a maid, was to the effect:
+
+"The safe man has come."
+
+"The who?" asked Viola, not at first understanding.
+
+"The safe man. He said you sent for him to open a safe and--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I understand, Jane. Where is he?"
+
+"In the library, Miss Viola."
+
+Viola hastened to the room where so many fateful talks had taken place
+of late, and found there a quiet man, beside whose chair was a limp
+valise that rattled with a metallic jingle as his foot brushed against
+it when he arose on her entrance.
+
+"Have you come from the safe company?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. I understood that there was one of our safes which could not be
+opened, and they sent me. Here is the order," and he held out the paper.
+
+He spoke with quiet dignity, omitting the "ma'am," from his salutation.
+And Viola was glad of this. He was a relief from the usual plumber or
+carpenter, who seemed to lack initiative.
+
+"It is my father's private safe that we wish opened," she said. "He
+alone had the combination to it, and he--he is dead," she added softly.
+
+"So I understood," he responded with appreciation of what her grief must
+be. "Well, I think I shall be able to open the safe without damaging it.
+That was what you wanted, was it not?"
+
+"Yes. Father never let any one but himself open the safe when he was
+alive. I don't believe my mother or I saw it open more than ten times,
+and then by accident. In it he kept his private papers. But, now that
+he is--is gone, there is need to see how his affairs stand. The lawyer
+tells me I had better open the safe.
+
+"When we found that none of us knew the combination, and when it was not
+found written down anywhere among father's other papers, and when his
+clerk, Mr. Blossom, did not have it, we sent to the company."
+
+"I understand," said the safe expert. "If you will show me--"
+
+Viola touched a button on the wall, a button so cleverly concealed that
+the ordinary observer would never have noticed it, and a panel slid
+back, revealing the door of the safe.
+
+"It was one of father's ideas that his strong box was better hidden this
+way," said Viola, with a little wan smile. "Is there room enough for you
+to work? The safe is built into the wall."
+
+"Oh, there is plenty of room, thank you. I can very easily get at it.
+It isn't the first safe I've had to work on this way. Many families have
+safes hidden like this. It's a good idea."
+
+He looked at the safe, noted the manufacturer's number, and consulted a
+little book he carried with him. Then he began to turn the knob gently,
+listening the while, with acute and trained ears, to the noise the
+tumblers made as they clicked their way, unseen, amid the mazes of the
+combination.
+
+"Will it be difficult, do you think?" asked Viola. "Will it take you
+long?"
+
+"That is hard to say."
+
+"Do you mind if I watch you?" she asked eagerly. She wanted something to
+take her mind off the many things that were tearing at it as the not far
+distant sea tore at the shore which stood as a barrier in its way.
+
+"Not at all," answered the expert. Then he went on with his work.
+
+In a way it was as delicate an operation as that which sometimes
+confronts a physician who is in doubt as to what ails his patient. There
+was a twisting and a turning of the knob, a listening with an ear to the
+heavy steel door, as a doctor listens to the breathing of a pneumonia
+victim. Then with his little finger held against the numbered dial, the
+expert again twirled the nickel knob, seeking to tell, by the vibration,
+when the little catches fell into the slots provided for them.
+
+It was rather a lengthy operation, and he tried several of the more
+common and usual combinations without result. As he straightened up to
+rest Viola asked:
+
+"Do you think you can manage it? Can you open it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. It will take a little time, but I can do it. Your father
+evidently used a more complicated combination than is usually set on
+these safes. But I shall find it."
+
+Viola's determination to open the safe had been arrived at soon after
+the funeral, when it was found that, as far as could be ascertained, her
+father had left no will. A stickler for system, in its many branches
+and ramifications, and insisting for minute detail on the part of his
+subordinates, Horace Carwell did what many a better and worse man has
+done--put off the making of his will. And that made it necessary for
+the surrogate to appoint an administrator, who, in this case, Viola
+renouncing her natural rights, was Miss Mary Carwell.
+
+"I'd rather you acted than I," Viola had said, though she, being of age
+and the direct heir, could well and legally have served.
+
+Miss Carwell had agreed to act. Then it became necessary to find out
+certain facts, and when they were not disclosed by a perusal of the
+papers of the dead man found in his office and in the safe deposit box
+at the bank, recourse was had to the private safe. LeGrand Blossom knew
+nothing of what was in the strong box-not even being entrusted with the
+combination.
+
+"There! It's open!" announced the expert at length, and he turned the
+handle and swung back the door.
+
+"Thank you," said Viola. Then, as she looked within the safe, she
+exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, there is an inner compartment, and that's locked, too!"
+
+"Only with a key. That will give no trouble at all," said the man. He
+proved it by opening it with the third key he tried from a bunch of many
+he took from his valise.
+
+That was all there was for him to do, save to set the combination with a
+simpler system, which he did, giving Viola the numbers.
+
+"Was it as easy as you thought?" she asked, when the expert was about to
+leave.
+
+"Not quite--no. The combination was a double one. That is, in two parts.
+First the one had to be disposed of, and then the other worked."
+
+"Why was that?"
+
+"Well, it is on the same principle as the safe deposit boxes in a bank.
+The depositor has one key, and the bank the other. The box cannot be
+opened by either party alone. Both keys must be used. That insures that
+no one person alone can get into the box. It was the same way with this
+safe. The combination was in two parts."
+
+"And did my father set it that way?"
+
+"He must have done so, or had some one arrange the combination for him."
+
+"Then he--he must have shared the combination with some one else!" There
+was fright in Viola's eyes, and a catch in her voice.
+
+"Yes," assented the expert. "Either that or he set it that way merely
+for what we might call a 'bluff,' to throw any casual intruder off the
+track. Your father might have possessed both combinations himself."
+
+"And yet he might have shared them with--with another person?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the other--the other person"--Viola hesitated noticeably over the
+word--"would have to be present when the safe was opened?" She did not
+say "he" or "she."
+
+"Well, not necessarily," answered the expert. "He might have had the
+combination in two parts, and used both of them himself. It is often
+done. Though, of course, he could, at any time, have shared the secret
+of the safe with some one else."
+
+"That would only be in the event of there being something in it that
+both he and some other person would want to take out at the same time;
+something that one could not get at without the knowledge of the other;
+would it not?"
+
+"Naturally, yes. But, as I say, it might be the other way--that the
+double combination was used merely as an additional precaution."
+
+"Thank you," said Viola.
+
+She sat for several minutes in front of the opened safe after the expert
+had gone, and did not offer to take out any of the papers that were now
+exposed to view. There was a strange look on her face.
+
+"Two persons!" she murmured. "Two persons! Did he share the secrets of
+this safe with some one--some one else?"
+
+Viola reached forth her hand and took hold of a bundle of papers tied
+with a red band-tape it was, of the kind used in lawyers' offices. The
+bundle appeared to contain letters--old letters, and the handwriting was
+that of a woman.
+
+"I wonder if I had better get Aunt Mary?" mused the girl. "She is the
+administrator, and she will have to know. But there are some things I
+might keep from her--if I had to."
+
+She looked more closely at the letters, and when she saw that they were
+in the well-remembered hand of her mother she breathed more easily.
+
+"If he kept--these--it must be--all right!" she faltered to herself. "I
+will call Aunt Mary."
+
+The two women, seeing dimly through their tears at times, went over
+the contents of the private safe. There were letters that told of the
+past--of the happy days of love and courtship, and of the early married
+life. Viola put them sacredly aside, and delved more deeply into the
+strong box.
+
+"It was like Horace to keep something away from every one else," said
+his sister. "He did love a secret. But we don't seem to be getting at
+anything, Viola, that will tell us where there is any more money, and
+that's what we need now, more than anything else. At least you do, if
+LeGrand Blossom is right, and you intend to keep on living in the style
+you're used to."
+
+"I don't have to do that, Aunt Mary. Being poor would not frighten me."
+
+"I didn't think it would. Fortunately I have enough for both of us,
+though I won't spend anything on a big yacht nor a car that looks like a
+Fourth of July procession, however much I love the Star Spangled Banner.
+
+"Oh, no, we mustn't dream of keeping the big car nor the yacht," said
+Viola. "They are to be sold as soon as possible. I only hope they will
+bring a good price. But here are more papers, Aunt Mary. We must see
+what they are. Poor father had so many business interests. It's going to
+be a dreadful matter to straighten them all out."
+
+"Well, LeGrand Blossom and Captain Poland will help us."
+
+"Captain Poland?" questioned Viola.
+
+"Yes. Why not? He is a fine business man, and he has large interests of
+his own. Have you any objection?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Of course not!" she added quickly, as she caught
+sight of a rather odd look on her aunt's face. "If we have to--I mean if
+you find it necessary, you can ask his advice, I suppose."
+
+"Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Why, yes, I believe I would--just as a matter of business."
+
+Viola's voice was calm and cool, but it might have been because her
+attention was focused on a bundle of papers she was taking from the
+safe. And a casual perusal of these showed that they had a bearing on
+subjects that might explain certain things.
+
+"Look, Aunt Mary!" the girl exclaimed. "Father seems to have kept a
+diary. It tells--it tells about that trouble he had with Harry--Rather,
+it wasn't with Harry at all. It was Harry's uncle. It's that same old
+trouble father so often referred to. He always declared he was cheated
+in a certain business deal, but I always imagined it was because he
+didn't make as much money as he thought he ought to. Father was like
+that. But see-this puts a different face on it."
+
+Together they looked over the papers, and among them-among the
+memoranda, copies of contracts and other documents--was a diary, or
+perhaps it might be called a business man's journal. Both Viola and her
+aunt were familiar enough with business to understand the import of what
+they read.
+
+It was to the effect that Mr. Amos Bartlett, Harry's paternal uncle, had
+been associated with Mr. Carwell in several transactions involving some
+big business deals. Mr. Bartlett had been smart enough, by forming a
+directorate within a directorate and by means of a dummy company, to get
+a large sum to his credit, while Mr. Carwell was left to face a large
+deficit.
+
+"And Harry Bartlett acted as agent for his uncle in the transactions!"
+exclaimed Miss Carwell as she looked over the papers.
+
+"But I don't believe he knew anything wrong was being done!" declared
+Viola. "I'm positive he didn't. Harry isn't that kind of a man."
+
+"These papers don't say so."
+
+"Naturally you wouldn't expect father to say a good word for one he
+considered his business rival, not to say enemy. I don't believe Harry
+had anything more to do with it than he had with--with poor father's
+death."
+
+Miss Carwell said nothing. She was busy looking over some other papers
+which the opening of the private safe had revealed. And then, while her
+aunt was engaged with these, Viola found a little bundle that had on it
+her name.
+
+For a moment she debated with herself whether or not to open it. The
+handwriting was that of her father, and it seemed as though something
+stayed her. But she broke the string at last and there tumbled into her
+lap some photographs of herself, taken at different ages, a number
+of them--in fact, most of them--amateur attempts, some snapped by her
+mother and some by her father, as Viola knew from seeing them. She
+recalled some very well--especially one taken on the back of a little
+Shetland pony. On the reverse of this picture Mr. Carwell had written:
+"My dear little girl!"
+
+Viola burst into tears, and her aunt, seeing the cause, felt the strings
+of her heart being tugged.
+
+"Well, one thing seems to be proved," said the older woman, when they
+were again going over the papers, sorting out some to be shown to the
+lawyer who was advising them on the conduct of the estate, "and that is
+that your father didn't think very much of Harry Bartlett."
+
+"That was his fault--I mean father's," retorted Viola. "He had no reason
+for it, even with what this paper says. I don't believe Harry would do
+such a thing."
+
+"Do you suppose the quarrel could have been about this?" and Miss
+Carwell held out the journal.
+
+"I don't know what to think," said Viola. "But here is another
+memorandum. We must see what this is."
+
+Together they bent over the remaining documents the safe had given
+up--secrets of the dead.
+
+As they read a strange look came over Viola's face.
+
+Miss Carwell, perusing a document, recited:
+
+"Memo. of certain matters between Captain Poland and myself.  And while
+I think of it let me state that but for his timely and generous
+financial aid I would have been ruined by that scoundrel Bartlett.
+Captain Poland saved me.  And should the stock of the concern ever be on
+a paying basis I intend to repay him not only all he advanced me but any
+profit I may secure shall be divided with him in gratitude.  That there
+will be a profit I very much doubt, though this does not lessen my
+gratitude to Captain Poland for his aid."
+
+There was a little gasp from Viola as she heard this.
+
+"Captain Poland saved father from possible ruin," she murmured, "and
+I--I treated him so! Oh! oh!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. POOR FISHING
+
+
+"Have a drink, Colonel?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I said--Here, boy! A Scotch high and a mint julep."
+
+Colonel Ashley, roused from his reverie as he sat in his club, gazing
+out on the busy, fashionable, hurrying, jostling, worried, happy, sad,
+and otherwise throngs that swept past the big Fifth avenue windows,
+shifted himself in the comfortable leather chair, and looked at his
+cigar. It had gone out, and he decided that it was not worth relighting.
+
+"Cigars, too!" ordered Bruce Garrigan.
+
+"Oh, were you speaking to me?" and the colonel seemed wholly awake now.
+
+"Not only to you, but in your interests," went on Garrigan, with a
+smile. "Hope I didn't disturb your nap, but--"
+
+"Oh, no," the colonel hastened to assure his companion with his usual
+affability. "I had finished sleeping."
+
+"So I inferred. Do you know how many hours, minutes and seconds the
+average human being has passed in sleep when he reaches the age of
+forty-five years?" and Garrigan smiled quizzically.
+
+"No, sir," answered Colonel Ashley, "I do not."
+
+"Neither do I," confessed Mr. Garrigan as he sank down in a chair beside
+the colonel and accepted the glass from a tray which the much-buttoned
+club attendant held out to him. "I don't know, and I don't much care."
+
+Then, when cigars were glowing and the smoke arose in graceful clouds,
+an aroma as of incense shrouding the two as they gazed out on the
+afternoon throngs, Garrigan remarked:
+
+"I didn't know you were here. In fact, I didn't know you were a member
+of this club."
+
+"You wouldn't know it if my attendance here were needed to prove it,"
+said the colonel with a smile. "I don't get here very often, but I
+had to run up on some business, and I found this the most convenient
+stopping place."
+
+"Are you going back to Lakeside?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" There was prompt decision in the answer.
+
+"Then you haven't finished that unfortunate affair? You haven't found
+out what caused the death of Mr. Carwell?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know what killed him."
+
+"But not who?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Do you hold to the suicide theory?"
+
+"I don't hold to anything, my dear Mr. Garrigan," answered the colonel,
+who was in a sufficiently mellow mood to be amused by the rather vapid
+talk of his host--for such he had constituted himself on the ordering of
+the drinks and cigars. "That is I haven't such a hold on any theory that
+I can't let go and take a new one if occasion warrants it."
+
+"I see. And so you came up to get away from the rather gruesome
+atmosphere down there?"
+
+"Not exactly. I came up on business--I have a business in New York you
+know, in spite of the fact that I am here," and the colonel smiled as he
+looked about the room where were gathered men of wealth and leisure, who
+did not seem to have a care or worry in the world.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know that," agreed Garrigan. "Well, has your trip been
+satisfactory?"
+
+"I can't say that it has. In fact it's pretty poor fishing around here,
+and I'm thinking of going back. I want to hear the click of the reel and
+the music of the brook. I wasn't cut out for a city man, and the longer
+I stay here the worse I hate the place, even if I do have a business
+here."
+
+"Then you don't care for--this," and Garrigan waved his hand at the
+congestion of automobiles and stages which had come to a halt opposite
+the big windows of the exclusive and fashionable club.
+
+It was four in the afternoon, just when traffic both of automobiles and
+pedestrians is at its height on the avenue. Of horse-drawn equipages
+they were so few as to be a novelty.
+
+"I care so little for it that I am going back to-night," the detective
+responded.
+
+"Then you have found what you came looking for?"
+
+"I told you the fishing was very poor," said the colonel with a smile.
+"My friend Mr. Walton, were he alive now, would never forgive me for
+deserting the place I left to come here. When did you come up?"
+
+"Last night. They insisted I had to put in an appearance at the office
+merely to take away the salary that's been accumulating for me--said it
+cluttered up the place. So I obliged. Do you know how many automobiles
+pass this window every twenty-four hours?" Garrigan asked suddenly.
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Neither do I. It would be interesting to know, however. I think I shall
+count them, when I have nothing else to do. I understand there is a
+checking or tabulating machine made for such purposes. But perhaps I am
+keeping you from--"
+
+"You are merely keeping me from ordering another portion of liquid
+refreshment," interrupted the colonel with a smile. "Boy!"
+
+And once again there was diffused the aroma of mint and the more
+pronounced odor of the Scotch.
+
+"Yes, it's pretty poor fishing," mused the colonel, when Garrigan had
+gone off to engage in a game of billiards with some insistent friends,
+whose advent the detective was thankful for, as he wanted to be alone.
+He was gregarious by nature, but there were times when he had to be
+alone, and it was because of this trait in his nature that he had taken
+up with the rod and reel, becoming a disciple of Izaak Walton.
+
+Until dusk began to fall, changing the character of the throngs on the
+avenue, the colonel lingered in his easy chair before the broad, plate
+windows. And then, as the electric lights began to sparkle, as had the
+diamonds on some of the over-dressed women in the afternoon, he arose
+and started out.
+
+"Will you be dining here, sir?" asked one of the stewards.
+
+"Mr. Garrigan asked me to inquire, sir, and, if you were, to say that he
+would appreciate it if you would be his guest."
+
+"Thank him for me, and tell him I can't stay." And the colonel, tossing
+aside the cigar which had gone out and been frequently relighted, soon
+found himself making a part of the avenue's night throng.
+
+It was a warm summer evening-altogether too warm to be in New York when
+one had the inclination and means to be elsewhere, but the colonel, in
+spite of the fact that he had been in a hurry to leave the club, seemed
+to find no occasion for haste now.
+
+He sauntered along, seemingly without an object, though the rather
+frequent consultations he made of his watch appeared to indicate
+otherwise. Finally, he seemed either to have come to a sudden decision
+or to have noted the demise of the time he was trying to kill, for with
+a last quick glance at his timepiece he put it back into his pocket,
+and, turning a corner where there was a taxicab stand, he entered one of
+the vehicles and gave an order to the chauffeur.
+
+"Columbia College-yes, sir!" and the driver looked rather oddly at the
+figure of the colonel.
+
+"Wonder what he teaches, and what he's going up there this time of night
+for?" was the mental comment of the chauffeur. "Maybe they have evening
+classes, but this guy looks as though he could give em a post-graduate
+course in poker."
+
+Colonel Ashley sat back in the corner of the cab, glad of the rather
+long ride before him. He scarcely moved, save when the sway or jolt of
+the vehicle tossed him about, and he sat with an unlighted cigar between
+his teeth.
