A DOG
With the help of the police, and when the stricken, though not
dangerously injured, girl had been taken away in the ambulance, the
crowd was dispersed. It was then Colonel Ashley had a chance to speak
to Mr. Kettridge.
"What's all this I hear?" asked the detective.
"I don't know," and the manager smiled wearily. "If you heard all of
the rumors I did they would include everything from an I.W.W. plot to a
combined attack by New York gunmen."
"But what was it?"
"Well, one of our clerks, Miss Brill, was waiting on a customer at one
of the silver showcases. They are arranged with electric lights inside
that may be switched on when needed.
"She turned on the current to illuminate the inside of the case, so
that her customer might make a selection to have spread out on top,
when, in some manner, Miss Brill received a severe electrical shock.
She was thrown backward to the floor, and her head struck a projecting
corner of one of the rear showcases. She was badly cut, but the
hospital doctor said there was no fracture."
"Did she get shocked from the wires that run into the interior of the
case?" asked the detective.
"No, and that's the queer part of it," said the manager. "She was
shocked while leaning against the silvered, metal edge of the glass
case, and, on examination, I find some hidden electrical wires
there--wires that must, in some way, have become crossed on the
lighting circuit. I didn't know the wires were there."
"I did," said the colonel, quietly.
"You did?"
"Yes, when I tested them with an instrument I secured from an
electrician here in town the wires were dead. There was not the
slightest current in them. Either they have been changed lately, or
some sudden jar or misplacement brought them in contact with a live
circuit."
"What were the wires for?" asked Mr. Kettridge.
"That's what I've been wanting to find out. Originally I think they
were for some system of burglar alarm installed by Mrs. Darcy. But now
those wires run to the work bench that was used by James Darcy."
"To his work bench?" The manager was obviously startled.
"Yes. But don't jump at conclusions. You know he was working on an
electric lathe he hoped to patent. Those wires may be merely part of
his equipment,"
"Yes, and they may--wait a minute!" suddenly exclaimed the manager. "I
wonder--"
From his private office, into which he had ushered the colonel, he
looked down the store. It was almost deserted now, save for a few
customers and the clerks.
"It's the same place!" murmured the manager,
"What is?" asked the detective.
"Miss Brill was shocked, and fell at the very spot where the dead body
of Mrs. Darcy was found!" said Mr. Kettridge in a low, intense voice.
"Except for the fact that she fell behind the showcase and Mrs. Darcy
in front of it, the place is the same!"
With a muttered exclamation the colonel got to his feet and also looked
out from the private office.
"You're right," he admitted. "I wonder if that is a coincidence
or--something else. I must go to see Darcy."
The prisoner was measurably startled when the detective told him the
latest development at the jewelry store.
"Those were never my wires in the showcase!" cried the young man. "I
knew some were there, for we did have an antiquated burglar alarm
system when I first came to work for my cousin. I had another one put
in, and I supposed they had ripped out the old wires. But the wires I
used for my lathe experiments had no connection with those, I'm sure.
What is your theory?"
"I have so many I don't know at which one to begin," admitted Colonel
Ashley. "But I was wondering if it was possible that the showcase
wires, which when I tested them were dead, could have, in some manner,
become charged, and have given Mrs. Darcy a shock that might have sent
her reeling to the floor, toppling the heavy statue over on her head,
and so killing her."
"By _accident_ do you mean?" asked Darcy, his face lighting up with
hope.
"Yes. This young lady received a severe blow on her head by her fall,
and your cousin--"
"You forget the stab wound, Colonel."
"No, I didn't exactly _forget_ it. I was wondering how we could
account for that if we accepted the shock theory. I guess we can't.
I'm still up against it. I've struck a snag--maybe a stone wall,
Darcy!"
"Do you--do you think you can get over it, Colonel?"
"By gad, sir! I will! That's all there is to it! _I will_!"
The silence of the colonel's room was broken by a peculiar scratching
at the door, interrupting his perusal of this passage:
"I told you angling is an art, either by practice or long observation
or both. But take this for a rule--"
"Come in!" invited the colonel, thinking it might be Shag, who
sometimes, for the lesser disturbance of his master's thoughts or
reading, thus announced himself.
