BOOK II

MR. X

VIII

ON THE SEARCH

It was late in the afternoon. The Inspector's office had hummed for hours

with messages and reports, and the lull which had finally come seemed

grateful to him. With relaxed brow and a fresh cigar, he sat in quiet

contemplation of the facts brought out by the afternoon's inquiries. He

was on the point of dismissing even these from his mind, when the door

opened and Gryce came in.

Instantly his responsibilities returned upon him in full force. He did

not wait for the expected report, but questioned the detective at once.

"You have been to the hotel," he said, pointing out a chair into which

the old man dropped with a sigh as eloquent of anxiety as of fatigue.

"What more did you learn there?"

"Very little. No message has come; no persons called. For them and for us

these two women, Madame Duclos and Miss Willetts, are still an unknown

quantity. Their baggage, which arrived while I was there, supplied the

only information I was able to obtain."

"Their baggage! But that should tell us everything."

"It may if you think best to go through it. It is not heavy--a trunk for

each, besides the one they brought with them from the steamer. From the

pasters to be seen on them, they have come from the Continental Hotel,

Paris, by way of the Ritz, London. At this latter place their stay was

short. This is proved by the fact that only the steamer-trunk is pasted

with the Ritz label. And this trunk was the one I found in their room at

the Universal. From it Miss Willetts had taken the dress she wore to the

museum. Her other clothes--I mean those she wore on arriving--lay in

disorder on the bed and chairs. I should say that they had been tossed

about by a careless if not hasty hand, while the trunk----"

"Well?"

"Stood open on the floor."

"Stood open?"

"Yes, I went through it, of course."

"And found nothing?"

"Nothing to help us to-day. No letters--no cards. Some clothing--some

little trifles (bought in Paris, by the way) and one little book."

"A name in it?"

"Yes--_Angeline_; and one line of writing from some poem, I judge. I put

it back where I found it. When we know more, it may help us to find her

friends."

"And is that all?"

"Almost, but not quite. The young girl had a bag too. It stood on a

table----"

"Well?"

"Empty. Everything had been tumbled out--turned upside down and the

contents scattered. I looked them carefully over. Nothing, positively

nothing, but what you would be likely to find in any young girl's

traveling-bag. There's but one conclusion to be drawn."

"And what is that?"

"That all these things, such as they were, had been pushed hastily about

after being emptied out on the table. That was not the young girl's

work."

"Madame Duclos'!"

"You've hit it. She was in search of some one thing she wanted, and she

took the quickest way of finding it. And----"

"Yes, Gryce?"

"She was in a desperate hurry, or she wouldn't have left the trunk open

or all those dainty things lying about. Frenchwomen are methodical and

very careful of their belongings. One other thing I noted. There was a

loose nail in the lock of the trunk. Sticking to this nail was a raveling

of brown wool. Here it is, sir. The woman--Madame Duclos--wore a dress of

brown serge. If my calculations are not wrong and we succeed in getting a

glimpse of that dress, we shall find a tear in the skirt--and what is

more, one very near the hem."

"Made to-day?"

"Yes--another token of haste. She probably jerked at the skirt when

she found herself caught. She could not have been herself to have done

this--for which we may be glad."

"You mean that by this thoughtless action she has left a clue in our

hands?"

"That and something more. That tear in her decent skirt will bother her.

She will either make an immediate attempt to mend it, or else do the

other obvious thing--buy a new one. In either case it gives us something

by which to trace her. I have put Sweetwater on that job. He never tires,

never wearies, never lets go. No report in yet from the terminals?"

"Not a word. But she will not get far. Sooner or later we shall find her

if she does not come forward herself after reading the evening papers."

"She will never come forward."

"I am not so sure. Something not a little peculiar happened at the

museum after you left. We had Reynolds up, and he made a most careful

examination of that bow for finger-prints. He did not find any. But

fortune favored us in another way almost as good."

"Now you interest _me_."

"We had brought the bow into the Curator's office, and it lay on the long

table in the middle of the room. I had been looking it over (this was

after Reynolds had gone, of course) and had already noted a certain

defect in it, when on chancing to look up, my eyes fell on a mirror

hanging in a closet the door of which stood wide open. A face was visible

in it--a very white face which altered under my scrutiny into a semblance

more natural. It was that of Correy--you remember Correy, one of the

assistants, and an honest fellow enough, but more troubled at this moment

than I had ever seen him. What could have happened?

