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Diamond Cross Mystery

<h2 id="id00572" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER V</h2> <h5 id="id00573">AMY'S APPEAL</h5> Tinkling glasses formed a friendly rampart between Colonel Ashley and Spotty Morgan. Spotty looked narrowly and shrewdly at the detective. "I didn't expect to see you here," remarked the gunman, speaking out of the side of his mouth, with scarcely a motion of his lips—a habit acquired through long practice in preventing prison keepers from finding out that he was disobeying the rules regarding silence. "Not for a minute did I expect to run across you here, Colonel As—" "Not that name, Spotty, if you please," and the fisherman-detective smiled in easy fashion. "You know my little habits in that regard. I'm known here as Brentnall, and, if it's all the same to you, just use that. As for you, if Spotty—" "Oh, that suits me as well as any other. I can change whenever I like." Spotty raised a glass to his lips, and, with a murmured "here's how," let the contents slide down his always-parched throat. "That's so, Spotty. Well, I didn't expect to see you here, I give you my word. When did you leave New York?" "Well, I come away—" "Hold on!" interrupted the colonel. "Don't answer. I shouldn't have asked. I forgot you saved my life just now. Gad! it isn't the first time I've nearly passed over, but—not in that way!" and he reached for his glass to conceal the shudder that passed over him as he thought of the rumbling wheels of the thundering truck. "Well, Colonel, I—" "Never mind, Spotty. Perhaps the less you talk the better off you'll be. Does anybody in town know you're here?" "Well, my picture—" "Yes, it is probably down at headquarters. But they're too busy to look for it now. But they may—later. So far you haven't been recognized then?" "Only by you, and it'd take a pretty clever guy—" "No compliments, Spotty. We've gotten over that. You disguised yourself very well, but the freckles show through." "Yes, damn 'em!" heartily exploded the gunman. "I can't cover 'em up. I've tried everything, but I guess I'll have to go togged up like a colored man to fool the other bulls. As for you, Colonel—" "There you go again! Cut it out! This is business." "Yes, good business for you, but bad for me. I didn't think you'd get after me so soon, Colonel!" "I'm not after you, Spotty." The detective spoke quietly, but the effect on the man sitting across the table from him, in one of the less conspicuous cafes in Colchester, had the effect of a shout. "Not after me? You ain't?" and Spotty drew away from the array of glasses and bottles so suddenly that he overturned a tumbler with its tinkling chunk of ice. "Not after me, Colonel?" "No, I came here for a quiet bit of fishing, and I just stumbled on this case against my will. I'm not even working on it, and I'm not going to. Nobody knows I'm in town except my man Shag—and you. I know I can depend on Shag, and as for you—" "I'm with you till the cows come to roost, Colonel. I'm strong fer you! I kin forget I ever saw you." "That's good. I thought you'd be that way. So, as no one knows I'm in town (the colonel knew nothing of what Shag had said to the newsboy), I can keep under cover and have my fishing as I like it—quiet. I don't intend any one shall know I'm here, either. "Now, Spotty, I'm a plain-spoken man when there's occasion for it, and this is one of those times, I guess. You saved my life just now, I know that. Of course I realize I might just have been badly hurt, and perhaps have lingered on in a hospital for some years—but that would be worse than death. I consider that you saved my life. I couldn't have moved out of the way of that truck any more than I could have flown. I realize it more and more. You did me the biggest service one man can do another, and I'm not going to forget it, Spotty." "No, I guess remembering is your long suit, Colonel." "Well, that's all in a day's work. I didn't forget you, Spotty. Now, as I said, you saved my life. I believe in turning the tables, and though I can't do for you what you did for me, maybe I can help in a way." "You kin gamble on that, Colonel!" "Listen to me, Spotty," and the detective leaned forward and spoke in a low, tense voice. "Just now, as I say, I'm not in this case. Not being a public official, I'm not bound to use what knowledge or suspicions I have regarding this matter, and I'm not particularly interested—as yet. So I'm going to give you a chance, just as you gave me mine now. It isn't exactly the same, for maybe you wouldn't lose your life. You've been devilishly lucky, and gotten through more narrow places than I'd ever give you credit for. "So it may seem that I'm not quite squaring the account, but it's all I can do—now. I'm going to give you your