But there entered no black and smiling Shag, nor one of the hotel
employees, but a little dog which wagged its tail both in greeting to
the colonel, seated before a gas log in his room, and also as a sort of
applause for the dog itself, because it had succeeded in pushing open
the door which was left ajar, but which, nevertheless, was rather stiff
on the hinges. And Chet, the dog in question, was rather proud of his
achievement. Thus his wagged tail had a double meaning, so to speak.
"Ah, Chet, you've come in for another talk, have you?" asked the
colonel as he leaned over to pat the dog's head.
More wagging of the tail to indicate pleasure, satisfaction, and
whatever else dogs thus express.
"Glad to see you," went on the colonel, as though talking to a human,
and, with more gyrations of the tail, which constituted Chet's side of
the talk with the colonel, the little creature sought a warm spot near
the gas log, stretched out and sighed long in contentment.
Chet was the pet of a man--a permanent resident of the hotel--who had
the suite next Colonel Ashley's, and, early in his stay at the
hostelry, the detective had made friends with the little animal, which,
when Mr. Bland, its own master, was out, often came in to visit the
fisherman, just as he had done now.
The colonel was thoroughly enjoying himself, for he had put aside, in
the perusal of Walton, all thoughts of the murder and its many
complications, when there came another interruption. This time it was
a ring of his room telephone.
"There's a gentleman downstairs asking for you," came the word in
response to his answer to the summons.
"Who is it?
"Says I'm to tell you he's Mr. Young."
"Oh, yes, Jack Young--send him up." The colonel closed the book with a
sigh of regret.
"No use trying to read Izaak now," he murmured. "It would be a
sacrilege. I'll have to wait a bit. Wonder what Jack wants. Ah, come
in!" he called, as a discreet knock sounded on the half-opened door.
"Trouble?"
"Not yet, Colonel, though there may be. Do you want me to follow King
out of town?"
"Of course. Wherever he goes. Stick to him like a leech," and the
detective indicated a chair to his visitor. Jack Young was one of the
Ashley Agency's most trusted lieutenants.
"I sent for you to have you shadow King," said the detective in a low
voice, seeing to it that the door was closed, "because I think we can
get something out of him."
"Not a confession, surely!" exclaimed Young.
"Well, if he gets drunk enough, yes. But not the kind of confession
that would be any use to us. What a man babbles when the wine is in
and the wit is out, wouldn't be much use in a court of law. But if you
can get him to tell anything about where he got that queer coin--the
one that used to be in Mrs. Darcy's collection--so much to the good.
But be foxy about it, Jack."
"I will! What I came to see about is whether you want me to follow him
out of town. He's been cutting a pretty wide swath since he got out on
bail, and he's been having some pretty sporty times."
"And you've been with him; is that it?"
"To the best of my ability, yes," admitted Jack, as he patted Chet,
when the dog, that evidently had met him before, slid over to have his
ears pulled.
"I have great faith in your ability, Jack. The point is to stick to
King. You managed to make friends with him?"
"That wasn't hard. But I'll need a little money if I'm to keep up his
pace. That's why I came to you."
"Perfectly right, Jack. Mason so thoroughly believes in the innocence
of Darcy, and he sticks by his daughter's engagement so well, that he'd
supply twice as much cash as was necessary to sift this to the bottom.
So here's some to enable you to keep up to King's pace."
"Of course it's none of my business, Colonel, but I'd like to know a
little bit about how the wind blows. Do you really suspect him of the
murder?"
"Jack, I don't know!" was the frank answer, as Chet went back to his
place by the gas log. "His having that odd coin was what put me on his
trail again, and I sent for you to shadow him, as I had too many other
irons in the fire. And you've done well. I guess there isn't much
that Harry has done since that night about a week ago, when I saw him
in the Homestead, that you don't know about."
"I guess not, Colonel."
"But, with it all, I'm not much nearer than I was at first."
"How about Spotty?"
"He won't say a word."
"You tried the third degree on him, of course?"
"I--er--I did and I didn't," the colonel answered, lamely. "You see,
you can't go too far with a man when he has saved your life."
"But he may know all about it."