+
+"Yes," he murmured once, "pretty poor fishing. I might better have
+stayed where I was. Well, I'll go back to-morrow."
+
+Leaving the taxicab, the colonel made his way along the raised plaza on
+which some of the college buildings front, and turned into the faculty
+club, where he stayed for some time. When he came out, having told his
+man to wait, he bore under his arm a package which, even to the casual
+observer, contained books.
+
+"Pennsylvania station," was the order he gave, and again he sat back in
+the corner of the cab, scarcely glancing out of the window to note the
+busy scenes all about him.
+
+It was not until he had purchased his ticket and was about to board the
+last Jersey Shore train, to take him back to the scene of the death of
+Horace Carwell, that Colonel Ashley, as he caught sight of a figure in
+the crowd ahead of him, seemed galvanized into new life.
+
+For a moment he gazed at a certain man, taking care to keep some women
+with large hats between the object of his attention and himself. And
+then, as he made sure of the identity, the colonel murmured:
+
+"Poor fishing did I say? Well, it seems to me it's getting better."
+
+He looked at his watch, made a rapid calculation that showed him he had
+about five minutes before the train's departure, and then he hurried off
+to his right and down the stairs that led to the lavatories.
+
+It was Colonel Robert Lee Ashley, as Bruce Garrigan had seen him at the
+Fifth Avenue club, who entered one of the pay compartments where so many
+in-coming and out-going travelers may, for the modest sum of ten cents,
+enjoy in the railroad station a freshening up by means of soap, towels
+and plenty of hot water.
+
+But it was a typical Southern politician, with slouch hat, long
+frock coat, a moustache and goatee, who emerged from the same private
+wash-room a little later, carrying a small, black valise.
+
+"I don't like to do this," said Colonel Ashley, making sure the spirit
+gum had set, so his moustache and goatee would not come off prematurely,
+"but I have to. This fishing is getting better, and I don't want any of
+the fish to see me."
+
+Then he went down the steps to the train that soon would be whirling him
+under the Hudson river, along the Jersey meadows, and down to the cool
+shore. He passed through the string of coaches until he came to one
+where he found a seat behind a certain man. Into this vantage point the
+colonel, looking more the part than ever, slumped himself and opened his
+paper.
+
+"Yes, the fishing is getting better--decidedly better," he mused. "I
+shouldn't wonder but what I got a bite soon."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. SOME LETTERS
+
+
+When Jean Forette, whose month was not quite up and who had not yet
+completed arrangements for his new position, alighted from the Shore
+Express at Lakeside and made his way-afoot and not in a machine--to the
+Three Pines, the picturesque figure of the Southern gentleman followed.
+
+"I wonder," mused Colonel Ashley, "whether he takes Scotch Highballs or
+absinthe, and what dope he mixes with it? Absinthe is rather hard to get
+out here, I should imagine, but they might have a green brand of whiskey
+they'd sell for it. But that Frenchman ought to know the genuine stuff.
+However, we'll see."
+
+Carrying his limp, leather bag, which had served him in such good stead
+when he entered the lavatory, the colonel slouched silently along the
+road. It was close to midnight, and there would be no other trains to
+the shore that day.
+
+The lights of the Three Pines glowed in pleasant and inviting fashion
+across the sandy highway. Out in front stood several cars, for the
+tavern was one much patronized by summer visitors, and was a haven of
+refuge, a "life-saving station," as it had been dubbed by those who
+fancied they were much in need of alcoholic refreshment.
+
+Jean Forette entered, and Colonel Ashley, waiting a little and
+making sure that the "tap room," as it was ostentatiously called, was
+sufficiently filled to enable him to mingle with the patrons without
+attracting undue notice, followed.
+
+He looked about for a sight of the chauffeur, and saw him leaning up
+against the bar, sipping a glass of beer, and, between imbibitions,
+talking earnestly to the white-aproned bartender.
+
+"I'd like to hear what they're saying," mused the colonel. "I wonder if
+I can get a bit nearer."
+
+He ordered some rye, and, having disposed of it, took out a cigar, and
+began searching in his pockets as though for a match.
+
+"Here you are!" observed a bartender, as he held out a lighted taper.
+
+The colonel had anticipated this, and quickly moved down the mahogany
+rail toward the end where Jean Forette was standing. At that end was a
+little gas jet kept burning as a convenience to smokers.
+
+"I'll use that," said the colonel. "I don't like the flavor of burnt
+wood in my smoke."
+
+"Fussy old duck," murmured the barkeeper as he let the flame he had
+ignited die out, flicking the blackened end to the floor.
+
+And, being careful to keep his face as much as possible in the shadow of
+his big, slouch hat, Colonel Ashley lighted his cigar at the gas flame.
+
+And, somehow or other, that cigar required a long and most careful
+lighting. The smoker got the tip glowing, and then inspected it
+critically. It was not to his satisfaction, as he drew a few puffs on
+it, and again he applied the end to the flame.
+
+He sent forth a perfect cloud of smoke this time, and it seemed to veil
+him as the fog, blowing in from the sea, veils the tumbling billows.
+Once more there was a look at the end, but the "fussy old duck" was not
+satisfied, and, again had recourse to the flame.
+
+All this while Colonel Ashley was straining his ears to catch what Jean
+Forette was saying to the attendant who had drawn the frothing glass of
+beer for him.
+
+But the men talked in too low a tone, or the colonel had been a bit too
+late, for all he heard was a murmur of automobile talk. Jean seemed
+to be telling something about a particularly fast car he had formerly
+driven.
+
+"The fishing isn't as good as I hoped," mused the colonel.
+
+Then, as he turned to go out, he heard distinctly:
+
+"Sure I remember you paying for the drink. I can prove that if you want
+me to. Are they tryin' to double-cross you?"
+
+"Something like that, yes."
+
+"Well, you leave it to me, see? I'll square you all right."
+
+"Thanks," murmured Jean, and then he, too, turned aside.
+
+"There may be something in it after all," was the colonel's thought,
+and then he, too, hurried from the Three Pines, passing beneath the big
+trees, with their sighing branches, which gave the name to the inn.
+
+On toward The Haven, through the silence and darkness of the night, went
+the detective. And at a particularly dark and lonely place he stopped.
+The pungent, clean smell of grain alcohol filled the air, and a little
+later a man, devoid of goatee and moustache, passing out into the
+starlight, while a black, slouch hat went into the bag, and a Panama,
+so flexible that it had not suffered from having been thrust rather
+ruthlessly into the valise, came out.
+
+"I don't like that sort of detective work," mused the colonel, "but it
+has its uses."
+
+Viola Carwell, alone in her room, sat with a bundle of letters on a
+table before her. They were letters she had found in a small drawer of
+the private safe--a drawer she had, at first, thought contained nothing.
+The discovery of the letters had been made in a peculiar manner.
+
+Viola and Miss Carwell, going over the documents, had sorted them into
+two piles--one to be submitted to the lawyer, the other being made up
+of obviously personal matters that could have no interest for any but
+members of the family.
+
+Then Miss Carwell had been called away to attend to some household
+matters, and Viola had started to return to the safe such of the papers
+as were not to go to the lawyer.
+
+She opened a small drawer, to slip back into it a bundle of letters her
+mother had written to Mr. Carwell years before. Then Viola became aware
+of something else in the drawer. It was something that caught on the end
+of her finger nail, and she was stung by a little prick-like that of a
+pin.
+
+"A sliver-under my nail!" exclaimed Viola. "The bottom of the wooden
+drawer must be loose."
+
+It was loose, as she discovered as soon as she looked in the
+compartment. But it was a looseness that meant nothing else than that
+the drawer had a false bottom.
+
+It was not such a false bottom as would have been made use of in the
+moving pictures. That is to say it was very poorly made, and an almost
+casual glance would have revealed it. All that had been done was to take
+a piece of wood the exact size and shape of the bottom of the drawer,
+and fit it in. This extra piece of wood covered anything that might be
+put in the drawer under it, and then, on top of the false bottom other
+things might be placed so that when they were taken out, and the person
+doing it saw bare wood, the conclusion would naturally follow that all
+the contents of the drawer had been removed.
+
+But such was not the case. Beneath the smooth-fitting piece of wood,
+which had sprung loose and been the means of driving a splinter under
+Viola's nail, thus apprising her of the fact that there was something in
+the drawer she had not seen, had been found some letters. And Viola had
+not told her aunt about them.
+
+"I want to see what they are myself, first," the girl decided.
+
+Now they were spread out on her dressing table in front of her. She
+sat with her glorious blue-black hair unbound, and falling over her
+shoulders, which gleamed pink through the filmy thinness of her robe.
+
+"I wonder if I shall be shocked when I read them?" she mused.
+
+That was what Viola had been living in continual fear of since her
+father's death--that some disclosure would shock her--that she might
+come upon some phase of his past life which would not bear the full
+light of day. For Horace Carwell had not stinted himself of the
+pleasures of life as he saw them. He had eaten and drunk and he had made
+merry. And he was a gregarious man--one who did not like to take his
+pleasures alone.
+
+And so Viola was afraid.
+
+The letters were held together with an elastic band, and this gave some
+hope.
+
+"If they were from a woman, he wouldn't have used a rubber band on
+them," reasoned Viola. "He was too sentimental for that. They can't be
+mother's letters--they were in another compartment. I wonder--"
+
+Viola had done much wondering since her mother's death, and considerable
+of it had been due to the life her father led. That he would marry again
+she doubted, but he was fond of the society of the men, and particularly
+the women of their own set, and some sets with which Viola preferred to
+have nothing to do.
+
+And if Mr. Carwell had no intentions of marrying again, then his
+interest in women--
+
+But here Viola ceased wondering.
+
+With a more resolute air she reached forth hand to the bundle of letters
+and took one out. There was distinct relief in her manner as she quickly
+turned to the signature and read: "Gerry Poland."
+
+And then, quickly, she ascertained that all the letters comprised
+correspondence between her father and the yacht club captain.
+
+"But why did he hide these letters away?" mused Viola. "They seem to
+be about business, as the others were--the others showing that Captain
+Poland perhaps saved my father from financial ruin. Why should they be
+under the false bottom of the drawer?"
+
+She could not answer that question.
+
+"I must read them all," she murmured, and she went through the entire
+correspondence. There were several letters, sharp in tone, from both
+men, and the subject was as Greek to Viola. But there was one note from
+the captain to her father that brought a more vivid color to her dark
+cheeks, for Captain Poland had written:
+
+"You care little for what I have done for you, otherwise you would not
+so oppose my attentions to your daughter.  They are most honorable, as
+you well know, yet you are strangely against me.  I can not understand
+it."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Viola. "It is as if I were being bargained for! How I
+hate him!"
+
+Almost blinded by her tears she read another letter. It was another
+appeal to her father to use his influence in assisting the captain's
+suit.
+
+But this letter--or at least that portion of it relating to Viola--had
+been torn, and all that remained was:
+
+"As members of the same lo--"
+
+"What can that have meant?" she mused. "Is it the word 'lodge'?"
+
+She read on, where the letter was whole again:
+
+"I must ask you to reconsider your actions. Let me hear from you by the
+twenty-third or--"
+
+Again was that mystifying and tantalizing tear. Viola hastily searched
+among the other letters, hoping the missing pieces might be found.
+
+"I simply must see what it meant," she said. "I wonder if they can be in
+another part of the safe? I'm going to look!"
+
+She started for her bath robe, and, at that moment, with a suddenness
+that unnerved her, there came a knock on her door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. OVER THE TELEPHONE
+
+
+Viola's first movement was of concealment--to toss over the scattered
+letters on her desk a lace shawl she had been wearing earlier in the
+evening. Then satisfied that should the unknown knocker prove to be some
+one whom she might admit--her Aunt Mary or one of the maids--satisfied
+that no one would, at first glance, see the letters which might mean
+nothing or much, Viola asked in a voice that slightly trembled:
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"I did not mean to disturb you," came the answer, and with a sense of
+relief Viola recognized the voice of Colonel Ashley. "But I have just
+returned from New York, and, seeing a light under your door, I thought I
+would-report, as it were."
+
+"Oh, thank you-thank you!" the girl exclaimed, relief evident in her
+voice.
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you?" the colonel went on, as he stood
+outside the closed door. "Has anything happened since I went away?"
+
+"No--no," said Viola, rather hesitatingly. "There is nothing new to tell
+you. I was sitting up--reading."
+
+Her glance went to the desk where the letters were scattered.
+
+"Oh," answered the colonel. "Well, don't sit up too late. It is getting
+on toward morning."
+
+"Have you anything to tell me, Colonel Ashley?" asked Viola. "Did you
+discover anything?"
+
+There was silence on the other side of the door for a moment, and then
+came the answer, given slowly:
+
+"No, nothing to report. I will have a talk with you in the morning."
+
+And then the footsteps of the detective were heard, lessening in their
+sound, as he made his way to his room.
+
+Viola, perplexed, puzzled, and bewildered, went back to her desk. She
+took up the letters again. The torn one with its strange reference: "As
+members of the same--"
+
+What could it be? Was it some secret society to which her father and
+Gerry Poland belonged, the violation of the secrets of which carried a
+death penalty?
+
+No, it could not be anything as sensational as that. Clearly the captain
+was in love with her--he had frankly confessed as much, and Viola knew
+it anyhow. She was not at all sure whether he loved her for her position
+or because she was good to look upon and desirable in every way.
+
+As for her own heart, she was sure of that. In spite of the fact that
+she had tried to pique him that fatal day, merely to "stir him up,"
+as she phrased it, Viola was deeply and earnestly in love with Harry
+Bartlett, and she was sure enough of his feeling toward her to find in
+it a glow of delight.
+
+Then there was in the letter the hint of a threat. "Let me hear from you
+by the twenty-third, or--"
+
+"Oh, what does it mean? What does it mean?" and Viola bent her weary
+head down on the letters and her tears stained them. Puzzled as she
+was over the contents of the letters--torn and otherwise--which she had
+found hidden in the drawer of the private safe, Viola Carwell was not
+yet ready to share her secret with her Aunt Mary or Colonel Ashley.
+These two were her nearest and most natural confidants under the
+circumstances.
+
+"I would like to tell Harry, but I can't," she reasoned, when she
+had awakened after a night of not very refreshing slumber. "Of course
+Captain Poland could explain--if he would. But I'll keep this a secret a
+little longer. But, oh! I wonder what it means?"
+
+And so, when she greeted Colonel Ashley at the breakfast table she
+smiled and tried to appear her usual self.
+
+"I did not hear you come in," said Miss Carwell, as she poured the
+coffee.
+
+"No, I did not want to disturb any one," answered the colonel. "I saw a
+light under Miss Viola's door, and reported myself to her," he went on.
+"But I don't imagine you slept much more than I did, for your eyes are
+not as bright as usual," and he smiled at the girl.
+
+"Aren't they?" countered Viola. "Well, I did read later than I should.
+But tell me, Colonel Ashley, are you making any progress at all?"
+
+He did not answer for a moment. He seemed very much occupied in
+buttering a piece of roll--trying to get the little dab of yellow in
+the exact center of the white portion. Then, when it was arranged to his
+satisfaction, he said:
+
+"I am making progress, that is all I can say now."
+
+"And does that progress carry with it any hope that Harry Bartlett will
+be proved innocent?" asked Viola eagerly.
+
+"That I can not say--now. I hope it will, though."
+
+"Thank you for that!" exclaimed Viola earnestly.
+
+Miss Carwell said nothing. She had her own opinion, and was going to
+hold to it, detectives or no detectives.
+
+"Will you send Shag to me?" the colonel requested a maid, as he arose
+from the table. "Tell him we are going fishing."
+
+"Isn't there anything you can do--I mean toward--toward the--case?"
+faltered Viola. "Not that I mean--of course I don't want to seem--"
+
+"I understand, my dear," said the colonel gently. "And I am not going
+fishing merely to shirk a responsibility. But I have to think some of
+these puzzles out quietly, and fishing is the quietest pastime I know."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," Viola hastened to add. "I shouldn't have said
+anything. I wish I could get quiet myself. I'm almost tempted to take
+your recipe."
+
+"Why don't you?" urged the colonel. "Come along with me. I can soon
+teach you the rudiments, though to become a finished angler, so that
+you would be not ashamed to meet Mr. Walton, takes years. But I think it
+would rest you to come. Shall I tell Shag to fit you out with one of my
+rods?"
+
+Viola hesitated a moment. This might give her an opportunity for talking
+with the colonel in secret and confidence. But she put it aside.
+
+"No, thank you," she answered. "I'll go another time. I must stop at
+the office and leave some bills that have come here to the house. Mr.
+Blossom attends to the payment."
+
+"Let me leave them for you," offered the colonel. "I have to go into
+town for some bait, and I can easily stop at the office for you."
+
+"If you will be so good," returned Viola, and she got the bundle of
+bills--some relating to Mr. Carwell's funeral and others that had been
+mailed to the house instead of to the office.
+
+The colonel might have sent Shag to purchase the shedder crabs he was
+going to use for bait that day in fishing in the inlet, and the colored
+servant might have left the bills. But the colonel was particular about
+his bait, and would let none select it but himself. Consequently he had
+Jean Forette drive him in, telling Shag to meet him at a certain dock
+where they would drop down the inlet and try for "snappers," young
+bluefish, elusive, gamy and delicious eating.
+
+"You have not yet found a place?" asked the colonel of the chauffeur, as
+they rolled along.
+
+"No, monsieur--none to my satisfaction, though I have been offered many.
+One I could have I refused yesterday."
+
+"You liked it with Mr. Carwell, then?"
+
+"Truly the situation was in itself delightful. But I could not manage
+the big car as he liked, and we had to part. There was no other way."
+
+The detective narrowly observed the driver beside whom he sat. Jean did
+not look well. He had much of the appearance of the "morning after the
+night before," and his hand was not very steady as he shifted the gear
+lever.
+
+"How much longer have you to stay here, Jean?"
+
+"About two weeks. My month will be up then."
+
+"And then you go--"
+
+"I do not know, monsieur. Probably to New York. That is a great
+headquarters."
+
+"So I believe."
+
+"If monsieur should hear of a family that--"
+
+"Yes, I'll bear you in mind, Jean. You are steady and reliable, I
+presume?" and the colonel smiled.
+
+"I have most excellent letters!" he boasted, and for the moment he
+seemed to rouse himself from the sluggishness that marked him that
+morning.
+
+"I'll bear it in mind," said the colonel again.
+
+But as they drove on, and Colonel Ashley noted with what exaggerated
+care Jean Forette passed other cars--giving them such a wide berth that
+often his own machine was almost in the ditch--the impression grew on
+the detective that the Frenchman was not as skillful as he would have it
+believed.