chance. I'm not going to ask you any questions. You know what you know and I know what I know. Now, Spotty, streak it out of town as fast as a train can take you, and—don't come back!" Spotty Morgan made little wet rings on the table with his empty glass. A waiter, hovering near by, caught the glint of his eye and brought the liquor. Then Spotty, after a libation, spoke. "Colonel," he said slowly, "most of what you has been spielin' is like the lawyer guys git off in court. I don't quite tumble, but I take it you mean you're goin' t' let me go." "That's it, Spotty! I'm going to let you go this time!" "No double crossin'?" "You know me better than that! I'll give you twenty-four hours to get out of town. After that I may happen to know more than I know now, and it would be my duty—whether I'm officially on the case or not—to arrest you. "But now you're free. It's your life and liberty for mine—maybe not quite an even exchange, since you'd have more than even chances if it came to a trial, I suppose. But it's the best I can do. I'm giving you this chance. I'd be a dirty dog if I didn't. But remember this, Spotty! I give you only one chance, just as you gave me—just as you took one and saved me. If I see you again, and this thing hangs over you, I may have to pull you up." "All right, Colonel. That's a square deal. But don't worry. You won't see me if I see you first. I didn't dream you'd be after me so soon for the job I only done last night. I'd oughter cleared out, but I was waitin' for a pal, an—Oh, well, it was just like you to come around early." "Man, don't you understand? I'm not after you! I didn't for an instant think you had a hand in it until just now. And I'm not admitting, even yet, that you did have. I haven't done a tap of work on the case, and I'm not going to. My advise to you is to get out of town before I may get into this thing against my will. Skip, Spotty! It's the only way I can pay my debt to you!" The colonel made as though to hold out his hand to the freckle-faced man opposite him, and then changed the motion of his arm and picked up his glass. "Skip, Spotty!" he murmured again. "All right, Colonel, I will! I know when the goin's good. So long. And—thanks!" Spotty, still talking through the corner of his mouth, gave a quick glance around the room and slid out of a side door like an eel, disappearing into the rain and mist. For some little time the colonel sat before the glasses, in which the cracked ice was rapidly melting. He, too, made little rings of water on the table. "I wonder—" he mused, "I wonder if I did right." His hand sought his pocket, and came out empty. "I guess I must have left it on the bed," he murmured. "But I can remember it." Then, as though reading from the little green book, he recited: "But if the old salmon gets to the sea . . . and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible. . ." "Spotty is a veritable salmon," mused the colonel, "even if he is speckled like a trout. I wonder, if he gets into the sea of New York, if I'll ever be able to land him? "Well, he gave me my life, and I just had to give him a chance for his. It was all I could do. Now to fish and forget everything!" It was a fair morning in April, with the sun just right, with the "wind in the west when the fish bite best," and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley, with the faithful Shag to carry his rods, creel and a lunch basket, sallied forth from his hotel for a day beside a no-very-distant stream, the virtues of which he had heard were most alluring as regarded trout. "Shag!" exclaimed the colonel, when they were tramping through a field near the river, having reached that vantage point by a most prosaic trolley car, "this is a beautiful day!" "It suah am, sah!" "And I'm going to catch some fine fish!" "I suah does hope so, Colonel!" "All right then! Now don't say another word until I speak to you. We'll be there pretty soon, and if there's one thing more than another that I hate, it's to have some one talking when I'm fishing." "Yes, sah, Colonel!" "Um! Well, see that you mind!" Selecting with care a fly from his numerous collection, and hoping the appetites of the fish would incline them to consider it favorably that morning, Colonel Ashley proceeded to make his casts, standing not far from a bent, gnarled and twisted elm tree, that overhung the bank of the stream where the current had cut into the soil, making a deep eddy, in which a lazy trout might choose to lie in wait for some choice morsel. Lightly as a falling feather, the fisherman let his fly come to rest on the sun-lit water, and, hardly had it sent the first, few faint ripples circling toward shore than there was a shrill song of the reel, and the rod became a bent bow. "By the bones of Sir Izaak!" cried the colonel, "I've