"Um," mused the colonel, reading the _Times_ on the evening of the day
the crime was discovered. "It may turn out to be a mystery after all,
in spite of the two men who are held. Let's see now," and he went on
with his perusal of the paper.

The autopsy had been performed, and Dr. Warren had said either wound
might have caused death; for the skull was badly fractured, and vital
organs had been pierced by the dagger, which the papers called it,
though it really was a paper cutter of foreign make.

King and Darcy were not, as yet, formally, arrested, being "detained,"
merely, at police headquarters as witnesses, though there was no
question but that suspicion was cast on both. Under the law a formal
charge must be made against them within twenty-four hours, and unless
this was done King's lawyer threatened to bring _habeas corpus_
proceedings for his client.

"Oh, there'll be a charge made before then all right," said Thong
easily, when the legal shyster had, with threatening finger under the
detective's nose, made much of this point. "I'm not saying it will be
against your man, Mr. Fussell, but there'll be a charge made all right."

It is needless to say that both suspected men protested they knew
nothing about the killing. King was frank enough--sober now--to say he
had been drunk all night--spending the hours with boon companions in a
notorious resort, a statement which seemed capable enough of proof.

Darcy told over and over again how he had come downstairs to find his
relative stretched on the floor of the shop, and, aside from that
little restless period of the night, he had heard no disturbance.