t--or are you still so drunk you
can't remember? It was Mrs. Darcy--the lady who owned this jewelry
store, you know. Now pull yourself together. You've got to come with
us and explain a little about this knife of yours. She was stabbed
with that."

"With my knife--that paper cutter dagger I was giving as a present
to--to my wife?" King's voice was sobering more now.

"That's the idea, Harry."

"But I brought that knife to Darcy to have him engrave it."

"That may be. It was used to cut the old lady, though, and laid back
on Darcy's work-table. Come now--brace up, and tell us all you know
about it."

"Oh, I--I can brace up all right. So the old lady's dead, is she?
Killed--stabbed! Too bad! Many's the trinket I've bought of her
for--for--well, some of the girls, you know," and he winked
suggestively at the detectives. "Old lady Darcy's dead! Say, look
here, boys!" he exclaimed with a sudden change of manner, as something
seemed to penetrate to his sodden brain, "you--you don't for a minute
think I did this--do you?" and he sat up straight for the first time.

"Never mind what we think," said Carroll. "We're not paid for telling
it--like the reporters," and he grinned at Daley of the Times. "We
want to get at the facts. Are you in condition to talk?"

"Not here!" interrupted Thong quickly, with a glance at the newspaper
men, which they were quick to interpret. "Oh, it's all right, boys,"
went on the detective. "We'll let you in for anything that's going as
soon as we can--you know that."

"Sure," agreed Daley. "But don't keep us waiting all day. The presses
are like animals--they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't
wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've
got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in
huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon as you can."

They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which
King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.

Colonel Ashley--or Colonel Brentnall as he had registered at the
hotel--having, by means of a more or less adroit bit of camouflage,
obtained possession of the newspaper containing an account of the
murder of Mrs. Darcy, and of the holding of her cousin and Harry King
on suspicion, tossed the journal on the bed beside his well-worn copy
of the "Complete Angler." Then, to demonstrate his complete mastery
over himself, he picked up the book, never so much