+
+"He drives Like an amateur, or a woman out alone in her machine for the
+first time," mused the colonel. "He'd never do for a smart car. Wonder
+what ails him. He wasn't drunk last night by any means, and yet--"
+
+They reached the town, and paused at the only place where there was any
+congestion of traffic--where two main seashore highways crossed in the
+center of Lakeside. Jean held the runabout there so long, waiting for
+other traffic to pass, that the officer who was on duty called:
+
+"What's the matter--going to sleep there?"
+
+Then Jean, with a start, threw in the clutch and shot ahead.
+
+"That's queer," mused the colonel. "He seems afraid."
+
+The purchase of the shedder crabs was gone into carefully, and having
+questioned the bait-seller as to the best location in the inlet, the
+detective again got into the machine and was driven to the office of
+the late Horace Carwell. It was a branch of the New York office, and
+thither, every summer, came LeGrand Blossom and a corps of clerks to
+manage affairs for their employer.
+
+Colonel Ashley, who by this time was known to the office boy at the
+outer gate, was admitted at once.
+
+"Mr. Blossom is at the telephone," said the lad, "but you can go right
+in and wait for him."
+
+This the colonel did, having left Jean outside in the car.
+
+The telephone in LeGrand Blossom's private office was in a booth, put
+there to get it away from the noise of traffic in the street outside.
+And, as the boy had said, Blossom was in this booth as Colonel Ashley
+entered.
+
+It so happened that the chief clerk was standing in the booth with his
+back turned to the main door, and did not see the colonel enter. And the
+latter, coming in with easy steps, as he always went everywhere, heard a
+snatch of the talk over the telephone that made him wonder.
+
+Though the little booth was meant to keep sounds from entering, as well
+as coming out, the door was not tightly closed and as LeGrand Blossom
+spoke rather loudly Colonel Ashley heard distinctly.
+
+"Yes," said the head clerk over the wire, "I'll pay the money tonight
+sure. Yes, positive." There was a period of waiting, while he listened,
+and then he went on: "Yes, on the Allawanda. I'll be there. Yes, sure!
+Now don't bother me any more."
+
+Colonel Ashley, through the glass door of the telephone booth, saw
+LeGrand Blossom make a move as though to hang up the receiver. And then
+the detective turned suddenly, and swung back, as though he had entered
+the room at the moment Blossom had emerged from the booth.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the head clerk, and, for a second, he seemed nonplused.
+But Colonel Ashley took up the talk instantly.
+
+"I will keep you but a minute," he said. "Miss Viola asked me to leave
+these bills for you. I came in to town to buy some bait. There they are.
+I'm going fishing," and before LeGrand Blossom could answer the colonel
+was saying good-bye and making his way out.
+
+"I wonder," mused the colonel, as he started for the car where Jean
+awaited him, "what or who or where the Allawanda is? I must find out."
+
+He found further cause for wonder as he started off in the car with the
+French chauffeur for the boat dock, at the conduct of Jean himself.
+
+For the man appeared to be a wholly different person. His face was all
+smiles, and there was a jaunty air about him as though he had received
+good news. His management of the car, too, left nothing to be desired.
+He started off swiftly, but with a smoothness that told of perfect
+mastery of the clutch and gears. He took chances, too, as he dashed
+through town, cutting corners, darting before this car, back of the
+other until, used as the colonel was to taxicabs in New York, he held
+his breath more than once.
+
+"What's the matter--in a hurry?" he asked Jean, as they narrowly escaped
+a collision.
+
+"Oh, no, monsieur, but this is the way I like to drive. It is much
+more--what you call pep!"
+
+"Yes," mused the colonel to himself, "it's pep all right. But I wonder
+what put the pep into you? You didn't have it when we started out. Some
+French dope you take, I'll wager. Well, it may put pep into you now, but
+it'll take the starch out of you later on."
+
+Jean left the colonel at the dock, whither Shag had already made his
+way, coming in a more prosaic trolley car from The Haven, and soon they
+were ready to row down the inlet in a boat.
+
+"Shall I call for you?" asked Jean, as he prepared to drive back.
+
+"No," answered the colonel, "I can't tell what luck I'll have. We'll
+come home when it suits us."
+
+"Very good, monsieur."
+
+And so the colonel went fishing, and his thoughts were rather more on
+the telephone talk he had overheard than on his rod and line.
+
+Contrary to the poor luck that had held all week, so the dockman said,
+the colonel's good luck was exceptional. Shag had a goodly string of
+snappers of large size to carry back with him.
+
+"How'd you do it?" asked the boatman, as he made fast the skiff.
+
+"Oh, they just bit and I hauled 'em in," said the colonel. "By the way,"
+he went on, "is there a place around here called Allawanda?"
+
+"Yes, there's a little village named that, about ten miles back in the
+country," said the boatman.
+
+"Nothing there, though, but a few houses and one store."
+
+"Oh, I thought it might be quite a place."
+
+"No, and nobody'd know it was there if there wasn't a boat around here
+named after it."
+
+"Is there a boat called that?" asked the colonel, and he tried to keep
+the eagerness out of his voice.
+
+"Yes. The ferryboat that runs from Lakeside to Loch Elarbor is named
+that. Seems that one of the men in the company that owns it used to live
+at Allawanda when he was a boy, and he called the boat that. It's an old
+tub of a ferry, though, about like the town itself, I guess. Well, you
+sure did have good luck!"
+
+"Yes, indeed," agreed the colonel, and his luck was better than the
+boatman guessed, and of a different kind.
+
+It was in pursuance of this same luck that caused the colonel, later
+that day, when the shadows of evening were falling, to take his limp
+satchel and slip out of the house. He went afoot to the ferry dock, and
+when the Allawanda floundered in like a porpoise he went on board. It
+was his first visit to this part of the inlet that separated Lakeside
+from Loch Harbor, and this means of getting to the yachting center was
+seldom used by any guests of The Haven. They went around by the highway
+in automobiles.
+
+"Well," mused the colonel, as he went to the men's cabin with his limp
+valise, "I hope Mr. Blossom keeps his promise and comes here to-night. I
+shall be interested in noting to whom he pays the money."
+
+Then, seeing that the little cabin of the ramshackle boat was deserted
+at that hour, the colonel went to a dark corner, and from it emerged,
+a little later, with a beard on that would have done credit to the most
+orthodox inhabitant of New York's Ghetto.
+
+Still the colonel did not look like a Jew, and he was not going to
+attempt that character. He made his way to the stern of the craft, where
+he could watch all who came aboard, and finding a deck hand who was
+sweeping, said:
+
+"I'm not feeling very well. Thought maybe a ride back and forth across
+the inlet would do me good if I stayed out in the air. So if you see me
+here don't think I'm trying to beat my fare. Here's a dollar, you may
+keep the change."
+
+"Thanks--ride all you like," said the man. At five cents a trip, with
+the boat stopping at midnight, there would still be a good tip in it for
+him. The colonel ensconced himself in a dark corner and waited.
+
+The first two trips over and back were fruitless as far as his object
+was concerned. But just as the Allawanda was about to pull out for her
+third voyage across the inlet, there came on board a woman, with a shawl
+so closely wrapped about her that her features were completely hidden.
+There were only a few oil lamps on the old-fashioned craft, and the
+illumination was poor.
+
+The colonel thought there was something vaguely familiar about the
+figure, but he was not certain. He tried to get near enough to her, in
+a casual walk up and down the deck, to view her countenance, but, either
+by accident or design, she turned away and looked over the rail. He was
+close enough, however, to note that the shawl was of fine texture and of
+a peculiar pattern.
+
+Retiring again to his corner in the stern of the boat, and noting that
+the woman kept her place there, Colonel Ashley waited in patience. And
+he had his reward.
+
+The Allawanrda was whistling to tell the deck hands to cast off the
+mooring ropes, when LeGrand Blossom came running down the inclined
+gangway and got on board. He seemed in a hurry and excited, and,
+apparently unaware of the presence of the detective in the dark corner,
+he went directly to the woman in the shawl. The boat began to move from
+her slip.
+
+"Did you think I was never coming?" asked LeGrand Blossom.
+
+"No, I was detained," the woman answered, and at the sound of her voice
+Colonel Ashley started and uttered a smothered exclamation. "I but just
+arrived," the woman went on. "Did you bring it?"
+
+"Hush! Yes. Not so loud. Some one may hear you."
+
+"There is no one here. One man, with a heavy beard, passed by me as I
+came on board. At first I thought it was you, disguised, but when I saw
+it was not I kept to myself. There is no one here."
+
+"I hope not," murmured LeGrand Blossom, as he looked cautiously around.
+The after deck was but dimly lighted.
+
+For a time the woman and man talked in tones so low that the detective
+could hear nothing, and he dared not leave his hidden corner to come
+closer.
+
+But, just as the Allawanda was nearing her slip on the other side, the
+man spoke in louder tones. "And so we come to the end!" he said.
+
+"No, please don't say that!" begged the woman.
+
+"I must," Blossom answered. "We can't go on this way any longer. Here is
+what I promised you. It is all I can raise, and I had a hard time doing
+that. Every one is suspicious, and that detective is all eyes and ears.
+It is the best I can do. You must not bother me any more."
+
+The lights from a passing boat fell on the couple as they stood close to
+the rail, and, from his vantage point in the darkness, the colonel
+saw LeGrand Blossom hand the woman in the shawl a package. She took it
+eagerly, and thrust it into her bosom. Then, turning to the man, she
+said reproachfully:
+
+"You say this is the end. Then you don't love me any more?"
+
+LeGrand Blossom did not answer for a moment.
+
+"You don't--do you?" the woman insisted.
+
+"No," was the slow reply. "I might as well be brutally frank about it,
+and say I don't. And you don't care either."
+
+"Oh, I do! I do!" she eagerly protested.
+
+"No, you only think you do. It is better for both of us to have it end
+this way. But let us make sure that it is an end. There must be no more
+of it. I have given you all I can. You must go away as you promised."
+
+"Yes, I suppose I must," and her voice was broken. "Oh, I wish I had
+never met you!"
+
+"Perhaps it would have been better that way," was Blossom's cold
+response. "However, it's too late for that now. Good-bye," he added, as
+the boat was grating her way along the Loch Harbor slip. "I'm not going
+to get off. Don't telephone me again. This is all I can ever give you."
+
+"Oh, yes, I suppose, now you've finished, you can get rid of me. Well,
+let it be so," she said bitterly. And then, as the boat bumped to a
+landing she cried: "If I could only find--"
+
+But the rattle of the chains and the clatter of the wheels on the ferry
+bridge drowned her voice. She rushed away from LeGrand Blossoms's side
+and, clutching her shawl close around her as if to make sure of the
+package the man had given her, she disappeared into the interior of the
+ferryboat.
+
+Colonel Ashley started to follow, but as LeGrand Blossom remained
+on board he decided to watch him instead of the woman, though he was
+vaguely disquieted trying to remember where he had heard her voice
+before.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A LARGE BLONDE LADY
+
+
+Reaching The Haven, Colonel Ashley, who had trailed LeGrand Blossom to
+the latter's boarding place without anything having developed, was met
+by Shag, who was up later than usual, for it was now close to midnight.
+
+"What now, Shag!" exclaimed the colonel. "Don't tell me there are any
+more detective cases for me to work on. I simply won't listen. I wish I
+hadn't to this one. It's getting more and more tangled every minute, and
+the fish are biting well. Hang it all, Shag, why did you let me take up
+this golf course mystery?"
+
+"I didn't do it, Colonel, no, sah!"
+
+"What's the use of talking that way, Shag! You know you did!"
+
+"Yes, sah, Colonel. Dat's whut I did!" confessed Shag with a grin. When
+the colonel was in this mood there was nothing for it but to agree with
+him.
+
+"And it's the worst tangle you ever got me into!" went on Shag's master.
+"There's no head or tail to it."
+
+"Den it ain't laik a fish; am it?" asked Shag, with the freedom of long
+years of faithful service.
+
+"No, it isn't--worse luck!" stormed the colonel. "I never saw such a
+case. The diamond cross mystery was nothing like it."
+
+"But I thought, Colonel, sah, dat de mo' of a puzzle it were, de bettah
+yo' laiked it!" ventured Shag.
+
+Colonel Ashley tried to repress a smile.
+
+"Get to bed, you black rascal!" he said with an affectionate pat on
+Shag's back. "Get to bed! What are you staying up so late for, anyhow?"
+
+"To gib yo' a message, Colonel, sah," answered Shag. "Miss Viola done
+say I was t' wait up, an', when yo' come in, t' tell yo' dat she wants
+t' see you."
+
+"Oh, all right. Where is she?"
+
+"In de liberry, Colonel, sah!"
+
+The detective made his way through the dimly-lighted hall, and, on
+tapping at the library door, was bidden by Viola to enter.
+
+"Still up?" he asked. "It was time for you to be asleep long ago if you
+want your eyes to keep as bright as they always are."
+
+"They don't feel very bright," she answered, with a little laugh. "They
+seem to be full of sticks. But I wanted to ask you something--to consult
+with you--and I didn't want to go to sleep without doing it. I want you
+to read these," and she spread out before him the letters she had found
+hidden in the drawer of the safe.
+
+Colonel Ashley, in silence, looked over one document after another,
+including the torn ones. When he had finished he looked across the table
+at Viola.
+
+"What do you make of it?" she asked. "I don't know," he frankly
+confessed.  "But we must find out if your father owed the captain
+anything--for money advanced in an emergency, or for anything else. Who
+would know about the money affairs?"
+
+"Mr. Blossom. He has full charge of the office now, and access to all
+the books. Aunt Mary and I have to trust to him for everything. It is
+all we can do."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the detective. And he did not speak of the
+scene of which he had recently been a witness.
+
+"Then if you will come with me, we will go the first thing in the
+morning to father's office and see LeGrand Blossom," decided Viola.
+"We will ask Mr. Blossom if he knows anything about the debt between my
+father and Captain Poland."
+
+"It would be wise, I think."
+
+And as the colonel retired that night he said, musingly:
+
+"Another angle, and another tangle. I must read a little Izaak Walton to
+compose my mind."
+
+So he opened the little green book and read this observation from the
+Venator:
+
+"And as for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excellency to
+that height which they deserve?  How perfect is the hound at smelling,
+who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, but follows it through so
+many changes and varieties of other scents, even over and in the water,
+and into the earth."
+
+"Ah," mused the colonel, "I think I must cling to my first scent, and
+follow it through or over the water or into the earth."
+
+Then, laying aside the little green book, with its atmosphere of calm
+delight, he picked up a little thin volume, which bore on its title page
+"The Poisonous Plants of New Jersey."
+
+And in that he read:
+
+     "The water hemlock (Cicuta maculata L.) is the most
+     poisonous  plant in the flora of the United States, and has
+     probably  destroyed more human lives than all our other
+     toxic plants combined.  As a member of the parsley family
+     (Umbellifera) it resembles in general appearance the carrot
+     and parsnip of the same group of plants.  It grows in swampy
+     land.  The poisoning of the human is chiefly with the fleshy
+     roots.
+
+     "The active principle of this cicuta is the volatile
+     alkaloid canine, common also to the poison hemlock (Conium
+     macula turn L.) The symptoms of the poisoning are many,
+     including violent contraction of the muscles, dilated pupils
+     and epilepsy... No antidote for canine poisoning is known...
+     The active canine... was the poison employed by the Greeks
+     in putting prisoners to death, Socrates being one of its
+     illustrious victims."
+
+And having read that much, Colonel Ashley looked at a little slip in the
+book. It bore the penciled memorandum "58 C. H.--161*."
+
+"I wonder--I wonder," mused the colonel, and so wondering, and with
+fitful dreams attending his slumbers, he passed the night.
+
+Jean Forette drove the colonel and Viola to the office. They arrived
+rather early. In fact LeGrand Blossom was not yet in, and when he did
+enter, a few minutes later, he was plainly surprised to see them.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" asked the confidential clerk, as he quickly
+opened his desk. "I am sorry I was late this morning. But I had some
+matters to look after--"
+
+"No apology necessary," said Colonel Ashley, quickly. "We have not been
+waiting long. We have discovered something."
+
+If his life had depended on it LeGrand Blossom could not, at that
+moment, have concealed a start of surprise.
+
+"You mean you have found out who killed Mr. Carwell?" he asked, and his
+tongue went quickly around his dry lips.
+
+"Not that," the colonel answered. "But we have found some letters that
+seem to need explaining. Here they are."
+
+Then when Viola had told how she discovered them, she asked:
+
+"Did my father ever owe Captain Poland any money?"
+
+"Yes," answered LeGrand Blossom, frankly, "he did."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Fifteen thousand dollars."
+
+"Was it ever paid back?" asked Colonel Ashley.
+
+"That I cannot say," replied the head clerk. "The papers in that
+particular transaction are missing. I looked for them the other day, but
+failed to find them. I was intending to ask you, Miss Carwell, if you
+knew anything about them. Now, it seems you do not. The fact remains
+that your father was at one time indebted to the captain for fifteen
+thousand dollars. Whether it was repaid I can not say."
+
+"Who would know?" asked Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Why, Captain Poland, of course," answered Mr. Blossom. "One would think
+that it would be paid by check, but in that case the canceled one would
+come back from the bank, which it has not. It is possible that Mr.
+Carwell had an account in some other bank, or he may have paid the
+captain in cash. In either case a receipt would be given, I should say.
+Captain Poland is the only one who now would know."
+
+"Then we had better see him," suggested Colonel Ashley. "Shall we call
+on him, Viola?"
+
+She hesitated a moment before answering, and then replied in a low
+voice:
+
+"I think it would be better. We must end this mystery!"
+
+They left LeGrand Blossom and again entered the car. Jean Forette was
+driving, and the detective again noticed the strange and sudden change
+in his manner. Whereas he had been morose and sullen the first part of
+the trip, timid and watchful of every crossing and turning, now he put
+on full speed and drove with the confidence of an expert.
+
+"He must have had another shot of dope," mused the colonel. "I'll have
+to keep an eye on you, my Frenchie, else you may be ramming a stone wall
+when you're feeling pretty well elated."
+
+They were half way to the home of Captain Poland when Viola suddenly
+changed her mind.
+
+"I--I don't believe I care to go to see him," she said. "Can't you go
+without me, Colonel Ashley? You can find out better than I can. I--I
+really don't feel equal to it."
+
+"Of course, I can," was the ready answer. "Drive Miss Carwell home,
+Jean, and then I'll go on to see Captain Poland myself."
+
+The car was swung around, and was soon in front of The Haven. The
+colonel, with his usual gallantry, walked with Viola to the steps. As
+the maid opened the door she said to her mistress:
+
+"There is a lady to see you."
+
+"A lady to see me?" exclaimed Viola, in some surprise.
+
+"Yes. She is in the library, waiting. I said I did not know how long
+you would be away, but she said she was a friend of the family and would
+wait."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Viola.
+
+"I don't know. But she is a large, blonde lady."
+
+"I can't imagine," murmured Viola. "Won't you come in, Colonel Ashley?
