Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/16

 boat on the river—skiff, launch, houseboat, or other craft—which might have brought in or taken away the man who sold diamonds.

Instantly suspicion was directed against the customer. He was known by the detective to hoard diamonds, and it was not beyond the realms of chance that he had in some way killed the salesman and stolen the diamonds. Manager Grost summoned Operative Volcon and they ransacked Warsaw from the water-front river rats to the hill billies back on the river ridges.

Then they learned from a shanty-boater two miles above town in the mouth of the creek that he had seen a dude in a white collar and derby hat coming down the Ohio on Thursday morning. The man was as described by the customer. He had run his skiff into the bank in a little eddy, where the fisherman, when he passed down with some fish, about 11 o'clock, saw it moored to a stake. The skiff was gone when he returned about noon.

With a good description of the skiff, word was sent up and down the river, and the skiff was found in a boat livery at Misquaw.

"I'll be back Tuesday after it," the man had said, taking his suitcase and going to the train. He had bought a ticket to Cincinnati, but in Cincinnati no trace of him could be found.