“It does.”

“And how does he bear up under it?”

“Very well.  His chief anxiety is regarding you.  I realize this is a test of friendship, Miss Mason.  A test of both the loyalty of yourself and your father, and—­”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about dad!  He’ll stick by Jimmie through thick and thin, for he says he knows he’s innocent,”

“And yourself?  How does your loyalty meet the test?”

Amy Mason drew herself up, a splendid figure of beautiful womanhood.  She flashed a look at the detective that made him stand to his full military height and bearing, and then she said: 

“Do you think I’m going to let dad beat me?  Oh, no, Colonel Ashley!”

So Amy Mason met the test.

CHAPTER XIX

WORD FROM SPOTTY

“Well,” remarked Jack Young, as he critically observed the smoke from his cigar curling upward toward the ceiling in the colonel’s hotel room, “we have our work cut out for us all right.”

“I should say so!” agreed Mr. Kettridge, who sat before a little table, on top of which were strewed parts of a watch.  Mr. Kettridge had a jeweler’s magnifying glass stuck in one eye, and it gave him a most grotesque appearance as he glanced from the wheels, springs and levers, spread out in front of him, over to Colonel Ashley.

“There is only one thing to do, gentlemen,” observed the detective, who had one finger keeping a certain place in a certain green book.  “And that is—­”

“Make an arrest at once!” exclaimed Young.  “He may get away from us if we don’t, drunk as he is.”

“No, there’s time enough for that,” objected the colonel.  “What I was going to say is that we must take one thing at a time.  Otherwise we’ll get into a tangle.”

“I think we’re in one now,” said Young.  “For the life of me I can’t figure out who did the killing, and the only reason I said we ought to arrest Harry King is because there’s some game on between him and Larch, and those diamonds King is trying to dispose of may be part of some of those Mrs. Darcy had, and about which she never said anything.  If King took them, he may have killed the old lady and he ought to be locked up and take his chance with Darcy.”

“If he did it—­yes,” admitted the colonel.  “But I haven’t said he did.  I haven’t said Larch did it.  I just don’t know.  Certainly King and Larch have been pretty thick of late, and Larch’s bailing Harry out showed there was more than mere friendliness in it.  And, as you say, Jack, if King or Larch sold some loose diamonds, it looks as though there was something wrong.  But we don’t want to make a mistake.”

“If we don’t do something pretty soon they’ll so fasten this crime on Jimmie Darcy that you’ll never be able to get him out of the tangle,” said Mr. Kettridge, as he poked a pair of pliers among the parts of the watch.  “Carroll and Thong, now that they know about the electrical wires, think they have all the evidence they need, and the prosecutor agrees with them, I guess.”