are like animals--they have to be fed, you know. First editions don't
wait for gum-shoe men, even if they're of the first water. And I've
got a city editor who has a temper like a bear with a sore nose in
huckleberry time. So loosen up as soon as you can."

They took King and Darcy to police headquarters in a taxicab which
King, with still half-drunken gravity, insisted on paying for.

Colonel Ashley--or Colonel Brentnall as he had registered at the
hotel--having, by means of a more or less adroit bit of camouflage,
obtained possession of the newspaper containing an account of the
murder of Mrs. Darcy, and of the holding of her cousin and Harry King
on suspicion, tossed the journal on the bed beside his well-worn copy
of the "Complete Angler." Then, to demonstrate his complete mastery
over himself, he picked up the book, never so much as glancing at the
black headlines, and read:

". . . I have found it to be a real truth that the very sitting by the
river's side is not only the quietest and fittest place for
contemplation, but will invite the angler to it; . . ."

"I'm a fool!" exploded the colonel. "I came here to fish, and, first
click of the reel, I go nosing around on the trail of a murder, when I
vowed I wouldn't even dream of a case. I won't either,--that's flat!
I'll get my rods in shape to go fishing to-morrow. It may clear. Then
Shag and I--"

Slowly the book slipped from his hand. It fell on the bed with a soft
thud, and a breeze from the partly opened window ruffled a page of the
newspaper. The colonel, looking guiltily around the room, walked