Colonel Ashley

“ Ashley's glance shifted from Drusilla to Olivia as though asking in some alarm who was this exuberant bumpkin in his Sunday clothes who had dropped from nowhere. Davenant drew back; his face fell. He looked like a big, sensitive dog hurt by a rebuff. It was Mrs. Fane who came to the rescue.
"Peter's come to see Cousin Henry. They've got business to talk over. And mother wants to know if you and Colonel Ashley won't come to dinner to-morrow evening. That's my errand. Just ourselves, you know. It'll be very quiet." ”

“ Her incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,—if, indeed, she was conscious of the effect of her manner,—all betokened that she considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of interest, to entertain young men.
"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's farcical thought.
Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor. ”

“ She was the strong woman who would yield only to a stronger man. Colonel Ashley might not be stronger than she in intellect or character, but he had done some large things on a large field, and was counted an active force in a country of forceful activities. There might be a question as to whether he would prove to be her master, but he would certainly never think of being her slave.
"What are you going to do, Henry, when the gallant stranger carries off Olivia, a fortnight hence?" ”

“ It was not until he had purchased his ticket and was about to board the last Jersey Shore train, to take him back to the scene of the death of Horace Carwell, that Colonel Ashley, as he caught sight of a figure in the crowd ahead of him, seemed galvanized into new life.
For a moment he gazed at a certain man, taking care to keep some women with large hats between the object of his attention and himself. ”

“ I'm going to see Colonel Ashley and ask him if he can't end this horrible suspense.”
“I wish that as eagerly as you do,” said Miss Mary. “You'll find the colonel in the library. He's poring over some papers, and Shag, that funny colored man, is getting some fish lines ready; so it's easy enough to guess where the colonel is going. If you want to speak to him you'd better hurry. But there's another matter I want to call to your attention. What about our business affairs? Have we money enough to go on living here and keeping up our big winter house? We must think of that, Viola.” ”

“ He stopped under the portico, to say with a laugh that was not quite spontaneous: "Yes; I dare say. But my experience is limited. I've never got to the—afterward."
"Oh, well, you will," she said, encouragingly, "now that you know Colonel Ashley."
"I've heard of men plunging into a cold bath and finding it so icy that they've popped out again."
"Yes; thin-blooded men, who are sensitive to chills. Not men like you."
They entered the house, lingering in the oval sitting-room through which they had to pass. ”

“ And Colonel Ashley, stealing his way up unseen, heard from Minnie Webb the startled ejaculation:
“LeGrand! You here? And who—who is this?”
Then, as if in defiance, or perhaps to see who the challenger was, the figure standing beside that of LeGrand Blossom flashed a little pocket electric torch. And by the gleam of it Colonel Ashley saw the large blonde woman again.
“Morocco Kate!” he murmured. “So she is mixed up in it after all! I think I begin to see daylight in spite of the darkness. Morocco Kate!” ”

“ Colonel Ashley paced up and down the room, pausing now and then to listen to the dash of rain against the windows, for the storm, bearing out its promise of the morning, had lasted all day, changing from a drizzle to a downpour and from a downpour to a drizzle with dismal repetition. The colonel glanced at Shag, and then, drawing from an inner pocket the little green book, read:
"Hunting is a game for princes and noble persons. It hath been highly prized in all ages. It was one of the qualifications—"
The detective snapped the book shut, and tossed it on the bed. ”

“ Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. ”

“ Don't you think, Colonel Ashley?"
Ashley looked blank. "I haven't noticed it—"
"Oh, I have. A woman's eye sees those little things, don't you think? Men have so much on their hands—the great things of the world—but the little things, they often count, don't you think? But I tell dear Olivia not to worry. Everything will come right. Things do come right—very often. I'm more pessimistic than Rodney—that I must say. But still I think things have a way of coming right when we least expect it. I tell dear Olivia that Peter will send a line just when we're not looking for it. ”

“ Is some one hurt?”
“I don't know,” answered Colonel Ashley. “Mr. Young and I were talking in the library when we heard the scream. Then a woman rushed out.”
“It must have been Minnie Webb!” cried Viola. “She was here a moment ago. The maid told me she was waiting in the parlor, and I was detained upstairs. It must have been Minnie. But why did she scream so?”
Colonel Ashley did not stop to answer.
“Look after things here, Jack!” he called to his assistant. “I'm going to follow her. If ever there was a desperate woman she is.” ”

“ I trust there is not much timber down."
The three men trooped heavily out into the hall, and suddenly the challenge of the sentry rang forth, simultaneously with the sound of the approach of horses' hoofs and the jingle of military accoutrements. Colonel Ashley's groom had bethought himself to bring up his master's charger in case he should care, since the weather had cleared, to return to camp. This Ashley preferred, despite Judge Roscoe's cordial insistence that he could put him up for the night without the slightest inconvenience. ”

“ He felt it would be indiscreet to stay longer.
"I'll make a try for it, Miss Guion," he said, when he had got on his feet to go away. "Since you want me to see Colonel Ashley, I will."
"They always say that one man has such influence on another," she said, rising, too—"and you see things so clearly and have such a lot of common sense.... I'll walk down to the gate with you.... I'm tired with sitting still."
He offered his hand to help her in descending the portico steps. ”

“ I have given up business for the time being.”
“And yet, Colonel Ashley, the person who sent me will have no one but you. She says you are the only one who can get at the bottom of the puzzling case.”
In spite of himself the colonel's face lighted up at the words “puzzling case,” but as his eyes fell on the creel containing his fish he turned aside. “No,” he said, “I am sorry, but I can not listen to you. Shag, kindly—”
Harry Bartlett was not a successful business man for nothing. He knew how to make an appeal. “I came to see you at the request of Miss Viola Carwell,” he said slowly. ”

