“Thanks, old top!  Perhaps I did.  Have a drink?”

“No, thank you!”

With a friendly wave of his hand to the colonel, King slipped the half dollar into his pocket with other loose change and turned to the glass that awaited him.

“You see,” said the colonel to Mr. Kettridge.  “He doesn’t know he had it—­he doesn’t know he lost it—­he doesn’t know you have it.  Keep it, I beg of you.  We may need it.”

“But suppose King goes away?”

“He won’t.  I’ll take care of that.  I’ll telegraph for one of my best men.  I have a little more than I can look after personally.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Have King kept in sight.  There are some others in this city I need to shadow.”

“You don’t mean Singa Phut?”

“No, he’s in custody.  Besides, I’ve—­Well, I guess I won’t say what conclusion I’ve come to regarding him.  I might have to change it.  He is an interesting study.  I haven’t yet found a motive for his killing of his partner—­if he did it.”

“Who else could?”

“There might be many.  Just as there might be many ways to account for King’s having possession of this coin.  He may have come by it in a way that is easily explained, and if we, inferentially, accused him there would be trouble.”

“I suppose so.  Well, Colonel Ashley, I’ll leave the case in your hands.  God knows, for the sake of the family name, I’d like to see Darcy cleared.  I don’t believe he did it.  Here, you keep this coin,” for the detective had offered it to his companion.  “You may need it.”

“Yes.  I may.  And so it is worth a thousand dollars,” mused the colonel.  “Just about the sum Darcy claimed from his cousin.  I wonder—­Oh, but what’s the use of wondering?  I must make certain,” and he put the old Roman coin safely away in his wallet.

The colonel and his friend finished their modest meal, and their more modest potations, of no very strong liquids, and went out, leaving Harry King and his companions to “make a night of it.”

Larch, whose face was unusually flushed, was endeavoring to bring the young men to a less boisterous state, for he realized that his better class of patrons did not like this sort of thing.

But King was in jubilant mood.  He had been released, under heavy bail, it is true, when the hotel keeper gave a pledge for the appearance of the young man when he was wanted.  Harry was only held as a witness, so far, but an important one, and because of his known characteristic of suddenly disappearing at times a heavy bond had been required.

Why Larch had gone on this bond did not make itself clear to Colonel Ashley, and he set that down in his little red note book as one of the matters needing to be cleared up.

And so, wondering much, the colonel and Mr. Kettridge, the former with the rare coin, went out into the cool and star-lit night, leaving behind them the sounds of good-fellowship, of that particular brand, in the Homestead.