call it killing, for
Larch with his last breath protested he never meant it--after that,
which Cynthia seems to have guessed--she was even more strong in her
determination not to take any of his money. She was prepared, too, in
case Jimmie had been found guilty, to make a statement implicating her
husband, though, under the law she could not be compelled to testify
against him in a murder trial."

"Well, I'm glad it's all over, Colonel," said Mr. Mason, with a sigh of
relief. "There are two happy ones, if ever there were any," and he
motioned to Amy and Darcy, walking slowly across the meadow in the
golden glow of the setting sun.

"Yes, I'm glad I had a hand in helping them."

The young people, turning, saw the two men, and Amy waved her hand.
Slowly she and her lover approached.

"What luck, Colonel?" she asked gaily.

"The very best! You didn't exaggerate when you spoke of your trout
stream."

"I'm glad you like it. Jimmie and I were just talking about you."

"I wondered why my ears burned," and the old detective laughed.

"Colonel Ashley," put in Darcy, "there's just one thing I can't seem to
clear up in all this business."

"What's that?"

"Well, what made all the clocks stop at different times? I thought I
knew something of the jewelry business, but this puzzles me."

"Just because it's so simple," laughed the detective. "Larch stopped
those of the clocks that didn't run down and stop themselves. He
figured out, crazily enough in his fear and drunken frenzy, that if no
clocks or watches were going no one would know exactly what time the
killing took place. So, after Mrs. Darcy was dead, he hurried about
the store, with no one in the wet and deserted street to watch him,
and, stopping the timepieces, moved the hands of many of them to suit
his fancy. But he forgot the ticking watch."

"It was simple," murmured Darcy. "No wonder I didn't think of it.
Have you so simple a theory regarding the queer state I was in that
night--I mean awakening and going to sleep again after feeling
something brush my face?"

"Not unless Larch tried to chloroform you after he had killed Mrs.
Darcy, and was afraid you might come down and discover what had
happened," answered the detective. "That will remain a mystery, but
its solution is not important."

"Not as long as you have cleared Jimmie boy!" laughed Amy, and yet
there was a look of sadness on her face, for it had been an ordeal for
all of them.

"