The Diamond Cross Mystery Part 45

"Where did Harry King get that odd coin which made it look bad in his case for a while?" asked Mr. Mason.

"Larch gave it to him, unsuspectingly enough, it seems. When Larch went into Mrs. Darcy's store she had the tray of rare coins out of the safe. She may have been going to put them away with the Indian watch and the diamond cross, but she had no chance. And after Larch had killed her, seeing the money, he picked up a handful, as he needed some change. In a way the discovery of the odd coin helped in solving the mystery, for I kept my helper, Jack Young, at the Homestead after that, and it was hearing King and Larch talking about the diamond cross that gave me just the clew I wanted.

"Larch had taken out the valuable diamonds from the ornament, and had disposed of them, in spite of what he said to his wife just before his death, to get some much-needed money. He really did send her the crushed gold setting, promising, in the letter he dispatched to her by the boy I intercepted, to restore the diamonds to her if she would meet him.

"This she consented to do. As it happened, Aaron Grafton was calling on her at the time, trying to find some means of helping her, for there is the old-time love between them. And it was at her suggestion that he followed her when I was shadowing Larch. Evidently Grafton didn't, at that time, know it was only the crushed and diamondless cross that Larch had sent back. And after he died and confessed, we found a paper of imitation diamonds in his pocket that Larch had ready to use in deceiving his wife if she had agreed to sign the papers he wanted her to, so he could bolster up his failing business."

"Well, he's out of the way now, and I hear the hotel has been sold."

"Yes, Mr. Mason. And it will be, so I hear, once more the oldtime and respectable resort it once was. As for Miss Ratchford, she has gone to friends in California, and there, I understand, Mr. Grafton will shortly follow. They are to be married in about a year. Mr. Grafton is going to sell out his business. He told me he would not press the charge against Spotty for stealing the imitation diamond cross. So Spotty will soon be at liberty again."

"I'm glad of that. He's a sport--in his own way."

"Yes," agreed the colonel,

"One point puzzles me," went on Mr. Mason, "and that is, why Cynthia--I call her that for I've known her for years--why she didn't make Larch support her after the separation. She could have had a regular divorce and big alimony--that is if he could have paid."

"Maybe that's it--he couldn't. Anyhow, she seems not to have wanted to accept any of his money after he had spoiled her life. It was a foolish marriage, though at the time it may have seemed advantageous to her--or her mother. After the murder, or let us call it killing, for Larch with his last breath protested he never meant it--after that, which Cynthia seems to have guessed--she was even more strong in her determination not to take any of his money. She was prepared, too, in case Jimmie had been found guilty, to make a statement implicating her husband, though, under the law she could not be compelled to testify against him in a murder trial."

"Well, I'm glad it's all over, Colonel," said Mr. Mason, with a sigh of relief. "There are two happy ones, if ever there were any," and he motioned to Amy and Darcy, walking slowly across the meadow in the golden glow of the setting sun.

"Yes, I'm glad I had a hand in helping them."

The young people, turning, saw the two men, and Amy waved her hand.

Slowly she and her lover approached.

"What luck, Colonel?" she asked gaily.

"The very best! You didn't exaggerate when you spoke of your trout stream."

"I'm glad you like it. Jimmie and I were just talking about you."

"I wondered why my ears burned," and the old detective laughed.

"Colonel Ashley," put in Darcy, "there's just one thing I can't seem to clear up in all this business."

"What's that?"

"Well, what made all the clocks stop at different times? I thought I knew something of the jewelry business, but this puzzles me."

"Just because it's so simple," laughed the detective. "Larch stopped those of the clocks that didn't run down and stop themselves. He figured out, crazily enough in his fear and drunken frenzy, that if no clocks or watches were going no one would know exactly what time the killing took place. So, after Mrs. Darcy was dead, he hurried about the store, with no one in the wet and deserted street to watch him, and, stopping the timepieces, moved the hands of many of them to suit his fancy. But he forgot the ticking watch."

"It was simple," murmured Darcy. "No wonder I didn't think of it.

Have you so simple a theory regarding the queer state I was in that night--I mean awakening and going to sleep again after feeling something brush my face?"

"Not unless Larch tried to chloroform you after he had killed Mrs.

Darcy, and was afraid you might come down and discover what had happened," answered the detective. "That will remain a mystery, but its solution is not important."

"Not as long as you have cleared Jimmie boy!" laughed Amy, and yet there was a look of sadness on her face, for it had been an ordeal for all of them.

"Oh, well, he'd have been cleared anyhow, if the worst had come to the worst," said the colonel. "However, now that it's all over, I can give proper attention to my fis.h.i.+ng."

"And I," murmured James Darcy, "can--"

But a soft hand over his lips prevented further utterance.

Lightly as a feather the colonel flicked a fly over the quiet pool where the waters swirled in a lazy eddy. There was a splash in the sun, a shrill song of the reel, and a fish leaped high in the air, trying to shake the barb from its mouth.

"No, you don't!" laughed the old detective. "I've hooked you this time!"

"As you hooked Langford Larch," murmured Jack Young, who sat on the bank in the shade, while the colonel fished and s.h.a.g was setting out lunch under the trees.

"This _is_ my last case!" exclaimed the detective as he slipped his prize into the gra.s.s-lined creel. "Positively my _last_! I never would have gone on with this, even after I started, except for the pleading of Miss Mason. But I'm through! No more detective cases for me! I've retired!"

Jack looked at the trim and upright figure and keen, handsome face, neither of which showed the old colonel's age. Then the younger detective glanced at s.h.a.g, winked an eye, and murmured:

"Through until the next time; eh s.h.a.g?"

"Yo' done said it!" exclaimed the colored man with a grin. "Now, sah, Colonel, lunch am served!"