“Not unless Mrs. Darcy had some of which James Darcy knew nothing.”

“Well, I saw Larch at one time, and Harry King at another, have one of those white tissue paper packages that jewelers keep diamonds in.  I didn’t get a glimpse at the stones themselves.  I had to be a bit cautious you know, and, even now, I think they’re suspicious of me here.  If it wasn’t that King drinks so much, though he manages to walk and talk straight.  I believe he’d try to pump me.  Anyhow, I thought I’d better let you know what I’d heard.”

“Jack, I’m glad you did.  So Larch has sent, or is going to send, his wife a diamond cross!  Well, then, Grafton might be right about that after all.  Gad! this thing is getting mixed up!  Now, Jack—­”

A waiter who knew the colonel, from the fact that the latter was a striking figure and had been in the Homestead more than once, approached the private room occupied by the detective and Jack Young and announced: 

“Excuse me, Colonel, but you are wanted at the telephone.”

“All right.  Where is it?”

“You can come right in here and have the call transferred from our central,” and the man opened the door of a small booth.  The Homestead was honeycombed with private rooms, booths and telephones.

“Yes, this is Colonel Ashley,” announced the detective into the instrument, when his identity had been questioned.  “Who are you?  Oh, Shag!  Yes, Shag, what is it?  What’s that—­at the jewelry store you say?  Well, will this never end?  Yes, I’ll go there at once!”

“What is it?” asked Jack, as the colonel hung up the receiver.

“Why, Kettridge telephoned to my room, and Shag took the message and repeated it to me.  Sallie Page, the old servant of Mrs. Darcy has just been killed by an electric shock in the jewelry store!”

CHAPTER XVIII

AMY’S TEST

However it was not quite as bad as that, though Sallie Page had received a severe shock, and had been near to death.  Prompt action on the part of the physician on the hospital ambulance had started her feeble heart, which had been affected by the current of electricity, to beating.

This, among other things, Colonel Ashley learned when he hastened to the jewelry store from the Homestead, leaving at the latter place his trusty lieutenant, Jack Young, to look after both Larch and Harry King, neither of whom seemed likely to leave the place very soon.

“Tell me more about it,” said the colonel, when he was sitting with Mr. Kettridge in the dimly-lighted jewelry shop after Sallie had been taken to the hospital.  “What shocked her?”

“The same electric wires on the showcase that shocked Miss Brill the other day.  The electricians had been told to remove them, but had not yet done so.”

“But I thought those wires were dead—­cut—­after the other accident, Mr. Kettridge.”