"Wheeling quickly about, I caught him just as he started to go. He had

openly declared that he did not know this bow; but it was evident that he

did, and I did not hesitate to say so. Taken unawares, he could not hide

his distress, which he proceeded to explain thus: He did remember the

bow, now that he had the opportunity of seeing it closer. He pointed to

the nick I had myself noticed and said that owing to this defect the bow

had been cast aside, and the last time he had handled it----Here he

caught his breath and stopped. Another memory had evidently returned to

embarrass him."

"Did you succeed in getting him to acknowledge what it was?"

"Yes, after I had worked with him for some time. He didn't want to talk.

In a moment you will see why. Going back to the time he had seen it

before, he said that he had found it in the cellar in an old box, the

contents of which he had been pulling over in a search for something very

different. Amazed to find it there, he had taken it out, examined it

carefully, noted the nick I mentioned and tossed it back again into the

box. This he told, but reluctantly.

"Why reluctantly, I was soon to find out. He was not alone in the cellar.

The shadow of some person at his back had fallen across the lid of the

box as he was closing it. He did not recognize the shadow and had not

given it at the time a second thought, but the remembrance of it came

back vividly when he saw the bow lying before him and realized the part

it had played in the morning's tragedy. Was it because he knew that only

a person actively connected with the museum would have access to that

part of the cellar? I asked. I did not expect an answer, and I did not

get it. We looked at each other for a moment, then I let him go."

A momentary silence, which the Inspector broke by saying:

"Later I called the Curator in, and he also recognized the bow as

belonging to the museum. But he volunteered no explanations and in fact

had little to say on the subject. He was evidently too much startled by

the direct connection which had thus been made between the crime (or

accident, if you will) and the personnel of the museum."

"That was natural. He should be the first to see that the bow which shot

the arrow must of necessity have been brought into the building by some

other door than those at which the doormen stood guard. I had a talk

with those men, and they both declared that no sticks or umbrellas or

anything of that nature ever went by them or would be allowed to go by

them, no matter how concealed or wrapped up. But to revert to the matter

in hand. So Correy made absolutely no attempt to explain how this weapon

had been carried from cellar to gallery without his knowledge?"

"No. He for one will have a sleepless night."

"Not he alone. I must and will see a way through this maze. To-morrow may

bring luck. Ah, I forgot to say that I spent an hour of the three you

allowed me with the captain of the steamer which brought over these two

women. As might be expected, he had no information of any significance to

give me; nor could I obtain much from such members of the crew as I could

get hold of. One steward remembered the Englishman, chiefly because he

never showed himself unless the young lady was on deck. But he never saw

them speak."

"Which bears out Travis' story to the last detail."

"Exactly. I think we can depend upon _him_; otherwise we _should_ be at

sea."

"Yet his story is a very strange one."

"The whole affair is strange--the strangest I ever knew. But that isn't

against it. It's the commonplace case which baffles. We shall get the key

to the whole mystery yet."

"I've no doubt. Is Mr. Travis to be detained?"

"Yes, as witness."

"Does he object?"

"Not at all. Having spoken--told his whole story, as he says--he is

rather glad than otherwise to be relieved from the common curiosity of

strangers. He's a rare bird, Gryce. If he stops to think, he must see

that he stands in a more or less ticklish position. But he does not

betray by look or action any doubt of our entire belief in the truth of

all his statements. His only trouble seems to be that he has lost, by

these inhuman means, the girl upon whom he had set his heart. To-morrow

we will confront him with Mrs. Taylor. She should be able to say whether

he did or did not stand out in the open gallery at the moment Miss

Willetts fell."

But Mr. Gryce had no encouragement to give him on this head.

"Mrs. Taylor is ill--very ill, as I take it. I stopped at her hotel to

inquire. I was anxious about her for more than one reason and the report

I got of her condition was far from favorable. She is suffering cruelly

from shock. How occasioned, whether by the peculiar and startling death

to which she was a witness or by the strangely coincident fancy to which

she herself attributes her deep emotion, will have to be decided by

further developments. Nothing which I was able to learn from doctor or

nurse settled this interesting question. Meanwhile, no one is allowed to

see her--or will be till she is on the direct road to recovery. Let us

hope that this may be soon, or the inquest may be delayed indefinitely."

"I don't know as that is to be deplored. I imagine we shall find enough

to fill in our time.... Any communications made by her before she

collapsed? Did she send out or receive messages of any kind since her

return from the museum?"