"Possibly."
"How about young Darcy?"
The colonel did not answer at once. It was not until he had gone to a
closet and taken from it a package which he placed on a tabarette, on
which, near him, rested a box of cigars, that he spoke. Then he said:
"If I could find out why Singa Phut used this watch I'd be in a better
position to answer," and from the package the detective took the
timepiece which he had kept after Donovan had given it to him to
examine.
"You mean you're not sure about Darcy?"
"Well, I thought I was. At first I had my doubts. Then, when I had
looked over the ground and talked with Miss Mason and him, I was
willing to take up his case just because I believed he had nothing to
do with the murder."
The colonel, who had taken the watch from some tissue paper in which it
was wrapped, laid it down on the low stool, and turned his attention to
his visitor. Chet with a whine and stretch, indicating that he was
warmed and rested, and would not object to a little play, walked slowly
over toward the colonel.
"But," went on the detective, "since the finding of the electric wires
running to Darcy's desk--Jack, I tell you what it is. You helped me
out wonderfully on that robbery of the Chatham bank, when the cashier
ran some wires to the time lock and had it open five hours ahead of
time, I wish you'd come and have a look at those wires with me. Maybe
you could give me a hint that would clear up some of the doubt I have
regarding Darcy."
"All right, Colonel, I'll come. But I think I'd better follow King
now. He's got a date with Larch, the hotel keeper, and there may be
something in it."
"Oh, go by all means! The wires will keep. Here, I'll give you an
idea about how they run," and the colonel drew a sort of diagram of the
jewelry store, indicating the showcase where the hidden wires had been
found, explaining to his man the effect on the young woman clerk who
had been shocked.
Jack Young studied the diagram carefully and shook his head. The
colonel, meanwhile, sat back and waited. Chet was worrying the tissue
paper in which the Indian's watch was wrapped.
"Well, Colonel, I'll tell you what it is," said Jack, after a series of
questions, "I'd have to see the place to get at any right idea of it.
Not to cast any aspersions on your ability as an artist, I can't just
make out how the wires run, from this sketch," and he smiled, after
having studied the drawings for perhaps ten minutes.
"Don't blame you a bit!" laughed the colonel. "I never was much on
pencil work. But now you follow Harry King. If you need more money,
come to me," he added as he handed over a roll of bills. "And then
we'll have to go at those wires. I'm not so sure--"
The colonel's remarks were interrupted by peculiar actions on the part
of Chet. The little animal appeared to have gotten something into his
mouth which bothered him. He was whining and pawing at his jaws.
"Look at the dog, Colonel!" exclaimed Jack. "Look!"
"Gad! he's got hold of the Indian's watch!" cried the detective. "He's
been worrying it as he would a bone, and he's got it in his mouth and
can't get it out! Easy there! don't touch it!" came the sharp command,
as Jack Young took a step forward, evidently with the intention of
helping the distressed animal.
"What's the matter, Colonel?" asked Jack. "You don't want to see the
dog suffer, do you?"
"No, but--there, he's got it out himself!"
With an effort the dog had pawed from his mouth the watch, which, being
rather large and of peculiar shape, had for some time, been stuck in
his jaws. It rolled out on the floor, and the colonel stooped to pick
it up. But Jack noticed that his chief used a wad of the tissue paper
with which to handle the timepiece, which was no longer ticking.
"What's the matter--'fraid of soiling your hands?" asked Jack with a
laugh.
"Well, yes, in a way--"
"Look at the dog's mouth! It's bleeding!" cried Jack, pointing.
"I was afraid it would be," said the colonel, quietly. "Don't go near
him, Jack, for, unless I'm much mistaken--"
The two men gazed at the dog. The little animal suddenly looked up at
them in a peculiar manner. It whined and its body was shaken as with a
cold shiver. A little blood was running down the lips which were now
foam-flecked.
"The dog's going mad!" cried Jack. "Look out, Colonel, or--"
"You needn't be afraid," was the calm answer, as the other turned
toward the door. "He'll never hurt any one. Ah, I thought so!"
And, as the colonel spoke, Chet gave a shudder, fell over on his side
and, with a long sigh, lay very still.