's hard for
you to stay here, and hard to have the stigma attached to your name.
It's hard for Miss Mason, too, although she's bearing up like a major.
Gad, sir, that's what _she's_ doing!

"You've got a friend in her of whom you may be proud. And her father,
too--he's with you from the drop of the flag, he told me. Quite a
racing man he is, a gentleman and a fine judge not only of whisky,
which is good in its place, but of horses and men, too. Darcy, you've
got good friends!"

"I know it, Colonel, and I count you among the best."

"Thanks. Then prove it by not asking me to play my hand before I have
all the cards I want. All in good time. I'm working several ends, and
they all must be fitted together, like the old jigsaw puzzle, before I
can act. Besides, anything I could say now wouldn't set you free. You
can't get out before a trial or before I can produce some one on whom I
can actually fasten the murder. And I can't do that yet. You aren't
the only suspect, though. There's Harry King, still locked up--"

"No, he isn't, Colonel."

"He isn't?" cried the old detective, and there was surprise in his
voice.

"No. He was bailed out to-day. I thought you knew it."

"I didn't. I'm glad you told me, though. So King got bail! Who put
it up? It was high!"

"Larch!"

"The hotel keeper?"

"So I understand. They took Harry away a while ago. I wish I had been
in his shoes."

"I'm glad you're not. I don't imagine, for a moment, that fool King
had a hand in this affair. In fact I know he didn't. But his are
pretty uncertain shoes to be in just the same. Now cheer up! This
setting him free on bail has given me a new angle to work on. So cheer
up, and I'll do the best I can for you. Any message you want to send
to Miss Mason?"

"Only that I--" Darcy hesitated and grew red.

"I guess I understand," said the colonel with a laugh. "I'll tell her!"

The colonel spent that evening in the grill room of the Homestead.
Though it was not the same as it had been, and though patronage of the
better sort had fallen off considerably, it was still a jolly enough
sort of place of its character to be in. A number of "men about town,"
as they liked to be called, were in, and Colonel Ashley was sipping his
julep when there entered Mr. Kettridge, the relative of Mrs. Darcy,
whose jewelry shop he was managing pending a settlement of her estate.

"Good evening, Colonel," he called genially. "Will you join