at
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."

"So they were. But they can be supplied with current from another
source, it seems, and I was the innocent cause of doing it."

"You! How?"

"By throwing over a switch on the work bench where James Darcy used to
busy himself!"

"An electric switch on Darcy's work bench?"

"Yes, come and see for yourself. I've sent for the