+It may be some one I would want you to see, also."
+
+As Viola, followed at a little distance by the colonel, entered the
+library, a large, blonde woman arose to meet her.
+
+"I am so glad to see you, my dear Miss Carwell," began the woman, and
+then Colonel Ashley had one of his questions answered. The voice was
+the same as that of the shawled woman LeGrand Blossom had met on the
+ferryboat the night before, and it was the voice of Annie Tighe, alias
+Maude Warren, alias Morocco Kate, one of the cleverest of New York's de
+luxe crooks.
+
+"So you have a hand in the game, have you, my dear?" mused the colonel,
+as he caught the now well-remembered tones. "Well, I guess you don't
+want to see me right away, and I don't want you to."
+
+He had kept behind Viola during the walk down the hall, and the large
+blonde had not noticed him, he hoped. He whispered to Viola, who stood
+just at the entrance to the room:
+
+"Learn all you can from her. I'll be back pretty soon--as soon as she
+has gone. Find out where she's stopping. Don't mention me."
+
+The hall was dimly lighted, and he had a chance to say this to
+Viola without getting into full view of the caller, and without her
+overhearing. Then, turning quickly, Colonel Ashley hurried out of the
+house.
+
+"Morocco Kate," he mused as he got into the car again, and told Jean
+to drive to Captain Poland's. "Morocco Kate! I wonder if she is just
+beginning her game, or if this is merely a phase of it, started before
+Mr. Carwell's death? Another link added to the puzzle."
+
+He was still pondering over this when he reached the captain's home. It
+was a rather elaborate summer "cottage," with magnificent grounds,
+and the captain's mother kept house for him. But there was a curious
+deserted air about the place as Jean drove up the gravel road. A man was
+engaged in putting up boards at the windows.
+
+"Is the captain here?" asked the colonel.
+
+"The place is being closed for the season, sir," answered the man,
+evidently a caretaker.
+
+"Closed? So early?" exclaimed the colonel, in surprise.
+
+"The captain has gone away," the man went on. "I got orders yesterday to
+close the place for the season. Captain Poland will not be back."
+
+"Oh!" softly exclaimed the colonel. And then to himself he added: "He
+won't be back! Well, perhaps I shall have to bring him back. Another
+link! There may be three people in this instead of two!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. "UNKNOWN"
+
+
+"So sweet of you to see me, Miss Carwell, in all your grief, and I must
+apologize for troubling you."
+
+Miss Tighe, alias Morocco Kate, fairly gushed out the words as she
+extended a hand to Viola in the library. The first glance at the "large
+blonde," as the maid had described her, shocked the girl. She could
+hardly repress a shudder of disgust as she looked at the bleached hair.
+But, nerving herself for the effort, Viola let her hand rest limply for
+a moment in the warm moist grip of Miss Tighe.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" asked Viola.
+
+"Thank you. I won't detain you long. I called merely on business, though
+I suppose you think I'm not a very business-like looking person. But I
+am strictly business, all the way through," and she tittered. "I find it
+pays better to really dress the part," she added.
+
+"I was so sorry to hear about your dear father's death. I knew
+him--quite well I may say--he was very good to me."
+
+"Yes," murmured Viola, and somehow her heart was beating strangely.
+What did it all mean? Who was this--this impossible person who claimed
+business relations, yes, even friendliness, with the late Mr. Carwell?
+
+"And now to tell you what I came for," went on Miss Tighe. "Your dear
+father--and in his death I feel that I have lost a very dear friend and
+adviser--your dear father purchased many valuable books of me. I sell
+only the rarest and most expensive bindings, chiefly full morocco. Your
+father was very fond of books, wasn't he?"
+
+Viola could not help admitting it, as far as purchasing expensive, if
+unread, editions was concerned. The library shelves testified to this.
+
+"Yes, indeed, he just loved them, and he was always glad when I brought
+his attention to a new set, my dear Miss Carwell. Well, that is what I
+came about now. Just before his terrible death--it was terrible,
+wasn't it? Oh, I feel so sorry for you," and she dabbed a much-perfumed
+handkerchief to her eyes. "Just before his lamented death he bought a
+lovely white morocco set of the Arabian Nights from me. Forty volumes,
+unexpurgated, my dear. Mind you that--unexpurgated!" and Morocco Kate
+seemed to dwell on this with relish. "As I say, he bought a lovely set
+from me. It was the most expensive set I ever sold--forty-five hundred
+dollars."
+
+"Forty-five hundred dollars for a set of books!" exclaimed Viola, in
+unaffected wonder.
+
+"Oh, my dear, that is nothing. These were some books," and she winked
+understandingly.
+
+"It isn't everybody who could get them! The edition was limited. But I
+happened on a set and I knew your father wanted them, so I got them
+for him. He made the first payment, and then he died--I read it in the
+papers. Naturally I didn't want to bother you while the terrible affair
+was so fresh, so I waited. And now I'm here!"
+
+She seemed to be--very much so, as she settled herself back in the big
+leather chair, and made sure that her hair was properly fluffed around
+her much-powdered face.
+
+"You are here to--" faltered Viola. "To get the balance for the
+books--that's it, dear Miss Carwell. Naturally I'm not in for my health,
+and of course I don't publish books myself. I'm only a poor business
+woman, and I work on commission. The firm likes to have all contracts
+cleaned up, but in this case they didn't press matters, knowing Mr.
+Carwell was all right; or, if he wasn't, his estate was. I've sold him
+many a choice and rare book--books you don't see in every library, my
+dear. Of course there were--ahem--some you wouldn't care to read, and
+I can't say I care much about 'em myself. A good French novel is all
+right, I say, but some of 'em well, you know!" and she winked boldly,
+and dabbed her face with the handkerchief which was quickly filling the
+room with an overpowering odor.
+
+"You mean my father owes you money?" faltered Viola.
+
+"Well, not me, exactly--the firm. But I don't mind telling you I get my
+rake-off. I have to so I can live. The balance is only three thousand
+dollars, and if you could give me a check--"
+
+"Excuse me," interrupted Viola, "but I have nothing to do with the
+business end of my father's affairs."
+
+"You're his daughter, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you'll get all his property?" Morocco Kate was getting vindictive
+now.
+
+"I cannot discuss that with you," said Viola, simply. "All matters
+of business are attended to at the office. You will have to see Mr.
+Blossom."
+
+"Huh! LeGrand Blossom! No use seeing him. I've tried. But I'll try
+again, and say you sent me." The voice was back to its original dulcet
+tones now. "That's what I'll do, my dear Miss Carwell. I'll tell LeGrand
+Blossom you sent me. He needn't think he can play fast and loose with
+me as he has. If he doesn't want to pay this bill, contracted by your
+father in the regular way--and I must say he was very nice to me--well,
+there are other ways of collecting. I haven't told all I know."
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Viola hotly. "Oh, there's time enough
+to tell later," was the answer. "I haven't been in the rare edition
+business for nothing, nor just for my health. But wait until I see
+LeGrand Blossom. Then I may call on you again!" And with this rather
+veiled threat Morocco Kate took her leave.
+
+"What horrible person was that?" asked Miss Mary Carwell, who met Viola
+in the hail after her visitor's departure. "She was positively vulgar, I
+should say, though I didn't see her."
+
+"Oh, she was just a book agent. I sent her to Mr. Blossom."
+
+"To Mr. Blossom, my dear! I didn't know he was literary."
+
+"Neither was this person, Aunt Mary. I think I shall go and lie down. I
+have a headache."
+
+And as she locked herself in her room shed bitter tears on her pillow.
+Who was this person who seemed to know Mr. Carwell so well, who boasted
+of how "good" he was to her? Why did Colonel Ashley want to gain all the
+information he could about her?
+
+"Oh, what does it all mean?" asked Viola in shrinking terror. "Is there
+to be some terrible--some horrible scandal?"
+
+She put the question to Colonel Ashley a little later.
+
+"Who is this woman?"
+
+The colonel considered a moment before replying. Then, with a shrewd
+look at Viola, he replied:
+
+"Well, my dear, she isn't your kind, of course, but I've known her, and
+known of her, for several years. She, and those she associates with,
+work the de luxe game."
+
+"The de luxe game? What is it?"
+
+"In brief, it's a blackmailing scheme. A woman of the type of Miss
+Tighe, to give her one of her names, associates herself with some men.
+They arrange to have a set of some books--usually well known enough
+and of a certain value--bound in expensive leather--full morocco--hand
+tooled and all that. They call on rich men and women, and induce them to
+buy the expensive and rare set, of which they say there is only one or
+two on the market.
+
+"Sometimes the sales are straight enough--particularly where women are
+the buyers--but the books, even if delivered, are not worth anything
+like the price paid.
+
+"But, in the case of wealthy men the game is different."
+
+"Different?"
+
+"Yes, particularly where a woman like Morocco Kate is the agent. They
+are not satisfied with the enormous profit made on selling a common
+edition of books, falsely dressed in a garish binding, but they endeavor
+to compromise the man in some business or social way, and then threaten
+to expose him unless he pays a large sum,--ostensibly, of course, for
+the books.
+
+"Morocco Kate, who called on you, has more than one killing to her
+credit in this game, and she has managed to keep out of jail because
+her victims were afraid of the publicity of prosecuting. And it was
+so foolish of them for, in most cases, it was just mere foolishness on
+their part, and nothing criminally, or even morally, wrong, though they
+may have been indiscreet."
+
+"And you think my father--"
+
+"I don't know anything about it, Viola, my dear!" was the prompt answer.
+"Your father may have dealt in a legitimate way with this woman, buying
+books from her because she cajoled him into it, though he could have
+done much better with any reputable house. As I say, he may have simply
+bought some books from her, and not have made the final payments on
+account of his death. Whether the contract he entered into is binding or
+not I can't say until I have seen it."
+
+"But I found nothing about books among his papers!"
+
+"No? Then perhaps it was a verbal contract. Or he may have been--" The
+colonel stopped. Viola guessed what he intended to say.
+
+"Do you think he was--Do you think this woman may make trouble?" she
+asked bravely.
+
+"I don't know. We must find out more about her. If she comes again, hold
+her and send for me. I didn't want her to see me to-day to know that I
+was on this case. But I don't mind now."
+
+"Oh, suppose there should be some--some disgrace?"
+
+"Don't worry about that, Viola. But now, I have some rather startling
+news for you."
+
+"Oh, more--"
+
+"Not exactly trouble. But Captain Poland has gone away--his place is
+closed."
+
+"The captain gone away!" faltered the girl.
+
+"Yes. I wondered if you knew he was going. Did he intimate to you
+anything of the kind?"
+
+The colonel watched Viola narrowly as he asked this question.
+
+"No, I never knew he contemplated ending the season here so early,"
+Viola said. "Usually he is the last to go, staying until late in
+October. Is there anything--"
+
+"That is all I know--he is gone," said the detective. "I wanted to
+ask him about that fifteen-thousand-dollar matter, but I shall have to
+write, I suppose. And the sooner I get the letter off the better."
+
+"Please write it here," suggested Viola, indicating the table where
+pens, ink and stationery were always kept. "I am going to look again
+among the papers of the private safe to see if there was anything about
+books--the Arabian Nights, she said it was."
+
+"Yes, that's her favorite set. But don't worry, my dear. Everything will
+come out all right."
+
+And as Viola left him alone in the library, the detective added to
+himself:
+
+"I wonder if it will?"
+
+Colonel Ashley wrote a brief, business-like letter to Captain Poland,
+addressing it to his summer home at Lakeside, arguing that the yachtsman
+would have left some forwarding address.
+
+Then, lighting a cigar, the colonel sat back in a deep, leather
+chair--the same one Morocco Kate had sat in and perfumed--and mused.
+
+"There are getting to be too many angles to this," he reflected. "I need
+a little help. Guess I'll send for Jack Young. He'll be just the chap
+to look after Jean and follow that French dope artist to his new place,
+provided he leaves here suddenly. Yes, I need Jack."
+
+And having telephoned a telegram, summoning from New York one of his
+most trusted lieutenants, Colonel Ashley refreshed himself by reading a
+little in the "Compleat Angler."
+
+Jack Young appeared at Lakeside the next day, well dressed, good
+looking, a typical summer man of pleasing address.
+
+"Another diamond cross mystery?" he asked the colonel.
+
+"How is your golf?" was the unexpected answer.
+
+"Oh, I guess I can manage to drive without topping," was the ready
+answer. "Have I got to play?"
+
+"It might be well. I'll get you a visitor's card at the Maraposa Club
+here, and you can hang around the links and see what you can pick up
+besides stray balls. Now I'll tell you the history of the case up to the
+present."
+
+And Jack Young, having heard, and having consumed as many cigarettes as
+he considered the subject warranted, remarked:
+
+"All right. Get me a bag of clubs, and I'll see what I can do. So you
+want me to pay particular attention to this dope fiend?"
+
+"Yes, if he proves to be one, and I think he will. I'll have my hands
+full with Blossom, Morocco Kate and some others."
+
+"What about Poland and Bartlett?"
+
+"Well, Harry is still held, but I imagine he'll be released soon, Jack."
+
+"Nothing on him?"
+
+"I wouldn't go so far as to say that. You know my rule. Believe no one
+innocent until proved not guilty. I can keep my eye on him. Besides,
+he's pretty well anchored."
+
+"You mean by Miss Viola?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How about the captain?"
+
+"He's a puzzle, at present. But I wish you'd find out if that chauffeur
+has a girl. That's the best way to do, or undo, a man that I know of.
+Find out if he has a girl. That'll be your trick."
+
+"All right--that and golf. I'm ready."
+
+And Jack Young worked to such good advantage that three days later he
+had a pretty complete report ready for his chief.
+
+"Jean Forette has a girl," said Jack; "and she's a little beauty, too.
+Mazi Rochette is her name. She's a maid in one of the swell families
+here, and she's dead gone on our friend Jean. I managed to get a talk
+with her, and she thinks he's going to marry her as soon as he gets
+another place. A better place than with the Carwells, she says he must
+have. This place was pretty much on the blink, she confided to me."
+
+"Or words to that effect," laughed the colonel.
+
+"Exactly. I'm not much on the French, you know. Still I got along pretty
+well with her. She took a notion to me."
+
+"I thought you might be able to get something in that direction," said
+the colonel with a smile. "Did you learn where Jean was just prior to
+the golf game which was the last Mr. Carwell played?"
+
+"Yes, he was with her, the girl says, and she didn't know why I was
+asking, either, I flatter myself. I led around to it in a neat way. He
+was with her until just before he drove Mr. Carwell to the links. In
+fact, Jean had the girl out for a spin in the new car, she says. She's
+afraid of it, though. Revolutionary devil, she calls it."
+
+"Hum! If Jean was with her just before he picked up Carwell to go to
+the game--well, the thing is turning out a bit different from what I
+expected. Jack, we still have plenty of work before us. Did I tell you
+Morocco Kate was mixed up in this?"
+
+"No! Is she?"
+
+"Seems to be."
+
+"Good night, nurse! Whew! If he fell for her--"
+
+"I don't believe he did, Jack. My old friend was a sport, but not that
+kind. He was clean, all through."
+
+"Glad to hear you say so, Colonel. Well, what next?"
+
+They sat talking until far into the night.
+
+There was rather a sensation in Lakeside two days later when it became
+known that the coroner's jury was to be called together again, to
+consider more evidence in the Carwell case.
+
+"What does it mean?" Viola asked Colonel Ashley. "Does it mean that
+Harry will be--"
+
+"Now don't distress yourself, my dear," returned the detective,
+soothingly. "I have been nosing around some, and I happen to know that
+the prosecutor and coroner haven't a bit more evidence than they had at
+first when they held Mr. Bartlett."
+
+"Does that mean Harry will be released?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Does it mean he will be proved innocent?"
+
+"That I can't say. I hardly think the verdict will be conclusive in any
+case. But they haven't any more evidence than at first--that he had a
+quarrel with your father just before the fatal end. As to the nature
+of the quarrel, Harry is silent--obstinately silent even to his own
+counsel; and in this I can not uphold him. However, that is his affair."
+
+"But I'm sure, Colonel, that he had nothing to do with my father's
+death; aren't you?"
+
+"If I said I was sure, my dear, and afterward, through force of evidence
+and circumstance, were forced to change my opinion, you would not thank
+me for now saying what you want me to say," was the reply. "It is better
+for me to say that I do not know. I trust for the best. I hope, for your
+sake and his, that he had nothing to do with the terrible crime. I want
+to see the guilty person discovered and punished, and to that end I
+am working night and day. And if I find out who it is, I will disclose
+him--or her--no matter what anguish it costs me personally--no matter
+what anguish it may bring to others. I would not be doing my full duty
+otherwise."
+
+"No, I realize that, Colonel. Oh, it is hard--so hard! If we only knew!"
+
+"We may know," said the colonel gently.
+
+"Soon?" she asked hopefully.
+
+"Sooner than you expect," he answered with a smile. "Now I must attend
+the jury session."
+
+It was brief, and not at all sensational, much to the regret of
+the reporters for the New York papers who flocked to the quiet and
+fashionable seaside resort. The upshot of the matter was that the
+chemists for the state reported that Mr. Carwell had met his death
+from the effects of some violent poison, the nature of which resembled
+several kinds, but which did not analyze as being any particular one
+with which they were, at present, familiar.
+
+There were traces of both arsenic and strychnine, but mingled with
+them was some narcotic of strange composition, which was deadly in its
+effect, as had been proved on guinea pigs, some of the residue from
+the stomach and viscera of the dead man having been injected into the
+hapless animals.
+
+Harry Bartlett was not called to the stand, but, pale from his
+confinement, sat an interested and vital spectator of the proceedings.
+
+The prosecutor announced that the efforts of his detectives had resulted
+in nothing more. There was not sufficient evidence to warrant accusing
+any one else, and that against Harry Bartlett was of so slender and
+circumstantial a character that it could not be held to have any real
+value before the grand jury nor in a trial court.
+
+"What is your motion, then?" asked the coroner.
+
+"Well, I don't know that I have any motion to make," said Mr. Stryker.
+"If this were before a county judge, and the prisoner's counsel demanded
+it, I should have to agree to a nolle pros. As it is I simply say I have
+no other evidence to offer at this time."
+
+"Then the jury may consider that already before it?" asked Billy Teller.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You have heard what the prosecutor said, gentlemen," went on the
+coroner. "You may retire and consider your verdict."
+
+This they did, for fifteen minutes--fifteen nerve-racking minutes for
+more than one in the improvised courtroom. Then the twelve men filed
+back, and in answer to the usual questions the foreman announced:
+
+"We find that Horace Carwell came to his death through poison
+administered by a person, or persons, unknown."