"She received none; but it is impossible to say whether or not she sent

any out. There is a letter-chute very near her door. She may have dropped

a letter in that any time before a watch was put upon her. You are

thinking, of course, of the anxiety she expressed about her husband, and

whether she took any measures for ascertaining if her fears for him had

any foundation in fact?"

"I was, yes; but I presume this fancy had passed, or else she is too ill

to remember her own aberrations. Were you able to effect an understanding

with her nurse?"

"Yes; that's fixed. I had a short talk, too, with the proprietor of the

hotel. He thinks very highly of Mrs. Taylor. She has lived in the one

apartment for years, and he cannot say enough of her discreet and uniform

life. Though she made no secret of the fact that she does not live with

her husband, her conduct has always been such as to insure universal

respect. He did not even make mention of eccentricities. If she is crazy,

it is a late development. She seemed to have been all right up to this

morning. Whichever way you turn, you encounter mystery and a closed

door."

"The papers may spring the lock of that door at any moment. Publication

does much in a case of this kind. To-morrow we may be in a much more

favorable position. Meantime, let us recount the facts it is our business

to clear up."

"On what hypothesis?"

"On all hypotheses. We are not sure enough of our premises, as yet, to

confine ourselves to one."

"Very good, these are the ones which seem to me to be of the greatest

importance:

"Whose hand carried the bow from cellar to gallery?

"Was it the same which carried the arrow from one gallery to the other?

"Is it possible for an arrow, shot through the loophole made by the

curving-in of the vase, to reach the mark set for it by Mr. Travis'

testimony?

"Which one of the men or women known to be in the museum when this arrow

was released has enough knowledge of archery to string a bow? A mark can

be reached by chance; but only an accustomed hand can string a bow as

unyielding as this one.

"Who telephoned to Madame Duclos; and of what nature was the message

which sent her from the hotel so precipitately that she not only left the

most important part of her baggage behind but went away without making

adequate provision for the young girl confided to her charge?

"Does this mean that she had been made acquainted with the fate of the

young girl; and if so, by whom?"

"Business enough for us all," was the Inspector's comment as Gryce paused

in this enumeration. "As you put it, I am more and more convinced that

the key you spoke of a short time ago will be found in this missing

woman's tightly shut hand."

"Which brings us round full-circle to our first conclusion: that Miss

Willetts' death is not only a crime, but a premeditated one."

"Carried out, not by the one benefited, but by an agent selected for the

purpose."

"An agent, moreover, who knew the ways and possibilities of the place."

"A logical conclusion; but still too incredible for belief. I find it

hard to trust to appearances in this case."

"And I also. But as we have both said, time may clear away some of its

incongruities. Meanwhile I have an experiment to propose." And leaning

close to the Inspector, notwithstanding the fact that there was nobody

within hearing and he knew it, he whispered a few words in his ear.

The Inspector stared.

"To-night?" he asked.

The detective nodded.

IX

WHILE THE CITY SLEPT

Night--the night of a great city with its myriad of garish lights and its

many curious and incongruous activities.

Who has not felt his imagination stirred by the contrasts thus

offered--contrasts never more apparent than at these hours of supposed

rest? Grim walls, with dimpled children sleeping behind them! Places of

merrymaking athrob with music and dazzling with jets of incandescent

light, with grief in the heart of the dancer and despair making raucous

the enforced laugh!

But nowhere in the great city of which we write on this night of May 23,

1913, was there to be found a scene of greater contradictions than in the

court and galleries of its famous museum.

Lighted as for a reception, the architectural beauties of its Moorish

arcades and carven balustrades flashed in full splendor. Gems of antique

art, casts in which genius had stored its soul and caused to live before

us the story of the ancients, pillars from desert sands, friezes from the

Parthenon and bas-reliefs from Nineveh and Heliopolis, filled every

corner, commanding the eye to satisfy itself in forms of deathless grace

or superhuman power. And no one to heed! Not an eye to note that the

Venus in one corner seemed to smile in the soft light with more than its

accustomed allurement, or that the armor in which kings had fought wore a

menacing sparkle exceeding that of other times and quieter days. Ghosts

of vanished ages might parade at will among the chattels of their time or

drain the iridescent beaker to their unknown gods--no one would have

noticed or turned aside to see. For there was something else within these

walls to-night for the men assembled there to look upon, and a story to

be read which shut the imagination upon the past by amply filling it with

the present.

