Once more the colonel started toward his room telephone, intending to summon the jeweler, who was living over the store in Mrs. Darcy’s rooms.

The colonel paused at the instrument, recalling that, as he had been about to use it before there had come in a call for him—­the call announcing the department-store keeper.

But this time the instrument was mute, and the colonel had soon asked central for the telephone in the apartments now occupied by Mr. Kettridge.  There was a period of waiting.

“I am ringing Marcy 5426,” announced the pleasant voice of the girl in the central office.

“Thank you,” responded the detective.

Another period of waiting, and again the announcement of the girl, though the colonel had not manifested any impatience.

“Very well,” he responded.  “There may be no one at home.”

It was evident, a little later, that at least no one intended to answer the telephone, and the colonel hung up he receiver.

“Well, Kettridge can wait,” he murmured, as he carefully put away the watch, thinking, with a sigh of regret, of poor little Chet.  The dog was a friendly animal and had made many friends in the hotel.

“And so Miss Ratchford—­to use her maiden name—­has the diamond cross back again,” mused the colonel.  “But how in the world could she get it, when Spotty had it, and the police that are holding him have that, and he’s resisting extradition?  Say, I wish I could go fishing!” and the colonel shook his head in dogged impatience at the tangle into which the affair had snarled itself.

“Spotty must have robbed the jewelry store in spite of what he says about it,” mused the Colonel.  “But if he did, and got the cross, even if he didn’t kill Mrs. Darcy, how in the world could he get the cross back to her when the police took it away from him and when the last I saw of it it was in the police headquarters safe?

“This certainly gets me!  Oh Shag! is that you?” called the colonel as he heard some one moving out in the hall near his door.

“Yes, sah, Colonel!”

“You stay here until I come back.  I’m going out, and I don’t know what time I’ll be in.  Be careful to get straight any messages that come in over the wire, and if Jack Young calls up get the ’phone number of the place where he is so I can call him.”

“Yes, sah, Colonel.”

“And, Shag!”

“Yes, sah, Colonel!”

“Hand me that little green book.  I may have to be up all night, and I want something to read that will keep me awake,” and the colonel slipped into his coat pocket the green volume.  He was taking his fishing by a sort of “correspondence school method” it will be observed.

The detective busied himself about his apartment getting ready to go out, and from a suitcase which was closed with a complicated lock he took a number of articles which he stowed away in various pockets of his garments.