me in a
Welsh rabbit?"

"Thank you, no. I'm afraid my digestion isn't quite up to that, as
I've had to cut out my fishing of late. But what do you say to a
julep?"

"Delighted, I'm sure," and they sat down at one of the half-enclosed
tables in the grill and ordered food and drink. They had become
friends since the colonel's first visit to the store, and the
friendship had grown as they found they had congenial tastes.

The evening passed pleasantly for them. They talked of much, including
the murder, and the colonel was more than pleased to find that the
jeweler had no very strong suspicion against young Darcy.

"I've known him from a boy," said Mr. Kettridge, "and, though he has
his faults, a crime such as this would be almost impossible to him, no
matter what motive, such as the dispute over money or his sweetheart.
He may be guilty, but I doubt it."

"My idea, exactly," returned the colonel. "Now as to certain matters
in the store on the morning of the murder. The stopped clocks, for
instance. Have you any theory--"

Came, at that instant, fairly bursting into the quiet grill room, some
"jolly good fellows," to take them at their own valuation. There were
three of them, the center figure being that of Harry King, and he was
very much intoxicated.

"Hello, Harry! Where have you been?" some one called.

King regarded his questioner gravely, as though deeply pondering over
the matter. It was often characteristic of him that, though he became
very much intoxicated, yet, at times, under such conditions, Harry
King's language approached the cultured, rather than degenerated into
the common talk of the ordinary drunk. That is not always, but
sometimes. It happened to be so now.

"I beg your pardon?" he said, in the cultured tones he knew so well how
to use, yet of which he made so little use of late.

"I said, where have you been?" remarked the other. "We've missed you."

"I have been spending a week end in the country," King remarked, with
biting sarcasm. "Found I was getting a bit stale in my golf, don't you
know--" there was a momentary pause while he regained the use of his
treacherous tongue, then he went on--"I caught myself foozling a few
putts, and I concluded I needed to work back up to form."

There was a laugh at this, for scarcely one in the gilded grill but
knew where King had been, and whither he was going. But the laugh was
instantly hushed at the look that flashed from his eyes