“Maybe,” half assented the colonel.  “Thank you, Dr. Warren.  We shall meet again,” and, with a military salute, the colonel went out of police headquarters.  As he descended the steps he silently mused: 

“I wonder what Carroll and Thong would say if they knew about the diamond cross, and heard that Spotty Morgan had it?  I guess they would change some of their theories then.  Which reminds me that I have more irons in the fire than I suspected.  I must not lose sight of Cynthia.  She will be getting anxious about her diamonds, and I would like to see what she says when she hears the truth.”

Though Colonel Ashley had given up all hopes of having a use for his beloved fishing rods and flies, at least on this trip to Colchester, he did not give up his perusal of Walton’s book.

It was one evening while sitting in his room at the hotel, idly turning over the pages, hardly able to concentrate his mind on what he read for much thinking of the diamond cross mystery, that his eye chanced on page 170, where he saw the passage: 

“There be also three or four other little fish that I had almost forgot, that are all without scales—­”

The book dropped from the detective’s hand.

“Gad!” he exclaimed.  “That’s what I’ve been forgetting—­the little fish.  I must get after some of them.  They may turn the scale in our favor.  Little fish!  That’s it.  Small fry, when you can’t get big ones!  I wonder—­”

There was a knock at the door and Shag entered, bowing and saluting military style at the same time.

“Scuse me, Colonel, sah,” he began, “but does yo’ want t’ heah any news?”

“Any news, Shag?  What sort?  Come, speak up, you rascal!”

“Well, sah, Colonel, yo’ done tell me, when we come heah, not t’ trouble yo’ wif any detective news, but—­”

“Oh, that was before I got mixed up in this Darcy case, Shag.  The prohibition is off, so to speak.  If you have any news—­”

“No, sah, Colonel, ’tisn’t ‘bout po’ ole Miss Darcy—­leastways not much about her.  But dere’s been annudder murder in town.”

“Another murder?”

“Yes, Colonel.  Boys on de streets yellin’ extry papers now, all ’bout de murder.”

“Who is it?  Where?  When did it happen?”

“Jest ’bout a hour ago.  It’s a man—­a Indian man whut kept a curiosity shop—­de same place where yo’ an’ me was lookin’ at dem funny snake candlesticks las’ week.”

“Singa Phut’s place?  Great Scott, Shag!  You don’t mean to tell me, he’s killed, do you?”

“No, sah, Colonel!  Dat Mr. Phut ain’t killed.  It’s his partner.  He’s got a funny name, too.  Heah, I done brought yo’ a paper,” and Shag pulled out an extra from under his vest, where he had carefully kept it concealed until he had made sure of his master’s frame of mind.

The colonel scanned the front page with its black type eagerly.  Surely enough, there had been a murder.  Shere Ali, Singa Phut’s partner, had been found lying on the floor of the little curiosity shop with his head crushed in.