“Gad! what’s the use?”

A moment later, pulling his chair beneath an electric light, he began to read the account of the murder.

Pete Daley’s story of the finding of the dead body of the owner of the jewelry store was a graphic bit of work.  He described how Darcy, coming down in the gray dawn, had discovered the woman lying stark and cold, her head crushed and a stab wound in her side.

None of the details was lacking, though the gruesomeness was skilfully covered with some well-done descriptive writing.  The wounds seemed to have been inflicted at the same time—­one by the metal statue of a hunter found on the floor near the body, the other by a dagger-like paper cutter, admitted to be owned by Harry King, but which, with the blade blood-stained, was found on the jewelry bench of her cousin James Darcy.

The solution of the murder mystery depended on the answers to two questions, the reporter pointed out.  First, which wound killed Mrs. Darcy?  Second, who inflicted either or both wounds?

There were ramifications from these beginnings—­such as the motive for the crime; whether or not there had been a robbery; and, if so, by whom committed.  Then, to get to the more personal problem, did either King or Darcy commit the murder, and, if so, why?

“Um,” mused the colonel, reading the Times on the evening of the day the crime was discovered.  “It may turn out to be a mystery after all, in spite of the two men who are held.  Let’s see now,” and he went on with his perusal of the paper.

The autopsy had been performed, and Dr. Warren had said either wound might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it, though it really was a paper cutter of foreign make.

King and Darcy were not, as yet, formally, arrested, being “detained,” merely, at police headquarters as witnesses, though there was no question but that suspicion was cast on both.  Under the law a formal charge must be made against them within twenty-four hours, and unless this was done King’s lawyer threatened to bring habeas corpus proceedings for his client.

“Oh, there’ll be a charge made before then all right,” said Thong easily, when the legal shyster had, with threatening finger under the detective’s nose, made much of this point.  “I’m not saying it will be against your man, Mr. Fussell, but there’ll be a charge made all right.”

It is needless to say that both suspected men protested they knew nothing about the killing.  King was frank enough—­sober now—­to say he had been drunk all night—­spending the hours with boon companions in a notorious resort, a statement which seemed capable enough of proof.

Darcy told over and over again how he had come downstairs to find his relative stretched on the floor of the shop, and, aside from that little restless period of the night, he had heard no disturbance.  Sallie Page could tell nothing, the maid was out of the city, and none of the clerks knew more of what had happened than they were told.