Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/138

 Urleigh could not explain. He was hard put to it, trying to catch the drift of the river man's plaint. He could see that the man had a grievance of some kind, but he dared not try to delve into it by direct question. The thing he wanted to know was hinted at. The diamond salesman had not gone to Warsaw but had circled around and struck the Ohio far below Warsaw. What happened then was not plain. The river man seemed to know, but he would not tell.

Who was Delia, the girl who had shot Gost? That was a question which seemed to have little bearing on the diamond question. In some way, however, she was accused of having lured to attack the more or less innocent Gost, whose record was known far and wide because he worked jewellers in various ways. Because Gost—White Collar Dan—had been shot, and because Urleigh knew that he was the kind of a man to know about the lost diamonds and the evanescent Obert Goles.

Thus far Urleigh was fortunate. He had carried Goles several hundred miles from Cincinnati—taken him to Madison. Why had he gone down there instead of to Warsaw? What had he done in Madison? This was a point which his friend Grost, of the agency, could inquire into.

The river man was tired, weak because of his wound and wearied by the excitement of his mind, baffled