+
+There was silence for a moment, and then, as Bartlett started from his
+seat, a flush mantling his pale face, Viola, with a murmured "Thank
+God!" fainted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. A MEETING
+
+
+Harry Bartlett walked from the court a free man, physically, but not
+mentally. He felt, and others did also, that there was a stain on
+him--something unexplained, and which he would not, or could not, clear
+up--the quarrel with Mr. Carwell just before the latter's death. And
+even to Viola, when, in the seclusion of her home, she asked Harry about
+it after the trial, or rather, the verdict, he replied:
+
+"I can not tell. It was nothing that concerns you or me or this case. I
+will never tell."
+
+And Colonel Ashley, hearing this, pondered over it more and more.
+
+The little green book was all but forgotten during these days, and as
+for the rods, lines, and reels, Shag arranged them, polished them and
+laid them out, in hourly expectation of being called on for them, but
+the call did not come. The colonel was after bigger fish than dwelt in
+the sea or the rivers that ran into the sea.
+
+It was a week after the rather unsatisfactory verdict of the coroner's
+jury that Bartlett, out in his "Spanish Omelet," came most unexpectedly
+on Captain Gerry Poland, some fifty miles from Lakeside. The captain was
+in his big machine, and he seemed surprised on meeting Bartlett.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Then you are--"
+
+"Out, at any rate," was the somewhat bitter reply. "Where have you been,
+Gerry?"
+
+"Away. I couldn't stand it around there."
+
+"I suppose you know they have been looking for you?"
+
+"Looking for me? Oh, you mean Colonel Ashley wanted some information
+about certain business matters. Well, I didn't see that I owed him any
+explanation about private matters between Mr. Carwell and myself, so I
+didn't answer.
+
+"You know what the imputation is, Gerry?" questioned Bartlett, as each
+man sat in his car, near a lonely stretch of woods.
+
+"I don't know that I do," was the calm reply.
+
+"Well, Viola has told me of the finding of the papers in her father's
+private safe. I told her I would see you, if I could, and get an
+explanation. I did not think I would find you so soon."
+
+"I didn't know you were looking, Harry, or I would have come to you.
+What do you mean about papers in a private safe?"
+
+"I mean those which indicate that Mr. Carwell owed you fifteen thousand
+dollars."
+
+"Well, he did owe me that," said the captain calmly.
+
+"He did?" and Harry Bartlett accented the last word.
+
+"Yes, but it was paid. He did not owe me a dollar at the time of his
+death."
+
+"That is astonishing news! There is no record of the money having been
+paid!"
+
+"Nevertheless the debt is canceled," insisted the captain. "I sent the
+receipt and the canceled note to LeGrand Blossom."
+
+"It's false!" cried Bartlett. "He hasn't any such documents!"
+
+For a moment Captain Poland seemed about to leap from his car and
+attack the man who had given him the lie direct. Then, by an effort, he
+composed himself, and quietly answered:
+
+"I can prove every word I say, and I will take immediate steps to do so.
+Mr. Carwell paid me the fifteen thousand dollars on the twenty-third,
+and I--"
+
+"He paid you the money on the twenty-third? the very day he died?" cried
+Harry.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--Why, good heavens, man! Don't you see what this means? It means
+you were with him just before his death, the same as I was. We're both
+in the same boat as far as that goes!"
+
+"Yes, I admit that I was with him, and that he paid me the fifteen
+thousand dollars shortly before his unfortunate end," returned Captain
+Poland. "But our meeting was a most peaceful one, even friendly, and--"
+
+"You mean that I--Oh, I see!" and Bartlett's voice was full of meaning.
+"So that's what you are driving at. Well, two can play at that game.
+I've learned something, anyhow!"
+
+There was a grinding of gears, and the "Spanish Omelet" shot away.
+Captain Poland watched it for a moment, and then, with a shrug of his
+shoulders, threw in the clutch and speeded down the road in the opposite
+direction.
+
+Harry Bartlett lost no time in acquainting Colonel Ashley with the
+admission made by Captain Poland.
+
+"So the wind is veering," the detective murmured. "I shall watch him.
+I wondered why he didn't answer my letters. Now we must see LeGrand
+Blossom."
+
+"I'll come with you," offered Bartlett. "I want to see this thing
+through now. Shall we tell her?" and he motioned toward Viola's room.
+
+"Not now. We'll see Blossom first."
+
+If the head clerk was perturbed at all by the visit to the office of
+Colonel Ashley and Harry Bartlett, he did not disclose it. He welcomed
+the two visitors, and took them to his private room.
+
+Colonel Ashley went bluntly into the business in hand.
+
+"Have you any papers to show that Captain Poland acknowledged the
+receipt of the fifteen thousand dollars owed to him by Mr. Carwell?"
+
+"I have not," was the frank answer. "I have been searching for something
+to prove that the debt was paid, as I knew of its contraction. It was
+not canceled as far as I can find."
+
+"Yet Captain Poland says it was paid," said Bartlett, "and that he sent
+you the receipt."
+
+"I never got it!" insisted LeGrand Blossom. Harry Bartlett and Colonel
+Ashley looked at one another, and then the detective, with an effort at
+cheerfulness which he did not feel, said:
+
+"Oh, well, perhaps in the confusion the papers were mislaid. I shall ask
+Viola about them. Another search must be made."
+
+And so the two went back to The Haven, not much more enlightened than
+when they left it.
+
+"'What is to be done?" asked Bartlett. "Blossom says he knows nothing of
+it."
+
+"Then I must know a little more about Mr. Blossom," mentally decided the
+colonel. "I think I shall shadow him a bit. It may prove fruitful."
+
+And when two nights later LeGrand Blossom left his boarding place and
+met a veiled woman at a lonely spot on the beach, Colonel Ashley, who
+had been waiting as he so well knew how to do, hid himself on the sand
+behind some sedge grass and began to think that the game was coming his
+way after all.
+
+"For a man who pretends to be open and above board, his actions are
+very queer," mused the detective, as he silently crawled nearer to where
+LeGrand Blossom and the woman stood talking in low tones on the lonely
+sands. "I don't see what object he could have in making away with
+Carwell, and yet it begins to look black for him. Maybe there is more
+than the fifteen thousand dollars involved. There are so many angles to
+the case now. I must find out who this woman is."
+
+And when she spoke in louder tones than usual, drawing from LeGrand
+Blossom an impatient "Hush!" the colonel had his answer.
+
+"Morocco Kate again! What's her part now?"
+
+The detective was near enough now to hear some of the talk.
+
+"Did you bring it?" asked the woman eagerly.
+
+"Hush! can't you?" snapped LeGrand Blossom.
+
+"Pooh! What's the harm? There's no one in this lonely place! It gives me
+the creeps. Li'l ole Broadway for mine!"
+
+"You never know who's anywhere these days!" muttered LeGrand. "That
+infernal detective seems to be all over. He looks at me--oh, he looks at
+me, and I don't like it."
+
+Morocco Kate laughed.
+
+"Shut up!" ordered the head clerk. "Do you think this is funny?"
+
+"It used to be," was the answer. "It used to be funny, when you thought
+you were in love with me. Oh, it was delicious!"
+
+"I was a bigger fool than I ever thought I'd be!" growled LeGrand
+Blossom.
+
+"You aren't the only one," was the consoling answer. "But what I'm
+interested in now, is--did you bring the mazumma--the cush--the dope?"
+
+"All I could get," was the answer. "I'm in a devil of a mess, and the
+estate hasn't been settled yet. I may get some more out of it then, but
+you'll have to quit bleeding me. I'm through with you, I tell you!"
+
+"But I'm not with you," was the sharp rejoinder. "I'll take this now,
+but I'll need more. The game isn't going as it used to. Mind, I'll need
+more, and soon."
+
+"You won't get it!"
+
+"Oh, won't I? Well, there are others that'll pay well for what I'm able
+to tell, I guess. I rather think you'll see me again, Lee. So-long now,
+but I'll see you again!"
+
+She moved off in the darkness, laughing mirthlessly, and with muttered
+imprecations LeGrand Blossom turned in the opposite direction, passing
+within a few feet of the hidden detective. "Blackmail, or is it a
+division of the spoils?" mused Colonel Ashley. "I've got to find out
+which. Mr. Blossom, I think I'll have to stick to you until you fall
+into the sear and yellow leaf."
+
+The next day as Colonel Ashley sat trying to fix his attention on a
+passage from Walton, a messenger brought him a note. It was from a young
+man who, at the colonel's suggestion, had been given a clerical place
+in the office of the late Horace Carwell. Not even Viola knew that the
+young man was one of the colonel's aides.
+
+"Blossom just sent out a note to a Miss Minnie Webb," the screed, which
+the colonel perused, read. "He's going to meet her in the park at Silver
+Lake at nine to-night. Thought I'd let you know."
+
+"I'm glad he did," mused the detective. "I'll be there."
+
+And he was, skillfully though not ostentatiously attired as a loitering
+fisherman of the native type, of which there were many in and about
+Lakeside.
+
+The fisherman strolled about the little park in the center of which was
+a body of fresh water known as Silver Lake. It was little more than a
+pond, and was fed by springs and by drainage. In the park were trees and
+benches, and it was a favorite trysting spot.
+
+Up and down the paths walked Colonel Ashley, his clothes odorous of
+fish, and he was beginning to think he might have his trouble for his
+pains when he saw a woman coming along hesitatingly.
+
+It needed but a second glance to disclose to the trained eyes of the
+detective that it was none other than Minnie Webb, whom he had met
+several times at the home of Viola Carwell. Minnie advanced until she
+came to a certain bench, and she stopped long enough to count and make
+sure that it was the third from one end of a row, and the seventh from
+the other end.
+
+"The appointed place," mused the colonel as he sauntered past. And then,
+making a detour, he came up in the rear and hid in the bushes back of
+the bench, where he could hear without being observed--in fact the bench
+was in such shadow that even the casual passerby in front could not
+after darkness had fallen tell who occupied it.
+
+Minnie Webb sat in silence, but by the way she fidgeted about the
+colonel, hearing the shuffling of her feet on the gravel walk, knew she
+was nervous and impatient.
+
+Then quick footsteps were heard coming along through the little park.
+They increased in sound, and came to a stop in front of the bench on
+which sat the shrouded and dark figure of the girl.
+
+"Minnie?"
+
+"LeGrand! Oh, I'm so glad you came! What is it? Why did you send me a
+note to meet you in this lonely place? I'm so afraid!"
+
+"Afraid? Lonely? Why, it's early evening, and this is a public park,"
+the man answered in a low voice. "I wanted you to come here as it's the
+best place for us to talk--where we can't be overheard."
+
+"But why are you so afraid of being overheard?"
+
+"Oh, things are so mixed up--one can't be too careful. Minnie, we must
+settle our affairs."
+
+"Settle them? You mean--?"
+
+"I mean we can't go on this way. I must have you! I've waited long
+enough. You know I love you--that I've never loved any one else as I've
+loved you! I can't stand it any longer without you. I have asked you to
+marry me several times. Each time you have put it off for some reason
+or other. Now we must settle it. Are you going to marry me or not? No
+matter what your folks say about me and this Carwell affair. Do you--do
+you care for me?"
+
+The answer was so low and so muffled that the colonel was glad he could
+not hear it.
+
+"Confound it all!" he murmured, "that's the worst of this business! I
+don't mind anything but the love-making. I hate to break in on that!"
+
+There was an eloquent silence, and then LeGrand Blossom said:
+
+"I am very happy, Minnie."
+
+"And so am I. Now what shall we do?"
+
+"Get married as soon as possible, of course. I've got to wind up matters
+here, and as soon as I can I may take up an offer that came from Boston.
+It's a very good one. Would you go there with me?"
+
+"Yes, LeGrand. I'd go anywhere with you--you know that."
+
+"I'm glad I do, my dear. It may be necessary to go very soon, and--well,
+we won't stop to say good-bye, either."
+
+"Why! what do you mean," and the hidden detective knew that the girl had
+drawn away from the young man.
+
+"Oh, I mean that we won't bother about the fuss of a farewell-party.
+I'm not tied to the Carwell business. In fact I'd be glad to chuck
+it. There's nothing in it any more, since there's no chance for a
+partnership. We'll just go off by ourselves and be happy--won't we,
+Minnie?"
+
+"I hope so, LeGrand. But must we go away? Can't you get something else
+here?"
+
+"I think we must, yes."
+
+"You haven't had trouble with--with Viola, have you?"
+
+"No. What made you think of that?"
+
+"Oh, it was just a notion. Well, if we have to leave we will. I shall
+hate to go, however. But, I'll be with you--" and again the words were
+smothered.
+
+"I wonder what sort of a double-cross game he's playing," mused the
+colonel when the two had left the park and he, rather stiff from his
+position, shuffled to the lonely spot where he had before made a change
+of garments. Attired as his usual self, he went back to The Haven, and
+spent rather a restless night.
+
+Minnie Webb was perplexed. She loved LeGrand Blossom--there was no doubt
+of that--but she did not see why he should have to leave the vicinity of
+Lakeside where she had lived so many years--at least during the summer
+months. All her friends and acquaintances were there.
+
+"I wonder if Viola has given him notice to leave since she came into her
+father's property," mused Minnie. "I'm going to ask her. He may never
+get such a good place in Boston as he has here. I'll see if I can't find
+out why he wants to leave. It can't be just because father does not care
+much for him."
+
+So she called on Viola, as she had done often of late, and found her
+friend sitting silent, and with unseeing eyes staring at the rows of
+books in the library.
+
+"Oh, Minnie, it was so good of you to come! I'm very glad to see you.
+Since father went it has been very lonely. You look extremely well."
+
+"I am well--and--happy. Oh, Viola, you're the first I have told,
+but--but Mr. Blossom has--asked me to marry him, and--"
+
+"Oh, how lovely! And you've said 'yes!' I can tell that!" and Viola
+smiled and kissed her friend impulsively. "Tell me all about it!"
+
+"And so it's all settled," went on Minnie, after much talk and many
+questions and answers. "Only I'm sorry he's going to leave you."
+
+"Going to leave me!" exclaimed Viola. Her voice was incredulous.
+
+"Well, I mean going to give up the management of your business. I'm sure
+you'll miss him."
+
+"I shall indeed! But I did not know Mr. Blossom was going to leave. He
+has said nothing to me or Aunt Mary about it. In fact, I--"
+
+"Oh, is there something wrong?" asked Minnie quickly, struck by
+something in Viola's voice.
+
+"Well, nothing wrong, as far as we know. But--"
+
+"Oh, please tell me!" begged Minnie. "I am sure you are concealing
+something."
+
+"Well, I will tell you!" said Viola at last. "I feel that I ought to, as
+you may hear of it publicly. It concerns fifteen thousand dollars,"
+and she went into details about the loan, which one party said had been
+paid, and of which Blossom said there was no record.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Minnie Webb. "Oh, what does it mean?" and, worried and
+heartsick, lest she should have made a mistake, she sat looking dumbly
+at Viola...
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE LIBRARY POSTAL
+
+
+"My dear, I am sorry if I have told you anything that distresses you,"
+said Viola gently. "But I thought--"
+
+"Oh, yes, it is best to know," was the low response. "Only--only I was
+so happy a little while ago, and now--"
+
+"But perhaps it may all be explained!" interrupted Viola. "It is only
+some tiresome business deal, I'm sure. I never could understand them,
+and I don't want to. But it does seem queer that there is no record of
+that fifteen thousand dollars being paid back."
+
+"What does Captain Poland say about it?"
+
+"Oh, he told Harry, very frankly, that father paid the money, and that
+the receipt was sent to Mr. Blossom. But the latter says it can not be
+found."
+
+"And do you suspect Mr. Blossom?" asked Minnie, and her voice held a
+challenge.
+
+"Well," answered Viola slowly, "there isn't much of which to suspect
+him. It isn't as if Captain Poland claimed to have paid father the
+fifteen thousand dollars, and the money couldn't be found. It's only a
+receipt for money which the captain admits having gotten back that is
+missing. But it makes such confusion. And there are so many other things
+involved--"
+
+"You mean about the poisoning?"
+
+"Yes. Oh, I wish it were all cleared up! Don't let's talk of it. I must
+find out about Mr. Blossom going away. We shall have to get some one in
+his place. Aunt Mary will be so disturbed--"
+
+"Don't say that I told you!" cautioned Minnie. "Perhaps I should not
+have mentioned it. Oh, dear, I am so miserable!" And she certainly
+looked it.
+
+"And so am I!" confessed Viola. "If only Harry would tell what he is
+keeping back."
+
+"You mean about that quarrel with your father?"
+
+"Yes. And he acts so strangely of late, and looks at me in such a queer
+way. Oh, I'm afraid, and I don't know what I'm afraid of!"
+
+"I'm the same way, Viola!" admitted Minnie.
+
+"I wonder why we two should have all the trouble in the world?"
+
+And the two were miserable together.
+
+They were not the only ones to suffer in those days. Captain Gerry
+Poland could not drive Viola from his mind. To the yachtsman, she was
+the most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he wondered if fortune
+would ever make it possible for him to approach her again on the subject
+that lay so close to his heart.
+
+And then there was Bartlett. It was true he walked the streets--or
+rather rode around them in his "Spanish Omelet"--a free man; yet the
+finger of suspicion was constantly pointed at him.
+
+More than once in the town he met people who sneered openly at him, as
+if to say, "You are guilty, but we can't prove it." And once on the golf
+course he went up to three men who had formerly been quite friendly and
+suggested a game of golf, upon which one after another the others made
+trivial excuses and begged to be excused. Upon this occasion the young
+man had rushed away, his face scarlet, and he had only calmed down after
+a mad tour of many miles in his racing machine.
+
+"It's an outrage!" he had muttered to himself. "A dastardly outrage! But
+what is a fellow going to do?"
+
+Meanwhile Colonel Ashley and Jack Young were puzzling their heads over
+many matters connected with the golf course mystery. Jack had obeyed the
+colonel's instructions to the letter. He had played many rounds on
+the links and had gotten to a certain degree of friendship with Jean
+Forette. He had even formed a liking for Bruce Garrigan, who, offhand,
+informed him that the amount of India ink used in tattooing sailors
+during the past year was less by fifteen hundred ounces than the total
+output of radium salts for 1916, while the wheat crop of Minnesota for
+the same period was 66,255 bushels. All of which information, useful in
+a way, no doubt, was accepted by Jack with a smile. He was there to look
+and listen, and, well, he did it.
+
+"But I've got to pass it up," he told Colonel Ashley. "I've stuck to
+that Jean chap until I guess he must think I want him for a chauffeur
+if ever I'm able to own a car bigger than a flivver. And aside from the
+fact that he does use some kind of dope, in which he isn't alone in this
+world, I can't get a line on him."
+
+"No, I didn't expect you would," said Colonel Ashley, with a smile.
+"But are you well enough acquainted with him to have a talk with his
+sweetheart?"
+
+"You mean Mazi?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I s'pose I might get a talk with her. But what's the idea?"