What is this something? Let us follow the gaze of the half-dozen persons

grouped in front of the tapestry hanging in the northern gallery, and

see.

But first, of whom is this small and mystic group composed? Who are these

men who in the middle of the night, in the security of a completely

shuttered building, busy themselves, not with the inestimable treasures

surrounding them, but with an odd and seemingly mountebank adventure

totally out of keeping with the place and their absorbed demeanor? We

will name them:

Mr. Roberts and a second director seen here for the first time, Inspector

Jackson, Mr. Gryce, two lesser detectives, and a strange young man of

undoubted Indian extraction who kept much in the background and yet stood

always at attention like one awaiting orders.

Are these all? Yes, in the one gallery; but in the other, shadowy figures

are visible among the arches at one end, with whose identity we shall

probably soon be made acquainted.

At what are these various persons, in the one gallery as in the other,

looking so intently that all are turned one way--the way of greatest

interest--the way the fatal arrow had flown some fourteen hours before,

carrying death to the innocent girl smiling upon life in youthful

exuberance? Is it at some image of herself they see restored to hope and

joy? An image is there, but alas! it is but a dummy taken from one of the

exhibits and so set up as to present the same angle to the gallery-front

as her young body had done, according to Mr. Travis' reluctant

declaration.

Why so placed, and why regarded with such concentrated interest by the

men confronting it from the opposite gallery, will become apparent when,

upon the Indian's being summoned from his place of modest retirement, it

can be seen that the bow he carries in one hand is offset by the arrow he

holds in the other. A test is to be made which will settle, or so they

hope, the truth of Mr. Travis' story. If an arrow launched from before

the pedestal or even from behind it through the loophole made by the

curving-in of the vase toward its base can be made to reach its mark in

the breast of this dummy, then they would feel some justification in

doubting his statement that the arrow, whatever the appearances, was not

shot from this gallery. If it could not, belief in his statements would

be confirmed and their minds be cleared of a doubt which must hamper all

their future movements.

The second director, whose name was Clayton, stood at the left of the

Inspector and close against the tapestry. To him that official now turned

with this explanation:

"The bow you see in Mr. La Flèche's hand is similar in length and weight

to the one found lying strung for use in the doorway back of where you

are now standing. The arrow is from the same quiver as the one which

entered Miss Willetts' breast.... Did you speak?"

No, Mr. Clayton had not spoken; yet for some reason a thrill had passed

through the small group surrounding him, which had heightened the

consciousness of them all. Eyes and ears became alert; only the Indian

showed stolidity.

"Mr. La Flèche, you will first stand here," continued the Inspector,

pointing to the spot which Mr. Travis had finally settled upon as the one

where he had been standing at the moment he saw Miss Willetts fall.

The Indian took the place, sighted the figure diagonally opposite and

laid his finger on the string.

"An inch to the left of the bunch of flowers pinned on the dummy's

breast," murmured Mr. Gryce almost in his ear.

It was a breathless moment; even the two detectives showed excitement.

But the Indian failed to shoot. Instead, he looked around at the

Inspector and quietly remarked:

"I will shoot standing, since you so request, but I think you will find

that the arrow which caused death was delivered by a man kneeling."

A flash of the eye between the two detectives, which only one man saw!

All the others were watching the lightning flight of the arrow. It struck

the dummy full and square. Everyone shuddered, even the Inspector; it

brought the real tragedy so vividly to mind.

Meanwhile a movement had taken place in the small group of men watching

from the other side. One of them stepped fully into view and approaching

the figure thus attacked, drew out the arrow and made close examination

of the hole it had made and shook his head. It was Coroner Price.

"Try again, and from behind the pedestal this time," he called out across

the intervening space as he stepped back into his former place of

observation.

The Inspector motioned his wishes to the Indian, who with a subtle twist

of his body slipped behind the pedestal.

"That's better," was the Inspector's quick comment. "Can you handle the

bow easily from where you now stand?"

"There is plenty of room."

"Very well. But wait! Before we proceed further, there is a matter to

which I wish to call the attention of these gentlemen. It must have been

apparent to you all that a person standing where Mr. La Flèche did a

moment ago would be easily visible to anyone looking up from the court or

across from the opposite gallery, or even from the broad corridors at

either end of the building. But would the same hold true if instead of

being in front he had been behind the pedestal, as Mr. La Flèche is now?