hooked one, Shag!" "De Lord be praised! So yo' has, Colonel!" cried the negro. "Shut up!" ordered the colonel, who was beginning to play his fish. "Did I tell you to speak?" But Shag only laughed. He knew his master. After ten minutes of skilful work, during which time the trout nearly got away by shooting under a submerged log like an undersea boat diving beneath a battle cruiser, the colonel landed his fish, dropping it, panting, on the green grass. Then he looked up at Shag and remarked: "Didn't I tell you this was a perfectly beautiful day?" "Yo' suah did, Colonel," was the chuckling answer. "Yo' suah did!" And so much at peace with himself and all the world was Colonel Robert Lee Ashley just then that, when the crackling of the underbrush behind him, a moment later, gave notice that some one was approaching, there was even a smile on his face, though, usually, he could not bear to be intruded upon when fishing. Rather idly the colonel, having mercifully killed his fish by a blow on top of the head and slipped it into the grass-lined creel, looked up to see approaching a young lady and a tall and somewhat lanky boy. There was some thing vaguely familiar about the boy, though the fisherman did not tax his mind with remembering, then, where or when he had seen him before. "There he is," went the words of the boy, as he and the young woman came in sight of the colonel and Shag—but it was at the detective the lad pointed. "There he is!" The girl rushed impulsively forward, and, as she held out her hands in a voiceless appeal, there was worry and anguish depicted on her face. "Are you Colonel Brentnall?" she asked. The colonel was sufficiently familiar with his alias not to betray surprise when it was used. "I am," he said, and the peaceful, joyous look that had come into his eyes when he had landed his fish gave way to a hard and professional stare. "Oh, Colonel Brentnall! I've come to ask you to help me—help him! You will, won't you? Don't say you won't!" The girl's face, her blue eyes, the outstretched hands, the very poise of her lithe, young body voiced the appeal. "My dear young lady," began the colonel. But she interrupted with: "You're the detective, aren't you?" "Well—er—I—Say rather a detective, for there are many, and I am only one." "But you are the one from New York?" "I am though I don't know how you guessed it. I am not here professionally, though—in fact, I've practically retired—and I would much prefer—" "But you wouldn't refuse to help any one who needed it, would you? You wouldn't, I'm sure!" and the girl smiled through the tears in her blue eyes. "Oh, of course, as a matter of humanity, I would not refuse to help any one. But, professionally—well, really, I'm not here in my detective role. I really can not consider anything at this time. I don't want to seem harsh, or impolite, but I can't—" "Not even for double your usual fee? Listen! I am prepared to pay well for anything you can do for me—and him. My father is well off. I have money in my own right. I'd spend the last dollar of that. And dad said, when I told him where I was going—Dad said he'd do the same. We both believe Jimmie is innocent, and we want to prove it to everybody as soon as we can. That's why I came right on to see you. I couldn't wait! Oh, perhaps I did wrong, coming this way—I'm sorry if I've spoiled your fishing. But this is such—such a big thing—it means so much to him—to me! I—I—" She faltered, looking from Shag to the colonel and then to the sympathetic colored man again, for on his face was a look of pity. "How did you know I was here?" asked Colonel Ashley. "I went to your hotel. The clerk told me you had come to this stream. It's the only good one for trout around here besides the one on my father's farm." "Has your father a trout stream?" and the eyes of the colonel took on a kindly gleam. "He has, and it's well stocked. But please, won't you help me? You are the only one who can!" "I'm not sure of that, my dear young lady. And, really, I hardly understand what it's all about. You say the hotel clerk told you I was here. I can understand that, for I asked him the best way to reach this place. But how did you know I was a detective and stopping at the Adams House?" "He told me!" She pointed to the lanky youth. The colonel and Shag turned their eyes on him. Shag gave a start of surprise. The colonel began to leaf over the brain tablets of his memory system. He was beginning to place the lad. "Mah good land of massy!" ejaculated the negro. "It's de train newsboy whut yo' give a dollar to las' night, Colonel!" "The one who wanted to sell me a detective story?" "I'm him, Colonel Brentnall," answered the lad, a smile of triumph lighting up his face. "Your man told me who you was, and I heard you tell the taxi man where to drive