+
+"Nothing special, only I'd like to see if she tells you the same story
+she told me. Have a try at it when you get a chance."
+
+"On the theory, I suppose, of in any trouble, look for the lady?"
+
+"Somewhat, yes."
+
+They were talking in The Haven, for Jack had been put up there as
+a guest at the request of Colonel Ashley. And when the bell
+rang, indicating some one at the door, they looked at one another
+questioningly.
+
+Then came the postman's whistle, for Lakeside, though but a summer
+resort, with a population much larger in summer than in winter, boasted
+of mail delivery.
+
+A maid placed the letters in their usual place on the hall table, and
+the colonel quickly ran through them, for he had reports sent him from
+his New York office from time to time.
+
+"Here's one for you, Jack," he announced, handing his assistant a
+letter.
+
+While Jack Young was reading it the colonel caught sight of a postal,
+with the address side down, lying among the other missives. It was a
+postal which bore several lines of printing, the rest being filled in by
+a pen, and the import of it was that a certain library book, under the
+number 58 C. H--161* had been out the full time allowed under the rules,
+and must either be returned for renewal, or a fine of two cents a day
+paid, and the recipient was asked to give the matter prompt attention.
+
+The colonel turned the card over. It was addressed to Miss Viola
+Carwell at The Haven.
+
+"So the book is out on her card," murmured the detective. "I must look
+for her copy of 'Poison Plants of New Jersey,' and see if it is like the
+one I have."
+
+"Were you speaking to me?" asked Jack, having finished his letter.
+
+"No, but I will now. We've got to get busy on this case, and close it
+up. I've been too long on it now. Shag is getting impatient."
+
+"Shag?"
+
+"Yes, he wants me to go fishing."
+
+"Oh, I see. Well, I'm ready. What are the orders?"
+
+Two busy days on the part of Colonel Ashley and his assistant followed.
+They went on many mysterious errands and were out once all night. But
+where they went, what they did or who they saw they told no one.
+
+It was early one evening that Colonel Ashley waited for his assistant in
+the library of The Haven. Jack had gone out to send a message and was to
+return soon. And as the colonel waited in the dim light of one electric
+bulb, much shaded, he saw a figure come stealing to the portieres that
+separated the library from the hall. Cautiously the figure advanced and
+looked into the room. A glance seemed to indicate that no one was there,
+for the colonel was hidden in the depths of a big chair, "slumping,"
+which was his favorite mode of relaxing.
+
+"I wonder if some one is looking for me?" mused the colonel. "Well, just
+for fun, I'll play hide and seek. I can disclose myself later." And so
+he remained in the chair, hardly breathing the silent figure parted the
+heavy curtains, within, dropped something white on the floor, and then
+quickly hurried away, the feet making no sound on the thick carpet of
+the hall.
+
+"Now," mused the colonel to himself, "I wonder that is a note for me,
+or a love missive for one the maids from the butler or the gardener, who
+too bashful to deliver it in person. I'd better look."
+
+Without turning on more light the colonel picked up the thing that had
+fluttered so silently to the floor. It was a scrap of paper, and as he
+held it under the dimly glowing bulb he saw, scrawled in printed letters:
+
+"Viola Carwell has a poison book."
+
+"As if I didn't know it!" softly exclaimed the colonel.
+
+And then, as he resumed his comfortable, but not very dignified
+position, he heard some one coming boldly along the hall, and the voice
+of Jack asked:
+
+"Are you in here, Colonel?"
+
+"Yes, come in. Did you get a reply?"
+
+"Surely. Your friend must have been waiting for your telegram."
+
+"I expected he would be. Let me see it," and the detective read a brief
+message which said:
+
+"Thomas much better after a long sleep."
+
+"Ah," mused the colonel. "I'm very glad Thomas is better."
+
+"Is Thomas, by any chance, a cat?" asked Jack, who read the telegram the
+colonel handed him.
+
+"He is--just that--a cat and nothing more. And now, Jack, my friend, I
+think we're about ready to close in."
+
+"Close in? Why--"
+
+"Oh, there are a few things I haven't told you yet. Sit down and I'll
+just go over them. I've been on this case a little longer than you have,
+and I've done some elimination which you haven't had a chance to do."
+
+"And you have eliminated all but--"
+
+"Captain Poland and LeGrand Blossom."
+
+At these words Jack started, and made a motion of silence. They were
+still in the library, but more lights had been turned on, and the place
+was brilliant.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the colonel, quickly. "I thought I heard a
+noise in the hall," and Jack stepped to the door and looked out. But
+either he did not see, or did not want to see, a shrinking figure which
+quickly crouched down behind a chair not far from the portal.
+
+"Guess I was mistaken," said Jack. "Anyhow I didn't see anything."
+Did he forget that coming out of a light room into a dim hall was not
+conducive to good seeing? Jack Young ought to have remembered that.
+
+"One of the servants, likely, passing by," suggested the colonel. "Yes,
+Jack, I think we must pin it down to either the captain or Blossom."
+
+"Do you really think Blossom could have done it?"
+
+"He could, of course. The main question is, did he have an object in
+getting Mr. Carwell out of the way?"
+
+"And did he have?"
+
+"I think he did. I've been trailing him lately, when he didn't suspect
+it, and I've seen him in some queer situations. I know he needed a lot
+of money and--well, I'm going to take him into custody as the murderer
+of Mr. Carwell. I want you to--"
+
+But that was as far as the detective got, for there was a shriek in the
+hall--a cry of mortal anguish that could only come from a woman--and
+then, past the library door, rushed a figure in white.
+
+Out and away it rushed, flinging open the front door, speeding down the
+steps and across the lawn.
+
+"Quick!" cried Colonel Ashley. "Who was that?"
+
+"I don't know!" answered Jack. "Must have been the person I thought I
+heard in the hall."
+
+"We must find out who it was!" went on the detective. "You make some
+inquiries. I'll take after her."
+
+"Could it have been Miss Viola?"
+
+The question was answered almost as soon as it was asked, for, at that
+moment, Viola herself came down the front stairs.
+
+"What is it?" she asked the two detectives. "Who cried out like that? Is
+some one hurt?"
+
+"I don't know," answered Colonel Ashley. "Mr. Young and I were talking
+in the library when we heard the scream. Then a woman rushed out."
+
+"It must have been Minnie Webb!" cried Viola. "She was here a moment
+ago. The maid told me she was waiting in the parlor, and I was detained
+upstairs. It must have been Minnie. But why did she scream so?"
+
+Colonel Ashley did not stop to answer.
+
+"Look after things here, Jack!" he called to his assistant. "I'm going
+to follow her. If ever there was a desperate woman she is."
+
+And he sped through the darkness after the figure in white.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE LARGE BLONDE AGAIN
+
+
+The trail was not a difficult one to follow. The night was particularly
+black, with low-hanging clouds which seemed to hold a threat of rain,
+and the wind sighed dolefully through the scrub pines. Against this dim
+murkiness the figure of the woman in white stood out ghostily.
+
+"Poor Minnie Webb!" mused Colonel Ashley, as he hurried on after her.
+"She must be desperate now--after what she heard. I wonder--"
+
+He did not put his wonder into words then, but his suspicion was
+confirmed as he saw her head for the bridge that spanned a creek, not
+far from where the ferry ran over to Loch Harbor.
+
+At certain times this creek was not deep enough to afford passage for
+small rowboats, but when the tide was in there was draught enough for
+motor launches.
+
+"And the tide is in now," mused the colonel, as he remembered passing
+among the sand dunes late that afternoon, and noting the state of the
+sea. "Too bad, poor little woman!" he added gently, as he followed her.
+"Not so fast! Not so fast! There is no need of rushing to destruction.
+It comes soon enough without our going out to meet it. Poor girl!"
+
+He went on through the darkness, following, following, following
+distracted Minnie, who, with the fateful words still ringing in her
+ears, hardly knew whither she hurried.
+
+Colonel Ashley, in spite of the desperate manner in which the chase had
+begun, felt that he was safe from observation. He had on dark clothes,
+which did not contrast so strongly with the night as did the light and
+filmy dress of Minnie Webb. Besides, she was too distracted to notice
+that she was being followed.
+
+"She is going to the bridge, and the tide is in," mused the detective.
+"I didn't think she had that much spunk--for it does take spunk to
+attempt anything like this in the dark. However, I'll try to get there
+as soon as she does."
+
+The fleeing girl in white passed over an open moor, fleeced here and
+there with scanty bushes, which gave the detective all the cover he
+needed. But the girl did not look back, and the night was dark. The
+clouds were thicker too, and the very air seemed so full of rain that
+an incautious movement would bring it spattering about one's head, as a
+shake of a tree, after a shower, precipitates the drops.
+
+And then there suddenly loomed, like grotesque shadows on the night, two
+other figures at the very end of the bridge that Minnie Webb sought to
+cross. They seemed to bar her way, and yet they were as much startled as
+she, for they drew back on her approach.
+
+And Colonel Ashley, stealing his way up unseen, heard from Minnie Webb
+the startled ejaculation:
+
+"LeGrand! You here? And who--who is this?"
+
+Then, as if in defiance, or perhaps to see who the challenger was, the
+figure standing beside that of LeGrand Blossom flashed a little pocket
+electric torch. And by the gleam of it Colonel Ashley saw the large
+blonde woman again.
+
+"Morocco Kate!" he murmured. "So she is mixed up in it after all! I
+think I begin to see daylight in spite of the darkness. Morocco Kate!"
+
+Then, crouching down behind some bushes, he waited and listened and
+thought swiftly.
+
+"Speak to me!" implored Minnie of the young man. "What does it mean,
+LeGrand? Why are you here with--with--"
+
+"He knows my name well enough, if he wants to tell it," broke in the
+other. "I'm not ashamed of it, either. But who are you, I'd like to
+know? I never saw you before!" and the blonde woman flashed her light
+full on Minnie's white face.
+
+And as the girl shrank back, Morocco Kate, so called, sneered:
+
+"Some one else he's got on a string, I suppose! Ho! It's a merry life
+you lead, LeGrand Blossom!"
+
+"Stop!" the young man exclaimed. "I can't let you go on this way.
+Minnie, please leave us for a moment. I'll come to you as soon as I
+can."
+
+"Oh, yes! Of course!" sneered the other. "She's younger and prettier
+than I--quite a flapper. I was that way--once. And I suppose you said
+the same thing to some one else you wanted to get rid of before you took
+me on. Oh, to the devil with the men, anyhow!"
+
+Minnie gasped.
+
+"Shocked you, did I, kid? Well, you'll hear worse than that, believe me.
+If I was to tell--"
+
+"Stop!" and LeGrand Blossom snapped out the words in such a manner that
+the desperate woman did stop.
+
+"Minnie, go away," he pleaded, more gently. "I'll come to you as soon as
+I can, and explain everything. Please believe in me!"
+
+"I--I don't believe I can--again, LeGrand," faltered Minnie. "I--I heard
+what you said to her just now--that you couldn't do anything more for
+her. Oh, what have you been doing for her? Who is she? Tell me! Oh, I
+must hear it, though I dread it!"
+
+"Yes, you shall hear it!" cried LeGrand Blossom, and there was
+desperation in his voice. "I was going to tell you, anyhow, before I
+married you--"
+
+"Oh, you're really going to marry her, are you?" sneered the blonde.
+"Really? How interesting!"
+
+"Will you be quiet?" said LeGrand, and there was that in his voice which
+seemed to cow the blonde woman.
+
+"Minnie," went on LeGrand Blossom, "its a hard thing for a man to talk
+about a woman, but sometimes it has to be done. And it's doubly hard
+when it's about a woman a man once cared for. But I'm going to take my
+medicine, and she's got to take hers."
+
+"I'm no quitter! I'm a sport, I am!" was the defiant remark. "So was Mr.
+Carwell--Old Carwell we used to call him. But he had more pep than some
+of you younger chaps.
+
+"Leave his name out of this!" growled LeGrand, like some dog trying to
+keep his temper against the attacks of a cur.
+
+"This woman--I needn't tell you her name now, for she has several," he
+went on to Minnie. "This woman and I were once engaged to be married.
+She was younger then--and--different. But she began drinking and--well,
+she became impossible. Believe me," he said, turning to the figure
+beside him, "I don't want to tell this, but I've got to square myself."
+
+"Yes," and the other's voice was broken. "I may as well give up now as
+later. If anything can be saved out of the wreck--my wreck--go to it!
+Shoot, kid! Tell the worst! I'll stand the gaff!"
+
+"Well, that makes it easier," resumed Blossom. "We were going to be
+married, but she got in with a fast crowd, and I couldn't stand the
+pace. I admit, I wasn't sport enough."
+
+"I'm glad you weren't," murmured Minnie, her breast heaving.
+
+"The result was," went on Blossom, "that she and I separated. It was as
+much her wish as mine--toward the end. And she married a Frenchman with
+whom she seemed to be fascinated."
+
+"Yes, he sure had me hypnotized," agreed the blonde woman. "It was more
+my fault than yours, Lee. Perhaps if you'd taken a whip to me, and made
+me behave--Some of us women need a beating now and then. But it's too
+late now." Of a sudden she seemed strangely subdued.
+
+LeGrand Blossom went on with the sordid tale.
+
+"Well, the marriage didn't turn out happily. It was--"
+
+"It was hell! I'm not afraid to use the word!" interrupted the blonde.
+"It was just plain, unadulterated hell! And I went into it with my eyes
+open. That's what it was--hell! I've had such a lot here on earth that
+maybe they'll give me a discount when I get--well, when I get where I'm
+going!" and she laughed, but there was no mirth in it.
+
+Minnie shuddered, and drew nearer to LeGrand. And it did not seem to be
+because of the chill night wind, either.
+
+"It was the same old story," went on the clerk. "No need of going
+over that, Minnie. It doesn't concern the question now. In the end the
+Frenchman cast her off, and she had to live, somehow. She came to me,
+and I, for the sake of old times, agreed to help her. I didn't think
+I was doing anything wrong; but it seems I was. I thought the rare and
+expensive book publishing business she said she was in was legitimate.
+Instead it was--"
+
+"Yes, it was a blackmailing scheme!" interrupted Morocco Kate, not
+without some curious and perverted sense of pride. "I admit that. I got
+you in wrong, LeGrand, but it wasn't because I hated you, for I didn't.
+I really loved you, and I was a fool to take up with Jean. But that's
+past and gone. Only I didn't really mean to make trouble for you. I
+thought you might be able to wiggle out, knowing business men as you
+did."
+
+"Instead," said the clerk, "I only became the more involved. It began
+to look as though I was a partner in the infernal schemes, and she and
+those she worked with held the threat over my head to extort money from
+me."
+
+"Believe me, LeGrand, I didn't do that willingly," interrupted Morocco
+Kate. "The others had a hold over me, and they forced me to use you
+as their tool. They bled me, as I, in turn, bled you. Oh, it was all a
+rotten game, and I'm glad the end's at hand. I suppose it's all up now?"
+she asked Blossom.
+
+"The end is, as far as it concerns you and me," he said. "I'm going
+to confess, and take my medicine. Minnie, I've lied to give this woman
+money to prevent her exposing me. Now I'm through. I've told my last
+lie, and given my last dollar. Thank God--who has been better to me than
+I deserve--thank God! I'm still young enough to make good the money
+I've lost. The lies I can't undo, but I can tell the truth. I'm going to
+confess everything!"
+
+"Oh, LeGrand!" cried Minnie, and she held out her hands to him.
+"Not--not everything!"
+
+"Yes, the whole rotten business. That's the only way to begin over
+again, and begin clean. I'll come through clean!"
+
+"Oh!" murmured Minnie. "It will be so--so hard!"
+
+"Yes," and LeGrand gritted his teeth, "it isn't going to be easy; but
+it'll be a bed of roses compared to what I've been lying on the last
+year. This woman had such a hold on me that I couldn't clear myself
+before--that is, clear myself of grave charges. But now I can. This is
+the end. I can prove that I wasn't mixed up in the Roswell de luxe book
+case, and that's what she's been holding over me."
+
+"The Roswell case!" faltered Minnie.
+
+"Yes, you don't know about it, but I'll tell you, later. Now I'm free.
+This is the end. I came here to-night to tell her so. How you happened
+to follow me I don't know."
+
+"I didn't follow, LeGrand. It was all an accident."
+
+"Then it's a lucky accident, Minnie. This is the end. From now on--"
+
+"Yes, it's the end!" bitterly cried the other woman. "It's the end of
+everything. Oh, if I could only make it the end for Jean Carnot, I'd be
+satisfied. He made me what I am--an outcast from the world. If I could
+find Jean Carnot--"
+
+And then, with the suddenness of a bird wheeling in mid air, the blonde
+woman turned and rushed away in the darkness.
+
+For an instant Colonel Ashley hesitated in his hiding place. And then he
+murmured:
+
+"I guess you'll keep, LeGrand Blossom, and you, too, Minnie Webb.
+Morocco Kate needs watching. And I think, now, she'll lead me right
+where I've been wanting to go for a long time. The darkness is fast
+fading away," which was a strange thing to say, seeing that the night
+was blacker than ever.
+
+Back on the desolate moor, near the bridge under which the black tide
+was now hurrying, murmuring and whispering to the rushes tales of the
+deep and distant sea, stood two figures.
+
+"Do you believe in me, Minnie?" asked the man brokenly.
+
+There was a pause. The murmuring of the tide grew louder, and it seemed
+to sing now, as it rose higher and higher.
+
+"Do you?" he repeated, wistfully.
+
+"Yes," was the whispered reply. "And, Lee, I'll help you to come
+through--clean! I believe in you!"
+
+And the tide washed up the shores of the creek so that, even in the
+darkness, the white sands seemed to gleam.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER. XXIII. MOROCCO KATE, ALLY
+
+
+"Who are you? Who is trailing me? Is that you, LeGrand?"
+
+The challenge came sharply out of the darkness, and Colonel Ashley,
+who had been following Morocco Kate, plodding along through the sand,
+stumbling over the hillocks of sedge grass, halted.
+
+"Who's there?" was the insistent demand. "I know some one is following
+me. Is it you, LeGrand Blossom? Have you--have you--"
+
+The voice died out in a choking sob. "She's gamer than I thought," mused
+the detective. "And, strange as it may seem, I believe she cares." Then
+he answered, almost as gently as to a grieving child:
+
+"It is not LeGrand Blossom. But it is a friend of his, and I want to be
+a friend to you. Wait a moment."
+
+Then, as he came close to her side and flashed on his face a gleam from
+an electric torch he always carried, she started back, and cried:
+
+"Colonel Ashley! Heavens!"
+
+"Exactly!" he chuckled. "You didn't expect to see me here, did you?
+Well, it's all right."
+
+"Then you're not after me for--" She gasped and could not go on. "That
+last deal was straight. I'm not the one you want."
