Part 10 (2/2)

The store was closed, he said, but he added a bit of testimony that caused Colonel Ashley, and others, to think a bit.

King said that, though the front doors to the store were locked, he, knowing the place well, had gone around to the side door in the alley, thinking that might not yet be fastened. He hoped, he said, to be able to get in and procure the present for his wife. But this door, too, was locked, though, through the gla.s.s he could see a light in the rear room. And he could hear voices, which were raised louder than ordinary.

The voices, King added, were those of Mrs. Darcy and her cousin, James Darcy, and it was evident that a quarrel was in progress. Asked as to the nature of the dispute King had said he had heard mentioned several times the name ”Amy.” There was also something said about money and an ”electric lathe.”

Naturally there was an inquiry as to who ”Amy” was, and what was meant by the electric lathe. Darcy answered with seeming frankness that the Amy in question was Miss Mason, daughter of Adrian Mason, wealthy stockman of Pompey, a village about ten miles from Colchester. Mr.

Mason had what was often referred to as a ”show place,” with blooded horses and cattle, and he was quite a financial figure in Monroe county, of which Colchester was the county seat.

Besides this, Amy was well off in her own right, her uncle having left her a half interest in a valuable mine.

James Darcy and Amy Mason were engaged to be married, though this fact was known to but few, and made quite a sensation when Darcy admitted it after his arrest. He and Amy had known each other since childhood, and when small had lived near each other.

Mr. Mason, in spite of his wealth, was a democratic man, and though he knew, and Amy also, that she might have married wealth and position, both were ”pa.s.sed up,” to quote the stockman himself, in favor of a real love match. For that is what it was.

”He's a _man_, that's what James Darcy is!” Amy's father had said, when some one hinted that he had neither wealth nor family of which to boast. ”He's a _man_! He's got all the family he needs. What's a family good for, anyhow, after you're grown up? As for money, I've got more than I need, and Amy's got a little nest-egg of her own. Besides, Darcy can earn his living, which is a hanged sight more than some of these dancing lizards can do if they were put to it.”

It developed that the words over Amy which had occurred, just before the murder, between James Darcy and his cousin, had to do with the difference in the worldly prospects of the two young people. Mrs.

Darcy had rather laughed at him, James said, for thinking of marrying a girl so much wealthier than he was.

”What did you tell her?” asked Carroll. ”I mean your cousin.”

”I told her I could support my wife decently well, if not in such state as that to which she was accustomed in her father's house. As for style, neither Miss Mason nor I care for it. And, if things go right, I may be able to bring her as much wealth as she has herself.”

”How do you mean if things go right?” asked the detective.

”Well, if I can perfect the electric lathe I am trying to patent,” was the answer.

”Oh, so that's what King heard about an electric lathe?”

”I suppose so. It's no great secret. I've been working on it for some time, but my cousin objected to my spending my time that way. She thought I should devote it all to her interests, even outside the shop.

I told her I had my own future to look to, and we often had words about that. Last night's quarrel wasn't the first, though she was especially bitter over my work on the lathe. I have been giving it more time than usual because it is nearly finished, and I want to get it ready to show at a big Eastern jewelry convention.”

”And what was the talk about money?”

”Well, Mrs. Darcy owed me about a thousand dollars. I had done some special work on making necklaces for her customers, and she had promised, if they were pleased, to pay me extra for the exclusive designs I got up. The customers were pleased, and they paid her extra for the ornaments. So I demanded that she keep her promise, but she refused, pleading that many other customers owed her and times were hard. I needed that thousand dollars to help complete my lathe model, and--well, we had words over that, too.”

”Then, do I understand,” summed up Carroll, ”that the night Mrs. Darcy was killed you had a quarrel with her over Miss Mason, and about the money and because you spent too much time working on your patent lathe?”

”Well, yes, though I don't admit I spent too much time, and I surely will claim she owed me that money. As for Miss Mason--I'd prefer to have her name left out,” faltered the young jeweler.

”We can't always have what we want,” said Thong, dryly. ”Was the quarrel specially bitter?”

”Not any more so than others. I had to speak a little loud, for my cousin was getting a trifle deaf.”

”And after the quarrel you went to bed?”

”Yes.”

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