you. I didn't think anything more about it until I read about the murder." "The murder!" exclaimed the colonel. Somehow that seemed to follow him as a Nemesis. "Yes—old Mrs. Darcy—the jewelry store lady," went on the boy. "This young lady," and he nodded toward his companion, "when I told her—" "Perhaps you had better let me explain, Tom," broke in the girl. "You see it's this way," she went on, addressing the colonel. "This boy is Tom Tracy. He sells papers on the express. He was once a jockey for my father, but he got hurt—stiff arm—and we had to get him something else to do. Dad always looks out for his boys, and so Tom went on the road." "I had to do something that had motion in it," Tom explained in an aside. "Yes, it was as near to horseback riding as he could come," said the girl, and she smiled, though the grief did not leave her blue eyes. "Well, as he has told you, he heard who you were, Colonel, from your man. Then when he read about the murder, and found how—how close home it came to me, he hurried out to our place and said I should engage you to help—" "He's the biggest detective in New York!" broke in Tom. "And that's what we need—a big New York detective!" "But what's it all about?" asked the colonel. "This is talking in riddles, though I begin to see a little—" "I beg your pardon," said the girl. "I should have told you who I am. My name is Amy Mason, and—" "Ah! You are engaged to be married to James Darcy, who is—er—detained as a—er—as a witness in the murder of his cousin?" "I am," and she seemed to glory in it. "As soon as I heard what had happened—to him—I wanted to help. They would not let me see Jimmie at police headquarters, but I sent word that dad and I were going to work for him every minute." "That must have cheered him." "I hope it did. But I want to do more than that. I want to help him! I want to get the best detective in the country to work on the case and prove that Jimmie didn't do this—this terrible thing of which he is accused." "He isn't exactly accused yet, as I understand it, Miss Mason." "Oh, well, it's just as bad. He is suspected. Why, Jimmie wouldn't have caused Mrs. Darcy a moment of pain, to say nothing of striking her—killing her! Oh, it's horrible—horrible!" and she covered her face with her hands. "I don't quite understand," began the colonel, "why you came to me, or how—" "I told her it was the only thing to do," broke in the newsboy. "Soon as I read about Carroll and Thong being on the case I knew it would take a fly one to put anything over on them. I tried on the train to sell you a detective book, not knowing who you was. You treated me white, and when I heard Miss Mason was in trouble—or her friend was—I said to myself right away that you was the one to fix things. I went out to her farm last night and she was all broke up." "It was a terrible shock to me when I heard Jimmie was under arrest," said the girl. "I didn't know what to do. Tom, here, proposed coming to see you, and when dad heard who you were, though we knew nothing of you, he said the same thing. He told me I could have all the money I wanted, and I have some of my own if his isn't enough." "It isn't always a question of money," began the colonel, gently. "I know!" broke in Amy. "But if I add the inducement of all the trout fishing—" "You are strongly tempting me, my dear young lady. But finish your story." "Well, there isn't much more to tell. Tom suggested that I come to see you and ask you to take Mr. Darcy's case—to prove that he had no hand in the murder—for I'm sure he did not. "Tom stayed at our house at Pompey all night. I wanted to come to your hotel at once, but the storm got too bad, so I waited until this morning, and then we motored in. We found you had gone fishing, and we followed you here. It was, perhaps, not just the thing to do. But I was so anxious! I want to tell Jimmie that something is being done for him. You will help us, won't you?" and again she held out her hands appealingly. "I don't know anything about police or detectives," she went on, "but I'm sure there must be some way of proving that my—that Jimmie had no hand in this. Some terrible thief—a burglar—must have killed Mrs. Darcy. Oh, Colonel Brentnall, you will help us—won't you?" She stood there, a beautiful and pathetic picture. The wind sighed through the trees and the murmur of the rippling water filled the air. "Please!" she whispered. Her hands seemed to waver. Her body swayed. "Shag, you black rascal!" cried the colonel. "The lady's going to faint! Catch her!" "Yes, sah, Colonel!" "No! Stand back! I'll attend to her myself! I've given up detective work, but—" And a moment later Amy Mason sank limply into the colonel's arms. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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