+
+"Don't get Spotty's habit, and throw up your hands just because you
+see me, Kate," went on the colonel soothingly. "I'm not after you
+professionally this time. In fact, if things turn out the way I want, I
+may shut my eyes to one or two little phases of your--er--let us call
+it career. I may ignore one or two little things that, under other
+circumstances, might need explaining."
+
+"You mean you want me for a stool pigeon?"
+
+"Something like that, yes."
+
+"And suppose I refuse?"
+
+"That's up to you, Kate. I may be able to get along without you--I don't
+say I can, but I may. However it would mean harder work and a delay, and
+I don't mind, seeing it's you, saying that I'd like to get back to my
+fishing. So if you'll come to reason, and tell me what I want to know,
+it will help you and--Blossom."
+
+"Blossom!" she gasped. "Then you know--"
+
+"I may as well tell you that I was back there--a while ago," and the
+colonel nodded vaguely to the splotch of blackness from whence Morocco
+Kate had rushed with that despairing cry on her lips.
+
+"I'm a friend of LeGrand Blossom's--at least, I am now since I overheard
+what he had to say to you and Miss Webb," went on the detective. "Now
+then, if you'll tell me what I want to know, I'll help him to come
+across--clean, and I'll help you to the extent I mentioned."
+
+Morocco Kate seemed to be considering as she stood in the darkness. Then
+a long sigh came from her lips, and it was as though she had come to the
+end of everything.
+
+"I'll tell," she said simply. "What do you want to know? But first, let
+me say I didn't no more have an idea that Sport Carwell was going to die
+than you have. Do you believe that?" she asked fiercely.
+
+"I believe you, Kate. Now let's get down to brass tacks. Who is Jean
+Carnot, and where can I find him?"
+
+"Oh!" she murmured. "You want him?"
+
+"Very much, I think. Don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I do! I--I would like to tear out his eyes! I'd like to--"
+
+"Now, Kate, be nice! No use losing your temper. That's got you into
+trouble more than once. Try to play the lady--you can do it when you
+have to. Calling names isn't going to get us anywhere. Just tell me
+where I can find your former husband--or the one you thought was your
+husband--Jean Carnot."
+
+"You're right, Colonel Ashley, I did think him my husband," said
+Morocco Kate simply. "And when I found out he had tricked me by a false
+marriage, and wouldn't make it good--well, I just went to the devil and
+hell--that's all."
+
+"I know it, Kate, and I appreciate your position. I'm not throwing any
+stones at you. I've seen enough of life to know that none of us can do
+that with impunity. Now tell me all you can. And I'll say this--that
+after this is all over, if you want to try and do as Blossom is going to
+do--come through clean--I'll help you to the best of my ability."
+
+"Will you, Colonel?" the big blonde woman asked eagerly.
+
+"I will--and here's my hand on it!"
+
+He reached out in the darkness, but there was no answering clasp. The
+woman seemed to shrink away. And then she said:
+
+"I don't believe it would be of any use. I guess I'm too far down to
+crawl up. But I'll help you all I can."
+
+"Don't give up, Kate!" said the detective gently. "I've seen lots worse
+than you--you notice I'm not mincing words--I've seen lots worse than
+you start over again. All I'll say is that I'll give you the chance if
+you want it. There's nothing in this life you're leading. You know the
+end and the answer as well as I do. You've seen it many a time."
+
+"God help me--I have!" she murmured. "Well, I--I'll think about it."
+
+"And, meanwhile, tell me about this Jean Carnot," went on the colonel.
+"You were married to him?"
+
+"I thought I was."
+
+"What sort of man was he? Come, sit down on this sand dune and tell me
+all about it. I think I want that man."
+
+"No more than I do," she said fiercely. "He left me as he would an old
+coat he couldn't use any more! He cast me aside, trampled on me, left me
+like a sick dog! Oh, God--"
+
+For a moment she could not go on. But she calmed herself and resumed.
+Then, by degrees, she told the whole, sordid story. It was common
+enough--the colonel had listened to many like it before. And when it was
+finished, brokenly and in tears, he put forth his hand on the shoulder
+of Morocco Kate and said:
+
+"Now, Kate, let's get down to business. Are you willing to help me
+finish this up?"
+
+"I'll do all I can, Colonel Ashley. But I don't see how we're going to
+find this devil of a Jean."
+
+"Leave that to me. Now where can I find you when I want you--in a hurry,
+mind. I may want you in a great hurry. Where can I find you?"
+
+"I'm stopping in the village. I'll arrange to be within call for the
+next few days. Will it take long?"
+
+"No, not very. If I can I'll clean it all up tomorrow. Things are
+beginning to clear up. And now allow me the pleasure of walking back
+to town with you. It's getting late and beginning to rain. I have an
+umbrella, and you haven't."
+
+And through the rain which began to fall, as though it might wash
+away some of the sordid sin that had been told of in the darkness, the
+strangely different couple walked through the dark night, Morocco Kate
+as an ally of Colonel Ashley.
+
+The clean, fresh sun was shining in through the windows of Colonel
+Ashley's room at The Haven when he awakened the next morning. As
+he sprang up and made ready for his bath he called toward the next
+apartment:
+
+"Are you up, Jack?"
+
+"Just getting. Any rush?"
+
+"Well, I think this may be our busy day, and again it may not. Better
+tumble out."
+
+"Just as you say. How you feeling, Colonel?"
+
+"Never better. I feel just like fishing, and you--"
+
+"'Nough said. I'm with you."
+
+And then, as he started toward his bath, the colonel saw a dirty slip of
+paper under the door of his room.
+
+"Ha!" he ejaculated. "Another printed message. The writer is getting
+impatient. I think it's time to act."
+
+And he read:
+
+"Why does not the great detective arrest the poisoner of her father?  If
+he will look behind the book case he will find something that will prove
+everything--the poison book and--something else."
+
+The printed scrawl was signed: "Justice."
+
+"Well, 'Justice,' I'll do as you say, for once," said the colonel
+softly, and there was a grim smile on his face.
+
+And so it came about that after his bath and a breakfast Colonel Ashley,
+winking mysteriously to Jack Young, indicated to his helper that he was
+wanted in the library.
+
+"What is it?" asked Jack, when they were alone in the room. "A new
+clew?"
+
+"No, just a blind trail, but I want to clean it up. Help me move out
+some of the bookcases."
+
+"Good night! Some job! Are you looking for a secret passage, or is there
+a body concealed here?" and Jack laughed as he took hold of some of the
+heavy furniture and helped the colonel move it.
+
+Not until they had lifted out the third massive case of volumes was
+their search successful. There was a little thud, as though something
+had fallen to the floor, and, looking, the colonel said:
+
+"I have it."
+
+He reached in and brought out a thin volume. Its title page was
+inscribed "The Poisonous Plants of New Jersey."
+
+Something was in the book--something more bulky than a mere marker; and,
+opening the slender volume at page 4, a spray of dried leaves and some
+thin, whitish roots were disclosed.
+
+"Somebody trying to press wild flowers?" asked Jack. "Why all this
+trouble for that? Hum! Doesn't smell like violets," he added, as he
+picked up the spray of leaves and roots.
+
+"No, it doesn't," agreed the colonel. "But if you are not a little
+careful in handling it you'll be a fit subject for a bunch of
+violets--tied with crepe."
+
+"You mean--"
+
+Jack was startled, and he dropped the dried leaves on the library floor.
+
+"A specimen of the water hemlock," went on the colonel. "One of the
+deadliest poisons of the plant world. And as we don't want any one else
+to suffer the fate of Socrates, I'll put this away."
+
+He looked at the compound leaves, the dried flowers, small, but growing
+in the characteristic large umbels, and at the cluster of fleshy roots,
+though now pressed flat, and noted the hollow stems of the plant itself.
+The bunch of what had been verdure once had made a greenish, yellow
+stain in the book, which, as the colonel noted, was from the local
+public library, and bore the catalogue number 58 C. H.--161*.
+
+"Well, maybe you see through it, but I don't," confessed Jack. "Now,
+what's the next move?"
+
+"Get these book cases back where they belong."
+
+This was done, and then the colonel, sitting down to rest, for the labor
+was not slight, went on:
+
+"You are sure that the French chauffeur has been told that The Haven is
+to be closed, and that he will be no longer required here, nor in the
+city? That he must leave at once though his month is not up?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I heard Miss Viola tell him that herself. She told me she
+didn't see why you wanted that done, but as you had charge of the case
+the house would be closed, even if they had to open it again, for they
+stay here until late in the fall, you know.
+
+"Yes, I know. Then you are sure Forette thinks they are all going away
+and that he will have to go, too?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's all packed. Been paid off, too, I believe, for he was
+sporting a roll of bills."
+
+"And he is to see Mazi--when?"
+
+"This evening."
+
+"Very good. Now I don't want you to let him out of your sight. Stick to
+him like a life insurance agent on the trail of a prospect. Don't let
+him suspect, of course, but follow him when he goes to see the pretty
+little French girl to-night, and stay within call."
+
+"Very good. Is that all?"
+
+"For now, yes."
+
+"What are you going to do, Colonel?"
+
+"Me? I'm going fishing. I haven't thrown a line in over a week, and I'm
+afraid I'll forget how. Yes, I'm going fishing, but I'll see you some
+time to-night."
+
+And a little later Shag was electrified by his master's call:
+
+"Get things ready!"
+
+"Good lan' ob massy, Colonel, sah! Are we suah gwine fishin'?"
+
+"That's what we are, Shag. Lively, boy!"
+
+"I'se runnin', sah, dat's whut I'se doin'! I'se runnin'!" And Shag's
+hands fairly trembled with eagerness, while the colonel, opening a
+little green book, read:
+
+      "Of recreation there is none
+      So free as fishing is alone;
+      All other pastimes do no less
+      Than mind and body both possess;
+      My hand alone my work can do,
+      So I can fish and study too!"
+
+"Old Isaac never wrote a truer word than that!" chuckled the colonel.
+"And now for a little studying."
+
+And presently he was beside a quiet stream.
+
+Luck was with the colonel and Shag that day, for when they returned to
+The Haven the creel carried by the colored man squeaked at its willow
+corners, for it bore a goodly mess of fish.
+
+"Oh, Colonel, I've been so anxious to see you!" exclaimed Viola, when
+the detective greeted her after he had directed Shag to take the fish to
+the kitchen.
+
+"Sorry I delayed so long afield," he answered with a gallant bow. "But
+the sport was too good to leave. What is it, my dear? Has anything
+happened?" Her face was anxious.
+
+"Well, not exactly happened," she answered; "but I don't know what
+it means. And it seems so terrible! Look. I just discovered this--or
+rather, it was handed to me by one of the maids a little while ago," and
+she held out the postal from the library, telling of the overdue book.
+
+"Well?" asked the colonel, though he could guess what was coming.
+
+"Why, I haven't drawn a book from the library here for a long time,"
+went on Viola. "I did once or twice, but that was when the library was
+first opened, some years ago. This postal is dated a week ago, but the
+maid just gave it to me."
+
+"Very likely it was mislaid."
+
+"That's what I supposed. But I went at once to the library, and I found
+that the book had been taken out on my card. And, oh, Colonel Ashley, it
+is a book on--poisons!"
+
+"I know it, my dear."
+
+"You know it! And did you think--"
+
+"Now don't get excited. Come, I'll show you the very book. It's been
+here for some time, and I've known all about it. In fact I have a copy
+of it that I got from New York. There isn't anything to be worried
+about."
+
+"But a book on poisons--poisonous plants it is, as I found out at the
+library--and poor father was killed by some mysterious poison! Oh--"
+
+She was rapidly verging on an attack of hysterics, and the colonel led
+her gently to the dining room whence, in a little while, she emerged,
+pale, but otherwise self-possessed.
+
+"Then you really want Aunt Mary and me to go away?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, for a day or so. Make it appear that the house is closed for the
+season. You dismissed Forette, didn't you, as I suggested?"
+
+"Yes, and paid him in full. I never want to see him again. He's been so
+insolent of late--he'd hardly do a thing I asked him. And he looked at
+me in such a queer, leering, impudent way."
+
+"Don't worry about that, my dear. Everything will soon be all right."
+
+"And will--will Harry be cleared?"
+
+The colonel did not have time to answer, for Miss Mary Carwell appeared
+just then, lamenting the many matters that must be attended to on the
+closing of the house for even a short time. The colonel left her and
+Viola to talk it over by themselves.
+
+On slowly moving pinions, a lone osprey beat its way against a
+quartering south-east wind to the dead tree where the little birds
+waited impatiently in the nest, giving vent to curious, whistling
+sounds. Slowly the osprey flew, for it had played in great luck that
+day, and had swooped down on a fish that would make a meal for him and
+his mate and the little ones. The fish was not yet dead, but every now
+and then would contort its length in an effort to escape from the talons
+which were thrust deeper and deeper into it, making bright spots of
+blood on the scaly sides.
+
+And a man, walking through the sand, looked up, and in the last rays of
+the setting sun saw the drops of blood on the sides of the fish.
+
+"A good kill, old man! A good kill!" he said aloud, and as though the
+osprey could hear him. "A mighty good kill!"
+
+When it was dark a procession of figures began to wend its way over the
+lonely moor and among the sand dunes to where a tiny cottage nestled in
+a lonely spot on the beach. From the cottage a cheerful light shone, and
+now and then a pretty girl went to the door to look out. Seeing nothing,
+she went back and sat beside a table, on which gleamed a lamp.
+
+By the light of it a woman was knitting, her needles flying in and out
+of the wool. The girl took up some sewing, but laid it down again and
+again, to go to the door and peer out.
+
+"He is not coming yet, Mazi?" asked the woman in French.
+
+"No, mamma, but he will. He said he would. Oh, I am so happy with him! I
+love him so! He is all life to me!"
+
+"May you ever feel like that!" murmured the older woman.
+
+Soon after that, the first of the figures in the procession reached the
+little cottage. The girl flew to the door, crying:
+
+"Jean! Jean! What made you so late?"
+
+"I could not help it, sweetheart. I but waited to get the last of my
+wages. Now I am paid, and we shall go on our honeymoon!"
+
+"Oh, Jean! I am so happy!"
+
+"And I, too, Mazi!" and the man drew the girl to him, a strange light
+shining in his eyes.
+
+They sat down just outside the little cottage, where the gleam from the
+lamp would not reflect on them too strongly, and talked of many things.
+Of old things that are ever new, and of new things that are destined to
+be old.
+
+The second figure of the procession that seemed to make the lonely
+cottage on the moor a rendezvous that evening, was not far behind that
+of the lover. It was a figure of a man in a natty blue serge suit. A
+panama hat of expensive make sat jauntily on top of his head on which
+curled close, heavy black hair.
+
+"I wonder if the colonel is coming?" mused Jack Young, as he stopped
+to let Jean Forette hurry on a little in advance. Then a backward glance
+told him that two other figures were joining the procession. These
+last two--a man and a woman--walked more slowly, and they did not talk,
+except now and then to pass a few words.
+
+"Then the marriage was legal, after all?" the woman asked.
+
+"Yes, Kate, it was," answered Colonel Ashley. "You are his lawful wife."
+
+"And he only told me I wasn't, so as to shame me--to make me leave him,
+and render me desperate?"
+
+"That, and for other reasons. But the fact remains that you are his
+wife."
+
+"And this other ceremony--this other woman?"
+
+"No legal wife at all."
+
+"I am sorry for her."
+
+"Yes, she is but a girl. If I had known in time I might have stopped it.
+But it is too late now. Is he there, Jack?" he asked, as he joined the
+man in the panama hat.
+
+"Yes, sitting outside with Mazi. Going to close in?"
+
+"Might as well. Watch him carefully. He's desperate, and--"
+
+"I know--full of dope. Well I'm ready for him."
+
+And so the trio--the last of the procession, if we except Fate--went
+closer to the cottage whence so cheerfully gleamed the light.
+
+"Who is there? What do you want?"
+
+It was the snarling voice of Jean Forette, late chauffeur for the
+Carwells, challenging.
+
+"Who is it?" he cried.
+
+The three figures came on.
+
+Suddenly there was a blinding flash, and the gleam from a powerful
+electric torch shone in the faces of Jack Young, Morocco Kate and
+Colonel Ashley.
+
+There was a gasp of surprise and terror from the man beside Mazi--the
+man who had thrust out the torch to see who it was advancing and closing
+in on him through the darkness.
+
+"Ah!" sneered the Frenchman, recovering his self-possession. "It is my
+friend the officer. Ah, I am glad to see you--but just now--not!" and he
+seemed to spit out the words.
+
+"Maybe not. I can't always come when I'm expected, nor where I'm
+wanted," said Colonel Ashley coolly. "Now, my friend--Jack!" he cried
+sharply.
+
+"I've got him, Colonel," was the cool answer, and there was a cry of
+agony from the chauffeur as his wrist was turned, almost to the breaking
+point, while there dropped from his paralyzed hand a magazine pistol,
+thudding to the sand at his feet.
+
+"Go on, Colonel," said Jack, who had slipped off to one side, out of the
+focus of the glaring light, just in time to prevent Jean Forette from
+using the weapon he had quickly taken from a side pocket. "Go on, close
+in. I've drawn his stinger."
+
+"Messieurs, what does this mean?" demanded the girl beside Jean. "Who
+are you? What do you want? Ah, it is you--and you!" and she turned first
+to Colonel Ashley and then to Jack Young. "You who have talked so kindly
+to me--who have asked me so much about--about my husband! It is you who
+come like thieves and assassins! Speak to them, Jean! Tell them to go!"
+
+The Frenchman was breathing heavily, for Jack had a merciless grip on
+him.
+
+"Speak to them, Jean!" implored the girl, while her mother, standing in
+the door with her knitting, looked wonderingly on. "Why do they come to
+take you like a traitor?"
+
+"It--it's all a mistake!" panted the chauffeur.
+
+"You've got me wrong, messieurs. I--I didn't do it. It was all an
+accident. He--I--Oh, my God! You!" and he started back as Morocco Kate
+stepped toward him, pulling from her face the veil that had covered it
+when the glaring light showed. Jack Young now held the electric torch.
+
+"You!" he murmured hoarsely.
+
+"Yes, I!" she cried. "The woman you kicked out like a sick dog!
+I've found you at last, and now I'll make you suffer all I did and
+more--you--devil!"
+
+"Softly, Kate, softly!" murmured the colonel. But she did not heed him.
+
+"You--you spawn of hell!" she cried. "It was you who sent me down where
+I am--where not a decent woman will look at me and a decent man won't
+speak to me. You did it--you left me to rot in my shame so you could
+find some one else--some one younger and prettier to fondle and kiss
+and--Oh, God!"
+
+She sank in a shuddering heap on the sand at the feet of the man who had
+broken her body and spirit, and lay there, sobbing out her anger.
+
+"Let her stay there a little," said the colonel softly. "She'll feel
+better after this outburst."
