"Another wound!" exclaimed Daley, his newspaper instincts quickly aroused by this addition of evidence of mystery. "This is getting interesting!"
"It's a cut—a deep one, too," murmured Carroll, as he drew nearer to look. "Wonder what did it?"
"Shouldn't wonder but it was done with this!" and Thong held out, on the palm of his large hand, a slender dagger, on the otherwise bright blade of which were some dark stains.
"Where'd you get it?" demanded Carroll.
"Over on the watch repair table."
Darcy gasped.
"Is that your dagger?" snapped Carroll at the jewelry worker.
"It isn't a dagger—it's a paper-cutter—a magazine knife."
"Well, whatever it is, who owns it?" The words were as crisp as the steel of the stained blade.
Darcy stared at the keen knife, and then at the dead woman.
"Who owns it?" and the question snapped like a whip.
"I don't! It was left here by—"
There was a commotion at the side door, which had been opened by
Mulligan in order that the men might carry out the body of Mrs. Darcy.
There was a shuffling of feet, and a rather thick and unsteady voice
asked:
"Whash matter here? Place on fire? Looks like devil t'pay! Let me in. Shawl right, offisher. Got a right t' come in, I have! I got something here. 'Svaluable, too! Don't want that all burned—spoil shings have 'em burned.
"'Lo, Darcy!" went on a young man, who walked unsteadily into the jewelry store. "Wheresh tha' paper cutter I left for you t' 'grave Pearl's name on? Got take it home now. Got take her home some—someshing—square myself. Been out al'night—you know how 'tish! Take wifely home li'l preshent—you know how 'tish. Gotta please wifely when you—hic—been out al' night. Wheresh my gold-mounted paper cutter, Darcy?"
"Harry King, and stewed to the gills again!" murmured Pete Daley.
"Wow! he has some bun on!"
"Wheresh my paper cutter, Darcy?" went on King, smiling in a fashion meant to be merry, but which was fixed and glassy as to his eyes. "Wheresh my li'l preshent for wifely? Got her name all 'graved on it nice an' pretty? Thash what'll square wifely when I been out—hic—al'night. Wheresh my paper cutter, Darcy, ol' man?"
Silently the jewelry worker pointed to the stained dagger—it was really that, though designed for a paper cutter. The detective held it out, and the red spots on it seemed to show brighter in the gleam of the electric lights.
"Is that your knife, Harry King?" demanded Thong.
"Sure thash mine! Bought it in li'l ole N' York lash week. Didn't have no name on it—brought it here for my ole fren', Darcy, t' engrave. Put wifely's name on—her namesh Pearl—P-e-a-r-l!" and he spelled it out laboriously and thickly.
"My wife—she likes them things. Me—I got no use for 'em. Gimme oyster fork—or clam, for that matter—an' a bread n' butter knife—'n I'm all right. But gotta square wife somehow. Take her home nice preshent. Thatsh me—sure thash mine!" and carefully trying to balance himself, he reached forward as though to take the stained dagger from the hand of the detective.
"You got Pearl's name 'graved on it, Darcy, ole man?" asked King, thickly, licking his hot and feverish lips.
"No," answered the jewelry worker, hollowly.
Then Harry King, seemingly for the first time, became aware that all was not well in the place he had entered. He turned and saw the body of the murdered woman as the men from the morgue Started out with it. He started back as though some one had struck him a blow.
"Is she—is she dead?" he gasped. "Dead—Mrs. Darcy?"
"Looks that way," said Carroll in cool tones. "You'd better come in here and sit down a while, Harry," he went on, and he led the unsteady young man to the rear room, while the men from the morgue carried out the lifeless body.
CHAPTER III
THE FISHERMAN
From a little green book, which, from the evidence of its worn covers, seemed to have been much read, the tall, military-appearing occupant of a middle seat in the parlor car of the express to Colchester scanned again this passage:
"And if you rove for perch with a minnow, then it is best to be alive, you sticking your hook through his back fin, or a minnow with the hook in his upper lip, and letting him swim up and down about mid-water, or a little lower, and you still keeping him about that depth with a cork, which ought to be a very little one; and the way you are to fish for perch with a small frog—"
"Ah-a-a-a!"
It was a long-drawn exclamation of anticipatory delight, and into the eyes of the military-looking traveler there appeared a soft and gentle light, as though, in fancy, he could look off across sunlit meadows to a stream sparkling beneath a blue sky, white-studded with fleecy clouds, where there was a soft carpet of green grass, shaded by a noble oak under which he might lounge and listen to the wind rustling the newly-born leaves.
"Ah-a-a-a!"
"Beg pardon, sir, but I—"
"What?"
The military-appearing man sat up with a jerk into sudden stiffness, while the soft light died out of his eyes.
"New York papers?"
"Don't want the New York papers—any of them!"
The man, after a swift glance from his green-covered book, again let his eyes seek its pages. The ghost of a smile flickered around his lips.
"Chicago, then. The latest—"
" … your hook being fastened through the skin of his leg, toward the upper part of it; and lastly I will give you—"
"Something livelier in the way of reading, sir, if you wish it!" broke in the voice of the newsboy who had stopped beside the parlor-car chair of the military-looking traveler, interrupting the reading of the little green-covered book. "I have a new detective story—"
"Look here! If you interrupt me again when I'm reading my Izaak Walton I'll have you put off the train! Gad! I will, sir, if I have to do it myself!"
The military-appearing traveler snapped the green book against the palm of one hand with a report like that of a pistol, thereby causing an old lady, asleep in a chair across the aisle, to awaken with a start.
"Are we in? Have we arrived? Is this Colchester?" she asked, sitting up and looking about in startled surprise, her bonnet very much askew. The newsboy, with an abashed air, slid down the aisle.
"Madam, I sincerely beg your pardon," said the tall man who had caused the commotion. He arose, his green book in one hand, and bowed his apologies. "I regret exceedingly that I startled you. But that insufferable young puppy had the extreme audacity to inflict himself on me when I was reading, and I lost my temper. I am sorry but I—"
"You didn't strike him, did you?" asked the old lady, reproachfully.
"No, madam. Though such conduct would have been justified on my part, I merely spoke to him. It was this—this book that I used rather roughly and which awakened you."
"Then aren't we at Colchester yet?"
"No, madam. It is some little ride yet. If you will allow me I shall be happy to let you know when we arrive. And if you are without any one