“ But as they drove on, and Colonel Ashley noted with what exaggerated care Jean Forette passed other cars—giving them such a wide berth that often his own machine was almost in the ditch—the impression grew on the detective that the Frenchman was not as skillful as he would have it believed.
“He drives Like an amateur, or a woman out alone in her machine for the first time,” mused the colonel. “He'd never do for a smart car. ”

“ Colonel Ashley, using extreme care, laid the two together, after an examination of the other unbroken cigarettes had disclosed the fact that none of them concealed anything.
"I got one, Warden! A beaut!" came Riley's voice from down the corridor, and he came in with a wire cage containing a large rat which cowered in one corner of his cell, even as Singa Phut had shrunk into his when the end came.
"How you going to get at him, Colonel?" asked the warden. "They're nasty to handle. One of 'em nipped my dog fierce when I gave him a chance at killing it a day or so ago." ”

“ Some very nice Yankee officers are in society there—several old friends of yours, papa. Colonel Monette and Lieutenant-Colonel Blake of the regular army—old classmates of yours. And some others whom you don't know—Captain Baynell, who is very handsome, and Colonel Ashley—he belongs to the volunteers; he is most agreeable and highly thought of, and oh—of course Lieutenant Seymour—oh, it is not dull there! ”

“ Darcy's murder."
"But he hadn't any more to do with it, Colonel, than that cat!" and Carroll pointed to the headquarters cat which was sleeping near a radiator, for the day had turned cold and steam was on in the place.
"Perhaps not," admitted Colonel Ashley. "But there are some peculiar coincidences and, if you don't mind, I'd like to see what I can find out about them."
"Go as far as you like, Colonel," returned Thong, needlessly generous. "We've got our man, and that's all we want. The other isn't our case. Oh, Donovan!" he called, as he saw a fellow sleuth passing through an outer room. ”

“ Lieutenant Seymour understands my position thoroughly well, as Colonel Ashley does. They take a different view—their construction of their duty is more lenient. I don't know why—perhaps because they are volunteers, and the whole war to them is a temporary occupation. ”

“ Yes, positive.” There was a period of waiting, while he listened, and then he went on: “Yes, on the Allawanda. I'll be there. Yes, sure! Now don't bother me any more.”
Colonel Ashley, through the glass door of the telephone booth, saw LeGrand Blossom make a move as though to hang up the receiver. And then the detective turned suddenly, and swung back, as though he had entered the room at the moment Blossom had emerged from the booth.
“Oh!” exclaimed the head clerk, and, for a second, he seemed nonplused. But Colonel Ashley took up the talk instantly. ”

“ Bosh, my good fellow! When a man does what you've done there's no question of any one but him."
The color was hot in Davenant's cheeks, but he himself could not have told whether it came from astonishment or anger. "Since Colonel Ashley knows so well what happened, I shall leave him to tell it."
He was about to make his escape, when Olivia stopped him. "No, no. Wait—please wait. Tell me why you did it."
"I'll tell you," Ashley broke in. He spoke with a kind of nervous jauntiness. "I'll tell you, by Jove! We had a row. I called him a cad. I called him a damned cad. ”

“ Young with a laugh.
"And I must get back to the shop," said Mr. Kettridge. "I have some work to do. Shall I leave the watch apart this way, Colonel?"
"Yes, I may need it to show to the jury. Leave it as it is, but put it under glass, and the needle away carefully. We may have to kill a rat in court as we did in Singa Phut's cell."
"I think we are coming on," mused Colonel Ashley, when his two visitors had gone. ”

“ I have a great respect for Baynell as a man, and especially as an artillerist, and somehow in these campaigns I have contrived to get fond of the fellow!—though he is about as stiff, and unresponsive, [Pg 299] and prejudiced, and priggish a bundle of animal fibre as ever called himself human."
"Why, he doesn't give me that idea," exclaimed Leonora, her eyes widening. "He seems unguarded, and impulsive, and ardent."
Colonel Ashley was very considerably her senior and far too experienced to be ingenuous himself. He made no comment on the conviction her words created within him. ”

“ Becoming apprehensive that this would be their course, Colonel Ashley, instead of keeping on the road from Sheffield to Great Barrington, presently left it and marched his men along a back road running northwest toward the state line in a direction that would intercept the rebels if they struck across Egremont to New York. ”

“ Thus it was that the library was almost deserted when Colonel Ashley called more than once. Captain Baynell he found, and occasionally the judge also. He always selected the afternoons, and after a time he was wont to glance about with such a keen, predatory expression that the truth began to dawn vaguely on Captain Baynell. Vanity is so robust an endowment that it had been easy enough for the recipient of these visits to appropriate wholly the interest that prompted them. It struck Baynell with an indignant sense of impropriety when he began to remember Ashley's ardent desire to meet Mrs. ”

“ You are already acquainted with him.”
“What manner of man is Lord Ashley?” questioned Kearns. “He interests me.”
“Lord Ashley, Vice-Chancellor and Master of the Imperial Household,” replied General Mainwarren, “is a soldier who earned a reputation for daring and dash during the early part of the late war with Russia. He was severely wounded at the battle of Pedrofski and retired during the rest of the campaign. His actual military rank is Captain of the Imperial Guards—a position which carries with it the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.” ”

“ Knowing the probability that she disturbed some poignant bit of conversation, she proceeded to take command, stepping up to Olivia with a hasty kiss. "Hello, you dear thing!" Turning to Ashley, she surveyed him an instant before offering her hand. "So you've got here! How fit you look! What sort of trip did you have, and how did you leave your people? And, oh, by the way, this is Mr. Davenant."
Davenant, who had been paying his respects to Miss Guion, charged forward, with hand outstretched and hearty: "Happy to meet you, Colonel. Glad to welcome you to our country." ”