The Diamond Cross Mystery Part 12

"Well, Colonel, I--"

"Never mind, Spotty. Perhaps the less you talk the better off you'll be. Does anybody in town know you're here?"

"Well, my picture--"

"Yes, it is probably down at headquarters. But they're too busy to look for it now. But they may--later. So far you haven't been recognized then?"

"Only by you, and it'd take a pretty clever guy--"

"No compliments, Spotty. We've gotten over that. You disguised yourself very well, but the freckles show through."

"Yes, d.a.m.n 'em!" heartily exploded the gunman. "I can't cover 'em up.

I've tried everything, but I guess I'll have to go togged up like a colored man to fool the other bulls. As for you, Colonel--"

"There you go again! Cut it out! This is business."

"Yes, good business for you, but bad for me. I didn't think you'd get after me so soon, Colonel!"

"I'm not after you, Spotty."

The detective spoke quietly, but the effect on the man sitting across the table from him, in one of the less conspicuous cafes in Colchester, had the effect of a shout.

"Not after me? You _ain't_?" and Spotty drew away from the array of gla.s.ses and bottles so suddenly that he overturned a tumbler with its tinkling chunk of ice. "Not after me, Colonel?"

"No, I came here for a quiet bit of fishing, and I just stumbled on this case against my will. I'm not even working on it, and I'm not going to. n.o.body knows I'm in town except my man s.h.a.g--and you. I know I can depend on s.h.a.g, and as for you--"

"I'm with you till the cows come to roost, Colonel. I'm strong fer you! I kin forget I ever saw you."

"That's good. I thought you'd be that way. So, as no one knows I'm in town (the colonel knew nothing of what s.h.a.g had said to the newsboy), I can keep under cover and have my fishing as I like it--quiet. I don't intend any one shall know I'm here, either.

"Now, Spotty, I'm a plain-spoken man when there's occasion for it, and this is one of those times, I guess. You saved my life just now, I know that. Of course I realize I might just have been badly hurt, and perhaps have lingered on in a hospital for some years--but that would be worse than death. I consider that you saved my life. I couldn't have moved out of the way of that truck any more than I could have flown. I realize it more and more. You did me the biggest service one man can do another, and I'm not going to forget it, Spotty."

"No, I guess remembering is your long suit, Colonel."

"Well, that's all in a day's work. I didn't forget you, Spotty. Now, as I said, you saved my life. I believe in turning the tables, and though I can't do for you what you did for me, maybe I can help in a way."

"You kin gamble on that, Colonel!"

"Listen to me, Spotty," and the detective leaned forward and spoke in a low, tense voice. "Just now, as I say, I'm not in this case. Not being a public official, I'm not bound to use what knowledge or suspicions I have regarding this matter, and I'm not particularly interested--as yet. So I'm going to give you a chance, just as you gave me mine now. It isn't exactly the same, for maybe you wouldn't lose your life. You've been devilishly lucky, and gotten through more narrow places than I'd ever give you credit for.

"So it may seem that I'm not quite squaring the account, but it's all I can do--now. I'm going to give you your chance. I'm not going to ask you any questions. You know what you know and I know what I know.

Now, Spotty, streak it out of town as fast as a train can take you, and--_don't come back_!"

Spotty Morgan made little wet rings on the table with his empty gla.s.s.

A waiter, hovering near by, caught the glint of his eye and brought the liquor. Then Spotty, after a libation, spoke.

"Colonel," he said slowly, "most of what you has been spielin' is like the lawyer guys git off in court. I don't quite tumble, but I take it you mean you're goin' t' let me go."

"That's it, Spotty! I'm going to let you go this time!"

"No double crossin'?"

"You know me better than that! I'll give you twenty-four hours to get out of town. After that I may happen to know more than I know now, and it would be my duty--whether I'm officially on the case or not--to arrest you.

"But now you're free. It's your life and liberty for mine--maybe not quite an even exchange, since you'd have more than even chances if it came to a trial, I suppose. But it's the best I can do. I'm giving you this chance. I'd be a dirty dog if I didn't. But remember this, Spotty! I give you only one chance, just as you gave me--just as you took one and saved me. If I see you again, and this thing hangs over you, I may have to pull you up."

"All right, Colonel. That's a square deal. But don't worry. You won't see me if I see you first. I didn't dream you'd be after me so soon for the job I only done last night. I'd oughter cleared out, but I was waitin' for a pal, an--Oh, well, it was just like you to come around early."

"Man, don't you understand? I'm not after you! I didn't for an instant think you had a hand in it until just now. And I'm not admitting, even yet, that you did have. I haven't done a tap of work on the case, and I'm not going to. My advise to you is to get out of town before I may get into this thing against my will. Skip, Spotty!

It's the only way I can pay my debt to you!"

The colonel made as though to hold out his hand to the freckle-faced man opposite him, and then changed the motion of his arm and picked up his gla.s.s.

"Skip, Spotty!" he murmured again.

"All right, Colonel, I will! I know when the goin's good. So long.

And--thanks!"

Spotty, still talking through the corner of his mouth, gave a quick glance around the room and slid out of a side door like an eel, disappearing into the rain and mist.

For some little time the colonel sat before the gla.s.ses, in which the cracked ice was rapidly melting. He, too, made little rings of water on the table.

"I wonder--" he mused, "I wonder if I did right."

His hand sought his pocket, and came out empty.

"I guess I must have left it on the bed," he murmured. "But I can remember it."

Then, as though reading from the little green book, he recited:

"But if the old salmon gets to the sea . . . and he recovers his strength, and comes next summer to the same river, if it be possible. . ."

"Spotty is a veritable salmon," mused the colonel, "even if he is speckled like a trout. I wonder, if he gets into the sea of New York, if I'll ever be able to land him?

"Well, he gave me my life, and I just _had_ to give him a chance for his. It was all I could do. Now to fish and forget everything!"

It was a fair morning in April, with the sun just right, with the "wind in the west when the fish bite best," and Colonel Robert Lee Ashley, with the faithful s.h.a.g to carry his rods, creel and a lunch basket, sallied forth from his hotel for a day beside a no-very-distant stream, the virtues of which he had heard were most alluring as regarded trout.

"s.h.a.g!" exclaimed the colonel, when they were tramping through a field near the river, having reached that vantage point by a most prosaic trolley car, "this is a beautiful day!"

"It suah am, sah!"

"And I'm going to catch some fine fish!"

"I suah does hope so, Colonel!"

"All right then! Now don't say another word until I speak to you.

We'll be there pretty soon, and if there's one thing more than another that I hate, it's to have some one talking when I'm fishing."