Run below, Barney; and, gentlemen, disperse yourselves in different

directions and give me your opinion. Now!" he demanded after a few

minutes' wait, during which there had been a scattering to right and left

along the galleries, "what do you say?"

"If anyone chanced to be looking directly there, yes," was shouted up

from below.

"What do you say, Coroner Price?"

"Ask the man to kneel."

The Inspector gave the word.

"Ah, that's different! The bulge of the vase hides the upper part of his

head, and the pedestal itself the lower. He might shoot from his present

position with impunity."

"Do you all agree?"

"Yes, yes!" came from different parts of the building.

"Then, Mr. La Flèche, here's another arrow from the same quiver. Take

fresh aim and shoot."

Another breathless moment--more breathless than the other; then a second

arrow flew across the court and hung quivering in the breast of the

dummy.

From both ends of the gallery men came running, and leaning eagerly over

the gallery-rail they watched the Coroner as he stepped again into view

to make a second examination.

This time he kept them several minutes in suspense, and when he had drawn

out the arrow, he looked long at the hole it had made. Then, instead of

shouting his decision across the court, he could be seen leaving the

gallery and coming around their way.

What had he to say? As they waited, a clock struck from some neighboring

steeple--three sonorous peals! The two directors glanced at each other.

Doubtless they felt the weirdness of the hour as well as of the occasion.

It was a new experience for these amateurs in police procedure.

Arrived on their side, the Coroner advanced quickly. When close upon the

reassembled group, he remarked quickly but with great decision:

"Mr. Travis seems to have been correct in denying that the arrow flew

either from before or behind this pedestal. The first arrow sent by Mr.

La Flèche entered the dummy almost at a right angle; the last departed

but a little from this same line. But the real wound which I probed and

located to a hair was a decidedly slanting one. It must have been sent

from a place further off."

"From behind the other pedestal!" spoke up Mr. Gryce, all fire and

interest at once. "Either the Englishman deceived us, or each pedestal

had its man."

"We'll see! Another shot, and from behind the further pedestal, Mr. La

Flèche!"

The Indian glided into view and started for the other end of the

tapestry, followed by the Inspector, his detectives and the two

directors. As they passed one by one across the face of the great

hanging, they had the appearance not of living men but of a parade of

specters, so silent their step and so somber their air. The dread of some

development hitherto unacknowledged made their movements slow instead of

hasty. The upper pedestal instead of the lower! Why should this possible

fact make any difference in their feelings. Yet it did--perhaps because

it meant deception on the part of one they had instinctively believed

trustworthy, or--

But why pursue conjecture when actuality only is of moment? Let us

proceed with our relation and await the result.

Arrived at the upper pedestal, Mr. La Flèche took his place, received the

third arrow and presently delivered it. The Coroner, who had already

started for the other side, hastily approached the dummy, made his

examination and threw up his hand with the loud shout:

"The shot was made from there; the matter is settled!"

Question: Had Mr. Travis wilfully misled them, or had the presumption in

his favor been strengthened by this proof that it had been shown possible

for another hand than his to have shot the arrow from this same section

of the gallery, without disturbing his belief that he was the only person

in it at the time?

X

"AND HE STOOD _HERE_?"

The Inspector, finding himself very much disturbed by the doubt just

mentioned, felt inclined to question whether any perceptible advancement

had been made by this freak business of his canny subordinate. He was

hardly ready to say yes, and was not a little surprised when on his way

toward the head of the staircase he heard the exultant voice of Mr. Gryce

whisper in his ear:

"That's all right. We've gained a point. We know now the exact place from

which the arrow was shot."

"But not who shot it."

"No--except that it was not the man Travis."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"For two reasons. This is the first one: If it is difficult to understand

how a man could slip from behind the eastern pedestal and make his way

along the open gallery to Room H, without attracting the attention of the

officer posted opposite, how next to impossible we should find it, if

thirty feet were added to his course--which is the distance between the

two pedestals!"

"What was that fellow doing, that he shouldn't have seen this effort at

escape, whether it involved a short flight or a long one?"

"He says he was not given detective-duty--that he was placed there to

keep watch over the body of the young girl;--that at a certain moment he

imagined himself to hear a stealthy footstep approaching from the farther

end of the gallery, and anxious to spot the man yielding to so doubtful a

curiosity, he approached the arch separating his section from the

adjoining one, and stopping just inside, stood for a moment or so,

listening. As this involved the turning of his back upon the court and

consequently upon the opposite gallery, it gave Travis just the

opportunity he needed for an unobserved escape. But I see you are not

very much impressed by the reason I have advanced for believing his story

and placing him where he says he was placed, behind the eastern pedestal.

