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The colonel had walked up and down the stream at the turn of the Maraposa golf course, Shag following at a discreet distance, and, after trying out several places had settled down under a shady tree at an eddy where the waters, after rushing down the bed of the small river, met with an obstruction and turned upon themselves. Here they had worn out a place under an overhanging bank, making a deep pool where, if ever, fish might he expected to lurk.

And there the colonel threw in his bait and waited.

And now, that I am waiting," he mused, "let me consider, as my friend Walton would, matters in their sequence. Horace Carwell is dead. Let us argue that some one gave him the poison. Who was it?"

And then, like some file index, the colonel began to pass over in his mind the various persons who had come under his observation, as possible perpetrators of the crime.

"Let us begin with one the law already suspects," mused the fisherman. "Not that that is any criterion, but that it disposes of him in a certain order - disposes of him or - involves him more deeply," and the colonel looked to where a ground spider had woven a web in which a small but helpless grass hopper was then struggling.

"Could Harry Bartlett have given the poison?" the colonel asked himself. And the answer, naturally, was that such could have been the case.

Then came the question: "Why?"

"Had he an object? What was the quarrel about, concerning which he refuses to speak? Why is Viola so sure Harry could not have done it? I think I can see a reason for the last. She loves him as much as he does her. That's natural. She's a sweet girl!"

And, being unable to decide definitely as to the status of Harry Bartlett, Colonel Ashley mentally passed that card in his file and took up another, bearing the name Captain Gerry Poland.

"Could he have had an object in getting Horace Carxvell out of the way?" mused the detective. "At first thought I'd say he could not, and, just because I would say so, I must keep him on my list. He also is in love with Viola, - just as much as Bartlett is. I shall list Captain Poland as a remote possibility. I can't afford to eliminate him altogether, as it may develop that Mr. Carwell objected to his paying his attentions to Viola. Well, we shall see."

The next mental index card bore the name Jean Forette; and concerning him Colonel Ashley had secured some information the day before. He had got, by adroit questioning, a certain knowledge of the French chauffeur, and this was now spread out on the card that, in fancy, Colonel Ashley could see in his filing cabinet.

"Forette? Oh, yes, I know him," the mechanician of the best garage in Lakeside had told the detective. "He's a good driver, and knows more about an ignition system than I ever shall. He's a shark at it. But he's a queer Dick."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, sometimes he's a regular devil at driving. Once he had a big Rilat car in here for repairs. He had to tell me what was wrong with it, as I couldn't dope it out. Then when we got it running for him, he took it out for a trial run on the road. Drive! Say, it's a wonder I have any hair on my head!"

"Did he go fast?"

"Fast? Say, a racing man had nothing on that Forette. And yet the next day, when he came to take the car away, after we'd charged the storage battery, he drove like a snail. One of my men went with him a little way, to see that everything was all right, for Mr. Carwell is very particular - I mean he was - and Forette didn't let her out for a cent My man was disappointed, for he's a fast devil, too, and he asked the Frenchman why he didn't kick her along."

"What did the chauffeur say?"

"Well, it wasn't so much what he said as how he acted. He was as nervous as a cat. Kept looking behind to see that no other machine was coming, and when he passed anything on the road he almost went in the ditch himself to make sure there was room enough to pass."

"Seemed afraid, did he?"

"That's it. And considering how bold he was the day