+
+"Jean! Jean! What is it all about?" begged the girl who still maintained
+her place beside him. "Oh, speak to me! Tell me! Who is she?" and she
+pointed to the huddled figure on the sand.
+
+"I'll tell you who she is," said Colonel Ashley. "She is the legal wife
+of Jean Carnot, alias Jean Forette, and--"
+
+A scream from Mazi stopped him.
+
+"Tell me it isn't true, Jean! Tell me it isn't true!" begged the girl.
+
+Jean Carnot did not speak.
+
+"He knows it is true," said the colonel. "And now, my French auto
+friend, I've come to take you into custody on a charge of--"
+
+"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" cried the man. "I swear I didn't
+do it. I was going to throw the glass away but he grabbed it from me,
+and--"
+
+"I arrest you on a charge of bigamy," went on the calm voice of Colonel
+Ashley. And then, as he saw Mazi stagger as though about to fall, he
+added:
+
+"All right, Jack. I'll take care of her. You put the bracelets on him.
+And see that they're good and tight. We don't want him slipping out
+and getting married again. He doesn't have much regard for bonds of any
+sort, matrimonial or legal."
+
+And then he lifted poor, little Mazi up and carried her into the
+cottage, while Morocco Kate got slowly to her feet and sat down on the
+bench in the darkest shadows, sobbing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. STILL WATERS
+
+
+"The records show that Henri Margot, alias Jean Carnot alias Jean
+Forette was married to Isabel Pelubit in Paris on March 17, four years
+ago, and that she died under suspicious circumstances three months
+later, leaving her husband all of a snug little fortune she possessed.
+
+"All lies, monsieur--all lies! I do not believe anything you tell me!"
+
+"Well, that's very foolish of you, Mazi, for you can easily prove for
+yourself everything I tell you, and it will be better for you, in the
+end, if you do believe."
+
+"I do not. But go on with--more lies!" She shrugged her shoulders
+contemptuously.
+
+Colonel Ashley leafed over a sheaf of papers he had spread out on the
+table in front of him. He and Mazi sat in a room in police headquarters
+in Lakeside. It was the day following the procession to the cottage on
+the moor.
+
+"The records show," went on the detective, "that Henri Margot was
+arrested in Paris, charged with having poisoned his wife so that he
+might spend on another woman the money she possessed. But he was not
+convicted, chiefly because the chemists could not agree on the kind of
+poison that had caused death."
+
+"All lies--I do not believe," said Mazi, stolidly.
+
+"Um!" mused the colonel. "Well, Mazi, you're more stubborn than I
+thought. But it doesn't make any difference to me, you know. I'm paid
+for all this. Now let's see--what's next? Oh, yes. Then the records
+show that Henri, or Jean, whichever you choose to call him, came to this
+country. He fell in love with a pretty girl--she wasn't as pretty as
+you, Mazi, I'll say that--but he fell in love with her and married
+her--or pretended to. However, it was a fake ceremony, and she couldn't
+prove anything when he had spent all her money and tossed her aside. So
+there wasn't anything we could do to him that time."
+
+"More lies," said Mazi, calmly--or at least with the appearance of
+calmness.
+
+"The records show," went on the inexorable voice of Colonel Ashley,
+"that next Jean Carnot, as he called himself then, became infatuated
+with a pretty girl--and this time I'll say she was just about as pretty
+as you, Mazi--and her name was Annie Tighe. She was an Irish girl, and
+she insisted on being married by a priest, so there wasn't any faking
+there. Jean was properly married at least."
+
+"What do I care for all these lies?" sneered the girl, impatiently
+tapping her foot on the floor. "Why do you bore me? I am not interested!
+I should like to see Jean. Ha! Where have you put him?"
+
+"You'll see him soon enough, Mazi. I've got just a few more records
+to show you, and then I'm done. Now we come to the time when, after he
+found he couldn't get out of a legal marriage, Jean put his foot in it,
+so to speak. He was tied right, this time, so he took refuge in a lie
+when he wanted to shake off the bonds of matrimony, as my friend Jack
+Young would say. He told his wife--and she was his wife, and is yet--he
+told her the ceremony was a fake, that the priest was a false one, in
+his pay."
+
+"All lies! What do I care?" sneered Mazi, again shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"Well, now let's get along. After our friend Jean found he was tired of
+his wife he shamed her into leaving him and she went--well, that isn't
+pleasant to dwell on, either. Except that he's the villain responsible
+for her going to the dogs. He sent her there just as he would have sent
+you, Mazi, except for what has happened."
+
+"You mean he is not my husband?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"I do not believe you. It is all lies. These women are but jealous.
+Proceed."
+
+"That's about all there is to it, Mazi, except to show you the letter
+from your own priest, who confirms the fact that the priest who married
+Jean Carnot and Annie Tighe was legally authorized to do so, both by the
+laws of his own church and those of New York State, where the ceremony
+took place. You will believe Father Capoti, won't you?" and he laid
+beside the girl a letter which she read eagerly.
+
+This time she said nothing about lies, but her face turned deadly pale.
+
+"And this is the last exhibit," went on the colonel, as he laid a
+photograph before Mazi. It showed a man and a girl, evidently in their
+wedding finery, and the face of the man was that of Jean Forette, and
+that of the girl was of the woman who had groveled on the sand at the
+feet of the chauffeur the night before,--Morocco Kate.
+
+"Look on the back," suggested the detective, and when Mazi turned the
+photograph over she read:
+
+"The happiest day of my life--Jean Carnot."
+
+"If you happen to have any love letters from him--and I guess you have,"
+went on the colonel, "you might compare the writing and--"
+
+"I have no need, monsieur," was the low answer. "I--God help me.--I
+believe now! Oh, the liar! If I could see him now--"
+
+"I rather thought you'd want to," murmured the colonel. "Bring him in!"
+he called.
+
+The door opened, and, handcuffed to a stalwart officer, in slunk Jean of
+the many names.
+
+Mazi sprang to her feet, her face livid. She would have leaped at the
+prisoner, but the colonel held her back. But he could not hold back the
+flood of voluble French that poured from her lips.
+
+"Liar! Dog!" she hissed at him. "And so you have deceived me as you
+deceived others! You lied--and I thought he lied!" and she motioned to
+the colonel. "Oh, what a silly fool I've been! But now my eyes are open!
+I see! I see!"
+
+With a quick gesture, before the colonel could stop her, she tore in
+half the picture that had swept away all her doubts.
+
+"Mustn't do that!" chided the colonel, as he picked up the pieces which
+she was about to grind under her feet. "I'll need that at the trial."
+
+"You--you beast!" whispered the girl, but the whisper seemed louder than
+a shout would have been. "You beast! No longer will I lie for you. Why
+you wanted me to, I do not know. Yes, I do! It was so that you might
+be with some one else when you should have been with me. Listen, all of
+you!" she cried, as she flung her arms wide. "No longer will I shield
+him. He told me to say that he was with me when that golf man--Monsieur
+Carwell died--before he died--but he was not. No more will I lie for
+you, Jean of the many names! You were not with me! I did not even see
+you that day. Bah! You were kissing some other fool maybe! Oh, my God!
+I--I--"
+
+And the colonel gently laid the trembling, shrieking girl down on a
+bench, while the eyes of the shrinking figure of Jean the chauffeur
+followed every movement.
+
+He raised his free hand, and seemed to be struggling to loosen his
+collar that appeared to choke him. For a moment the attention of Colonel
+Ashley was turned toward Mazi, who was sobbing frantically. Then, when
+he saw that she was becoming quieter, he turned to the prisoner.
+
+"You heard all that went on, I know," said the detective. "That's why I
+put you in the next room."
+
+"Yes, I heard," was the calm answer. "But what of it? You can prove
+nothing only that women are fools. I shall hire a good lawyer and--poof!
+What would you have--a man must live. Bigamy, it is not such a serious
+charge."
+
+"Oh, no, there are worse," said the colonel calmly. "You're going to
+hear one presently. She told me just what I wanted to know, as I thought
+she would if I could get her roused up enough against you. So, you
+weren't riding, as you said, with her the day Mr. Carwell came to his
+end. I never thought you were, Jean of the many names. And now, officer,
+if you'll take him back and lock him up, I guess this will be about all
+to-day."
+
+"But I want to get bail!" exclaimed the prisoner. "I have a right to be
+bailed. My lawyer says so."
+
+"There isn't any bail in your case," said the detective.
+
+"Pooh! Nonsense! Bigamy, it is not such a serious charge."
+
+"Oh, didn't I tell you? I meant to," said the colonel gently. "You're
+under another accusation now. Jean Forette, to call you by your latest
+alias, you're under arrest, charged with the murder, by poison, of
+Horace Carwell, and I think we'll come pretty near convicting you by the
+testimony of Mazi. Ah, would you--not quite!"
+
+He struck down the hand the prisoner had raised to his mouth, and there
+rolled over the floor a little capsule. The top came off and a white
+powder spilled out.
+
+"Don't step on it!" warned the colonel as several other officers came in
+to assist in handling the prisoner, who was struggling violently.
+"It's probably the same poison, mixed with French dope, that killed Mr.
+Carwell. Jean had it hidden in the collar band of his shirt ready for
+emergencies. But you shan't cheat the chair, Jean of the many names!"
+
+They led the Frenchman away, struggling and screaming that he was
+innocent, that it was all a mistake. By turns he prayed and blasphemed
+horribly.
+
+"That's the way they usually do when they can't get a shot of their
+dope," said the jail physician, after he had visited the prisoner and
+given him a big dose of bromide. "He'll be a wreck from now on. He's
+rotten with some French drug, the like of which I've never seen used
+before."
+
+The coroner's jury had been called together again. Once more the sordid
+evidence was gone over, but this time there was more of it, and it had
+to do with a story told weepingly on the stand by Mazi, and corroborated
+by Colonel Ashley.
+
+And a little later, when the jury filed in, it was to report:
+
+"We find that Horace Carwell came to his death through poison
+administered by Jean Carnot, alias Jean Forette, with intent to kill."
+
+And a little later, when the grand jury had indicted him, the man's
+nerve failed him completely, because his supply of drug was kept from
+him and he babbled the truth like a child, weeping.
+
+He had stolen two hundred dollars from the pocketbook of Mr. Carwell
+the day before the championship golf game, and, the crime having been
+detected by Viola's father, the chauffeur had been given twenty-four
+hours in which to return the money or be exposed. He was in financial
+straits, and, as developed later, had stolen elsewhere, so that he
+feared arrest and exposure and was at his wit's end. He had spent much
+of the money on Mazi, whom he induced to go through a secret marriage
+ceremony with him.
+
+Then Jean, like a cornered rat, and crazy from the drug he had filled
+himself with, conceived the idea of poisoning Mr. Carwell. That would
+prevent arrest and exposure, he reasoned.
+
+The chauffeur found his opportunity when he was ordered to stop the
+big red, white and blue car at a roadhouse just prior to the game. Mr.
+Carwell was thirsty, and in bad humor, and ordered the chauffeur to
+bring out some champagne. It was into this that Jean slipped the poison,
+mixed with some of his own drug which he knew would retard the action of
+the deadly stuff for some time. And it worked just as he had expected,
+dropping Mr. Carwell in his tracks about two hours later, as he made the
+stroke that won the game.
+
+"But how did a chauffeur know so much about poison and dope as to be
+able to mix a dose that would fool the chemists?" asked Jack Young of
+his chief, a little later.
+
+"Jean's father was a French chemist, and a clever one. It was there
+that Jean learned to mix the powder dope he took, and he learned much
+of other drugs. I suspect, though I can't prove it, that he poisoned his
+first wife. A devil all the way through," answered the colonel.
+
+"But what did Bartlett and Mr. Carwell quarrel about so seriously that
+Bartlett wouldn't tell?"
+
+"It was about Morocco Kate. Harry learned that she had sold Mr. Carwell
+a set of books, and, knowing her reputation, he feared she might have
+compromised Mr. Carwell because of his sporting instincts. So Harry
+begged Viola's father to come out plainly and repudiate the book
+contract. But Mr. Carwell was stiff about it, and told Harry to mind his
+own business. That was all. Naturally, after Harry found that Morocco
+Kate really was mixed up in the case--though innocently enough--he
+didn't want to tell what the quarrel was about for fear of bringing out
+a scandal. As a matter of fact there never was any shadow of one."
+
+"And the mysterious notes to you about Viola having a poison book?"
+
+"All sent by Jean, of course, to throw suspicion on her. I heard it
+rumored, in more than one quarter, that Viola strongly disapproved of
+her father's sporty life, and it was said she had stated that she would
+rather see him dead than disgraced. Which was natural enough. I've said
+that myself many a time about friends.
+
+"Jean found Miss Carwell's library card, and took out the poison book in
+her name, afterward anonymously sending me word about it. I admit that,
+for a moment, I was staggered, but it was only for a moment. Here is
+what I found in his room."
+
+Colonel Ashley held out a piece of paper. There was no writing on
+it, but it bore the indentations, identical with one of the penciled,
+printed notes.
+
+"He wrote it on a pad," said the colonel, "and tore off the top sheet.
+But he used a hard pencil, and the impression went through. Just one of
+the few mistakes he made."
+
+"Fine work on your part, Colonel."
+
+"As for Captain Poland, the money transactions did look a bit queer,
+but we've since found the receipt and it's all right. A new clerk in
+Carwell's office had mislaid it. It wasn't Blossom's fault, either. He's
+a weak chap, but not morally bad. The worst thing he did was to fall for
+Morocco Kate. But better men than he have done the same thing. However,
+they won't again."
+
+"Why, she hasn't--"
+
+"Oh, no; nothing as rash as that. She's going to take a new route,
+that's all. She's a natural born saleswoman, and I've gotten her a place
+with a big firm that owes me some favors."
+
+"And did Blossom come through 'clean' as he said he would?"
+
+"He did, and he didn't. It seems that a year or so ago he inherited
+eleven thousand dollars. He invested half of the money in copper and
+made quite a little on the deal. Then, a short while before Carwell
+died, he got Blossom to lend him some money, which he was to pay back
+inside of a month or two. When Carwell's death occurred, Blossom was
+in financial difficulties on account of the demands of Morocco Kate. He
+could not get hold of the money he had invested, nor could he get hold
+of the money he had loaned Carwell. In his quandary he took certain
+securities belonging to Carwell and hypothecated them, expecting, later
+on, to make good as soon as he got some of his own money back. Of course
+the whole transaction was a rather shady one, and yet I still believe
+the young fellow wanted to be honest."
+
+"How does he stand now?"
+
+"Oh, he has managed to get hold of some of his money, and with that got
+back the Carwell securities. And, of course, the Carwell estate will
+have to settle with him later on, and Viola and Miss Mary Carwell are
+going to keep him in his present position.
+
+"He and Minnie Webb are to be married very soon--which reminds me that I
+have an invitation for you."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"Yes. It's to the wedding of Viola and Harry Bartlett. The affair
+is going to be very quiet, so you can come without worrying about a
+dress-suit, which I know you hate as much as I do."
+
+"I should say so!"
+
+"And did Bartlett's uncle really mulct Mr. Carwell in that insurance
+deal?"
+
+"Well, that's according to how you look at the ins and outs of modern
+high finance. It was a case of skin or be skinned, and I guess Harry's
+uncle skinned first and beat Mr. Carwell to it. It was six of one and a
+half dozen of the other. The deal would have been legitimate either way
+it swung, but it made Mr. Carwell sore for a time, and that, more
+than anything else, made him quarrel with Harry when Morocco Kate was
+mentioned."
+
+The letters in the secret drawer, which had so worried Viola, proved to
+be very simple, after all. They referred to a certain local committee,
+organized for an international financial deal which Mr. Carwell was
+endeavoring to swing with Captain Poland. The latter thought, because of
+his intimate association with Viola's father, that the latter might use
+his influence in the captain's love affair. But that was not to be. So
+Viola's worry was for naught in this respect.
+
+And so the golf course mystery was cleared up, though even to the end,
+when he had paid the penalty for his crime, the chauffeur would not
+reveal the nature of the poison he had mixed with the dope which had
+made him a wreck.
+
+Beside the still water, that ran in a deep eddy where the stream curved
+under the trees, Colonel Ashley sat fishing. Beside him on the grass a
+little boy, with black, curling hair, and deep, brown eyes, sat clicking
+a spare reel. Off to one side, in the shade, a colored man snored.
+
+"Hey, Unk Bob!" lisped the little boy. "Don't Shag make an awful funny
+noise?"
+
+"He certainly does, Gerry! He certainly does!"
+
+"Just 'ike a saw bitin' wood."
+
+"That's it, Gerry! I'll have to speak to Shag about it. But now, Gerry,
+my boy, you must keep still while Unk Bob catches a big fish."
+
+"Ess, I keep still. But you tell me a 'tory after?"
+
+"Yes, I'll tell you a story."
+
+"Will you tell me how you was a fissin', an' a big white ball comed an',
+zipp! knocked ze fiss off your hook? Will you tell me dat fiss 'tory?"
+
+"Yes, Gerry, I'll tell you that if you'll be quiet now."
+
+And Shag's snores mingled with the gentle whisper of the water and the
+sighing of the wind in the willows.
+
+And then, when the creel had been emptied and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley
+sat on the porch with Gerry Ashley Bartlett snugly curled in his lap
+and told the story of the golf ball and the fish, while Shag cleaned the
+fish fresh from the brook, two figures stood in the door of the house.
+
+"Look, Harry!" softly said the woman's voice. "Isn't that a picture?"
+
+"It is, indeed, my dear. Gerry adores the colonel."
+
+"No wonder. I do myself. Oh, by the way, Harry, I had a letter from
+Captain Poland today."
+
+"Did you? Where is he now?" asked Harry Bartlett, as his eyes turned
+lovingly from the figure of his little son in the colonel's lap to that
+of his wife beside him.
+
+"In the Philippines. He says he thinks he'll settle there. He was so
+pleased that we named the Boy after him."
+
+"Was he?" and then, as his wife went over to steal up behind her little
+son and clasp her hands over his eyes, the man, standing alone on the
+porch, murmured:
+
+"Poor Gerry!" And it was of the lonely man in the Philippines he was
+speaking.
+
+In the silent shadows Colonel Robert Lee Ashley fished again. This time
+he was alone, save for the omnipresent Shag. And as the latter netted a
+fish, and slipped it into the grass-lined creel, he spoke and said:
+
+"Mr. Young, he done ast me to-day when we gwine back t' de city. He
+done say dere's a big case waitin' fo' you, Colonel, sah. When is we-all
+gwine back?"
+
+"Never, Shag!"
+
+"Nevah, Colonel, sah?"
+
+"No. I'm going to spend all the rest of my life fishing. I've resigned
+from the detective business! I'll never take another case Never!"
+
+And Shag chuckled silently as he closed the creel.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Golf Course Mystery, by Chester K. Steele
+
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