nces. You may know a bit more about this
murder than you're telling me, even considering the latest from my
friend Spotty. Yes, you may be playing a double game, Mr. Aaron
Grafton."

CHAPTER IX

INDICTED

"Well, Spotty, I've got to hand it to you! Certainly you did put one
over on me!"

"Not intentional, Colonel. So help me--not intentional!"

"Well, maybe not, but I've got to hand it to you. If I didn't know
that slip of mine in front of the truck was pure accident, I'd say you
staged it just to make a good get-away."

"I couldn't do that, Colonel."

"I don't know, Spotty. You're a clever kid."

"But I couldn't do that. I was on the level in saving you. You've got
to give me credit for that," pleaded the gunman.

"I know you were, Spotty. And that's why I gave you a chance to get
away. But I never thought it was for a job like this--murder."

"And it wasn't, Colonel--it wasn't! So help me, I never laid eyes on
the old lady--dead or alive! Murder? I should say not!"

"Then how did you get that diamond cross? Answer me!"

Colonel Ashley, with a dramatic gesture, pointed to the glittering
ornament that lay on the table between him and the New York crook. The
stones glittered in the electric lights of police headquarters, for it
was there, in the distant city, that this talk took place.

Confirming over the long distance telephone the news given in his
agent's telegram, Colonel Ashley, without having revealed to Grafton
what new development had occurred, had made a quick trip to Lango,
where Spotty, in response to a quiet but general alarm sent out, had
been arrested.

A diamond cross had been found in his possession, and was bent and
flattened--crushed by some heavy foot--though all the stones were
intact.

Spotty admitted that the ornament might be the very one wanted, but he
absolutely refused to tell how he had come by it. He was most
emphatic, however, in denying that he had taken it from Mrs. Darcy, or
that he had even seen her or been to her store.

"I'm a bad man, Colonel, you know that, and maybe if I was to go to the
chair--or the rope, according, to where I was caught--I wouldn't be
getting any more than was comin' to me. But, so help me, I never
croaked that old lady!"

"Then how did you get that cross?"

"I won't tell you!"

"I'll make you, Spotty!" and there was a dangerous glint in the eyes of
the colonel.

"You can't!" defied the crook. "There ain't a man