CHAPTER

     I. The Ticking Watch
    II.  King’s Dagger
   III.  The Fisherman
    IV.  Spotty
     V. Amy’s Appeal
    VI.  Grafton’s Search
   VII.  The Colonel is Surprised
  VIII.  The Diamond Cross
    IX.  Indicted
     X. The Death Watch
    XI.  No Alimony
   XII.  The Odd Coin
  XIII.  Singa Phut
   XIV.  The Hidden Wires
    XV.  A Dog
   XVI.  The Colonel Wonders
  XVII.  “A Jolly Good Fellow”
 XVIII.  Amy’s Test
   XIX.  Word From Spotty
    XX.  In The Shadows
   XXI.  Swirling Waters
  XXII.  His Last Case

CHAPTER I

THE TICKING WATCH

There was only one sound which broke the intense stillness of the jewelry shop on that fateful April morning.  That sound was the ticking of the watch in the hand of the dead woman.

Outside, the rain was falling.  Not a heavy downpour which splashed cheerfully on umbrellas and formed swollen streams in the gutters, whence they rushed toward the sewer basins, carrying with them an accumulation of sticks, leaves and dirt.  Not a windy, gusty rain, that made a man glad to get indoors near a genial fire, with his pipe and a book.

It was a drizzle; a steady, persistent drizzle, which a half-hearted wind blew this way and that, as though neither element cared much for the task in hand—­that of thoroughly soaking the particular part of the universe in the neighborhood of Colchester and taking its own time in which to do it.

Early in the unequal contest the sun had given up its effort to pierce through the leaden clouds, and had taken its beams to other places—­to busy cities, to smiling country villages and farms.  Above, around, below, on all sides, soaking through and through, drizzling it, soaking it, sprinkling it, half-hiding it in fog and mist, the rain enveloped Colchester—­a sodden, damp garment.

Early paper boys slunk along the slippery streets, trying to protect their limp wares from becoming mere blotters.  The gongs of the few trolley cars that were sent out to take the early toilers to their tasks rang as though covered with a blanket of fog.  The thud of the feet of the milkmen’s horses was muffled, and the rattle of bottles seemed to come from afar off, as though over some misty lake.

James Darcy, shivering as he arose, silently protesting, from his warm bed, pulled on his garments audibly grumbling, the grumble becoming a voiced protest as he shuffled in his slippers along the corridor above the jewelry shop and went down the private stairs into the main sales-room.

The electric light in front of the massive safe seemed to lear at him with a bleared eye like that of a toper, who, having spent the night in convivial company, found himself, most unaccountably, on his own doorstep in the gray dawn.