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"Still up?" he asked. "It was time for you to be asleep long ago if you want your eyes to keep as bright as they always are."

"They don't feel very bright," she answered, with a little laugh. "They seem to be full of sticks. But I wanted to ask you something - to consult with you - and I didn't want to go to sleep without doing it. I want you to read these," and she spread out before him the letters she had found hidden in the drawer of the safe.

Colonel Ashley, in silence, looked over one document after another, including the torn ones. When he had finished he looked across the table at Viola.

"What do you make of it?" she asked. "I don't know," he frankly confessed. "But we must find out if your father owed the captain anything - for money advanced in an emergency, or for anything else. Who would know about the money affairs?"

"Mr. Blossom. He has full charge of the office now, and access to all the books. Aunt Mary and I have to trust to him for everything. It is all we can do."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed the detective. And he did not speak of the scene of which he had recently been a witness.

"Then if you will come with me, we will go the first thing in the morning to father's office and see LeGrand Blossom," decided Viola. "We will ask Mr. Blossom if he knows anything about the debt between my father and Captain Poland."

"It would be wise, I think."

And as the colonel retired that night he said, musingly:

"Another angle, and another tangle. I must read a little Izaak Walton to compose my mind."

So he opened the little green book and read this observation from the Venator:

"And as for the dogs that we use, who can commend their excellency to that height which they deserve? How perfect is the hound at smelling, who never leaves or forsakes his first scent, but follows it through so many changes and varieties of other scents, even over and in the water, and into the earth."

"Ah," mused the colonel, "I think I must cling to my first scent, and follow it through or over the water or into the earth."

Then, laying aside the little green book, with its atmosphere of calm delight, he picked up a little thin volume, which bore on its title page "The Poisonous Plants of New Jersey."

And in that he read:

"The water hemlock (Cicuta maculata L.) is the most poisonous plant in the flora of the United States, and has probably destroyed more human lives than all our other toxic plants combined. As a member of the parsley family (Umbellifera) it resembles in general appearance the carrot and parsnip of the same group of plants. It grows in swampy land. The poisoning of the human is chiefly with the fleshy roots.

"The active principle of this cicuta is the volatile alkaloid canine, common also to the poison hemlock (Conium macula turn L.) The symptoms of the poisoning are many, including violent contraction of the muscles, dilated pupils and epilepsy. . . No antidote for canine poisoning is known. . . The active canine . . . was the poison employed by the Greeks in putting prisoners to death, Socrates being one of its illustrious victims."

And having read that much, Colonel Ashley looked at a little slip in the book. It bore the penciled memorandum "58 C. H.- ~I6I*."

"I wonder - I wonder," mused the colonel, and so wondering, and with fitful dreams attending his slumbers, he passed the night.

Jean Forette drove the colonel and Viola to the office. They arrived rather early. In fact LeGrand Blossom was not yet in, and when he did enter, a few minutes later, he was plainly surprised to see them.

"Is anything the matter?" asked the confidential clerk, as he quickly opened his desk. "I am sorry I was late this morning. But I had some matters to look after - "

"No apology necessary," said Colonel Ashley, quickly. "We have not been waiting long. We have discovered something."

If his life had depended on it LeGrand Blossom could not, at that moment, have concealed a start of surprise.

"You mean you have found out who killed Mr. Carwell?" he asked, and his tongue went quickly around his dry lips.

"Not that,"