The Diamond Cross Mystery Part 30

"That's what I was looking for! Don't so much as scratch yourself the hundredth part of an inch or-- Well, you saw Singa Phut," he ended grimly.

"Poisoned needle, Colonel?" asked Dr. Warren, as he shoved the cigarette Donovan had broken toward the middle of the table.

"That's what I suspect. If we had a cat now or a rat--"

"Easy enough to get a rat," interposed the warden. "There's always some of the beasts in the traps we set about. We catch 'em alive. I don't like poison. Here, Riley, go and see if you can find a rat in one of the traps. What you going to do, Colonel? Try it on him?"

"If you have one, yes. You get my idea, I guess. Some one of Singa Phut's Indian friends, knowing he would rather go out this way than pay the penalty of his crime, brought in a package of his favorite cigarettes.

"In two, three, or in perhaps more of the 'dope sticks,' as my friend Donovan calls them, he shoved a fine needle, the tip of which was dipped in some swift, subtle Indian poison, the secret of which these two alone, perhaps, knew.

"With the cigarettes in his possession it was easy enough for Singa Phut to smoke some and extract a needle from another. It was probably marked in some secret way. More than one needle was sent to guard against failure. But the first one must have worked. I'd like to find it."

"I'll have the cell swept for you," promised the warden as his deputy went off to look for a rat. A keeper was summoned with a broom, and brushed out the cell. It did not take long, for it was very clean.

Most of the debris was cigarette ash and sc.r.a.ps of paper and tobacco.

And it was in this debris, carefully poked over with a lead pencil, that a needle was found.

Colonel Ashley, using extreme care, laid the two together, after an examination of the other unbroken cigarettes had disclosed the fact that none of them concealed anything.

"I got one, Warden! A beaut!" came Riley's voice from down the corridor, and he came in with a wire cage containing a large rat which cowered in one corner of his cell, even as Singa Phut had shrunk into his when the end came.

"How you going to get at him, Colonel?" asked the warden. "They're nasty to handle. One of 'em nipped my dog fierce when I gave him a chance at killing it a day or so ago."

"I'm not going to let it out. If I had a stick, or something that I could fasten the needle on, I could work a sort of javelin," remarked the colonel.

"I'll get you one," offered Riley, much interested in the coming experiment. Donovan, too, looked on in startled wonder.

A long, slender stick was brought and, using great care, with his rubber gloves on that he used in autopsies, Doctor Warren fastened the needle to the wand. Then Colonel Ashley thrust the improvised spear through the wires of the cage and lightly punctured the rat, which gave a protesting squeak.

"It didn't hurt him much," observed the colonel, "and, if I have guessed right, his death will be painless."

"How soon?" asked Donovan.

"I can't say, but it ought not be very long. The kind of poison they use is calculated to work swiftly."

In the glaring light from the nitrogen bulb they stood in the cell of the dead man, gathered about the cage of the rat--a prison within a prison. After the first start caused by the needle p.r.i.c.k, the rodent again shrank back into its corner. For perhaps ten minutes it remained thus, and then it began to exhibit signs of uneasiness. It stood up on its haunches and began to bite at the wires of the cage. It squeaked, more as though uneasy than in pain,

In another minute it began to run around the tin floor of its prison, and then it suddenly stopped in its tracks, fell over in a lump and was still.

"Well, I'll be--" began Donovan, and then, with a look at the colonel, he subst.i.tuted: "This gets me! It sure does!"

"It evidently went right to the heart, just as in Singa Phut's case,"

observed the colonel grimly.

"You were right," said Doctor Warren, "it was poison. He probably jabbed himself with the point of the needle, and whatever was smeared on it did the rest. I shall be interested in making the autopsy."

"You will probably find very little trace of the poison," said the colonel. "The kind they use is designed to disappear almost as soon as it becomes effective. Still you may discover something."

But Doctor Warren did not. Aside from a little scratch near the prisoner's heart, where he had evidently dug the needle deep into his skin, there was no sign that death was other than by natural causes.

The poison had gone directly into the blood, as does the venom of a snake, and had brought death in the same way. In fact, it was the opinion of Colonel Ashley that some form of snake poison was used, though what it was, no one could say.

And so pa.s.sed out and beyond Singa Phut, and the charge of murder, having been quashed by a higher tribunal than that of the county court, the matter was soon forgotten.

The colonel's theory, that some fellow countryman had supplied the East Indian means of escaping the electric chair, was generally accepted.

And that Singa Phut was guilty of having killed his partner in a sudden fit of pa.s.sion following one of their frequent quarrels was also believed by those who cared to exercise any thought in the matter.

"But what gets me, though," said the colonel, "is where does Singa Phut fit in with the watch in Mrs. Darcy's hand. That watch! Ah, there's a link I haven't had time to examine as I'd like to. I must see to it."

The colonel fell into a reverie. His eyes went to the closet where he had put away his fishing rods.

"Oh, friend Izaak!" he murmured, "How basely I have deserted you! But I'm coming back. Yes, I'll stop this detective work. I'll wire for Kedge to-night to come on and take up the case. He can do it as well as I. I'll get Kedge!"

He started for the telephone to dictate a telegram. And then, as he chanced to look out of the window, a different expression came into his face.

Down on the sidewalk he saw Amy Mason walking slowly along. The girl's pretty face was drawn and careworn. Evidently the anxiety over Darcy was beginning to tell on her.

The old detective shook his head slowly.

"Oh, I suppose I can't back out now," he sighed. "I've gone too far.

It would look like quitting, and I never was a quitter!"

He straightened up to his soldierly height.

"Besides," he went on, "Kedge would only mix matters up now. He wouldn't know what to do, even if I told him. Kedge is all right for some things, but-- Oh, well, I'll keep on with the case!"

This was the day following the discovery of the suicide of the East Indian in his cell, and any intentions Colonel Ashley may have had of subjecting to a close examination the queer watch had to be postponed.

He had ventured to keep it after Donovan had shown it to him, ready to make some plausible excuse if it was called for, but the arrest of the East Indian, and the preparation of the case for trial, in connection with the prosecutor's office, evidently made Donovan forget, for the time being, that the watch was not among other criminal relics in his closet.

As a matter of fact, Colonel Ashley had had it in his possession since that night Donovan went out with his friend, the stool pigeon. And now, carrying out a plan he had made, the colonel, one bright May morning, put the odd timepiece in his pocket and started for the Darcy jewelry store, intending to have Kettridge look at the mechanism and other parts of the watch.

But when the detective reached the establishment he saw, to his surprise, a great crowd gathered out in front--a crowd that needed the services of several policemen to keep it from stopping traffic in the roadway.

"h.e.l.lo! More trouble at the place," mused the colonel, quickening his steps. "I wonder what's up this time?"

He inquired casually from those on the outskirts of the throng, and received enough information to justify the getting out of several extra newspapers.

"Burglar tried to blow up the safe and got blowed up himself."

"Hold-up man shot three of the girls behind the diamond counter and then killed himself."

"Naw! Somebody tried to set fire to the place!"

"Aw, only one of the girls fainted; that's all."

These opinions came mostly from boys or young men. No one seemed to know exactly what had happened. The colonel spied Mulligan, the officer who had been the first official on the scene at the murder of Mrs. Darcy, and nodded in friendly fashion. The bluecoat escorted the colonel through the crowd into the store.

"I guess you'll be interested," said Mulligan.