“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.”