“Maybe not, and yet—­”

But if the colonel had any thoughts regarding Aaron Grafton he kept them to himself as he made ready to go out.

“Know when you’ll be back?” asked Basset.

“No, I can’t say.  Make yourself at home here.  I’ll tell ’em at the desk.  Shag will be over presently.  One of you stay here so I can telephone in if I have to.  You’d better plan to stay all night if I don’t get back.”

“Want to say where you’re going?”

“I suppose I’d better.  I’m going to Pompey.”

“Out where you said Mrs. Larch is staying?”

“Yes, only she doesn’t call herself that now.”

“I understand.”

“She’s taken her maiden name again since the separation.  Yes, I’m going to Pompey, and it may be night when I get there.  I’ll have to do any shadowing among the shadows I guess, as I’ve often cast for trout.  But, dark or light, I think I’ll bring home the right fish this time.”

And so, as the early shadows of the late afternoon were slanting over Colchester the old detective boarded a train, keeping in view a well-dressed, freshly-shaven individual, who, for all his slickness and sleekness, seemed to have about him the air of a tiger.  His hands, in new gloves, slowly clasped and unclasped, as though he would have liked to twine the fingers about the soft throat of a victim.

“Yes,” murmured the colonel, as he sank into his seat, “I think I’ll bring home the big fish this time.”

CHAPTER XXI

SWIRLING WATERS

At the little station of Pompey the colonel saw his man leave the train.  For the wily fisherman to slip from the car on the other side of the track and get behind a tool shanty, was the work of but a moment, and as the train pulled out, and puffed on its way, the detective, peering around the corner of the shed, which housed a handcar and other tools of the section hands, had a glimpse of his “fish,” as he facetiously termed him, standing rather irresolutely on the station platform.

“Now for the next move,” murmured the colonel.

It was not long in being played.

The man went inside the station, but the detective did not come from his post of observation.  The depot was so small that any one leaving it, even on the side away from the tracks, would be seen as soon as he had passed beyond the shadows.  But the man evidently had no intention of going away.  He came out again on the front platform, accompanied by a boy—­one, seemingly, who ran errands and delivered telegrams when any came to disturb the peaceful solitude of Pompey.

“I must see that note!” murmured Colonel Ashley, as he saw one handed to the boy.  “If he goes in the direction I think he will, I’ll get it too!  I think I know the lady to whom it is addressed.”

The boy talked with the man a little, nodded his head as if understanding, and then started off up the tracks, toward a path that led across a field and toward a cluster of village houses.