You doubtless think that if the officer opposite had stood long enough

with his back to the court, Travis might have taken those extra thirty

steps as easily as the twenty he had confessed to. Listen, then, to my

second reason, or rather, step this way."

Leading his superior toward Room B, the door of which stood wide open, he

paused just outside the threshold to note the effect produced upon the

Inspector by what he saw inside. Evidently it was as marked with surprise

as the detective had calculated upon, for with an air of great

astonishment the Inspector turned upon him with the whispered

exclamation:

"Travis here! where he could listen--see----"

"Yes. Take a good look at him, Inspector. It won't trouble him any. I

doubt if he would notice us if we stepped into the room."

And such was the opinion of the Inspector himself, as he remarked the

extreme excitement under which the Englishman was laboring. Absorbed in

thoughts of his own, he was pacing the room with long strides, turning

mechanically as he met some impediment, but otherwise oblivious to his

surroundings, even to the point of not noting the presence of Sweetwater,

who stood quietly watching him from one of the corners.

This display of feeling was certainly eloquent enough to attract anyone's

attention, but what gave it impressiveness to the official mind was this:

his excitement was that of triumph, not fear, of hope without any trace

of confusion.

"It is not of himself he is thinking," muttered Gryce.

"And he stood _here_?"

"No--we left him free to move about at will, and his will carried him

into full view of the whole performance."

"And Sweetwater?"

"Was near enough to note his every move, but of course kept himself well

out of sight."

Then as they both stepped back from the doorway: "Mr. Travis didn't know

he was being watched. He thought himself alone; and having an expressive

countenance,--very expressive for an Englishman,--it was easy enough for

Sweetwater to read his thoughts."

"And those thoughts?"

"Relief to find an explanation of the phenomenon he had doubtless been

puzzling over for hours. The moments he had spent in hiding behind one

pedestal had evidently failed to suggest that another man might have been

in hiding behind the other."

"I am not surprised. Coincidences of this astonishing kind are not often

met with even by us," was the Inspector's dry retort.

During the interchange of these hurried sentences, they had withdrawn

still farther out of sight and hearing of the man discussed. But at this

point Inspector Jackson reapproached the doorway, and entering in a

manner to intercept Mr. Travis in his nervous goings to and fro, remarked

in an off-hand way:

"I see that you have met with a surprise, Mr. Travis. Like ourselves, you

gave little thought to what that upper pedestal might conceal."

"You are right. I never even glanced that way. But if I had, I should

have seen nothing. He was well hid, exceedingly well hid, whoever he was.

But he cannot escape now; you'll get him, won't you, Inspector? He could

not have left the building--all say that this was impossible. He was one,

then, of the people I saw moving about when I went down into the court.

Find him! Find this murderer of innocence! of the sweetest, purest

child----"

He turned away; grief was taking the place of indignation and revenge.

At this sight the two men left him. The Inspector was at last convinced,

both of the man's probity and of one stern, disconcerting fact: that the

real culprit--the man whose guilty fingers had launched the fatal

arrow--had been, as Travis said, one of the twenty-two persons who had

been moving about for hours not only under his eyes but under those of

the famous detective posted there.

XI

FOOTSTEPS

WANTED--A WOMAN CALLING HERSELF ANTOINETTE Duclos, just arrived from

Europe on the steamer _Castania_, who after taking rooms at the

Universal for herself and her steamer companion, Angeline Willetts,

left the hotel in great haste late in the afternoon of May twenty-third

and has not been heard of since.

In person she is of medium height, but stocky for a Frenchwoman. Dark

hair, black eyes, with an affection of the lid which causes the left

one to droop. Her dress consisted of skirt and jacket of a soft shade

of brown. Hat indistinguishable. She carried, on leaving the hotel, a

dark brown leather bag of medium size, long and narrow in shape. Her

only peculiarity, saving the one drooping eyelid, is a hesitating walk.

This is particularly obvious when she attempts to hasten.

It is to be hoped that this person on hearing of Miss Willetts' death,

will communicate at once with the clerk of the hotel.

If in two days this does not occur, a reward of five hundred dollars

will be given to the man or woman who can give definite news of this

Frenchwoman's whereabouts.

Police Headquarters, Mulberry St.

This notice, appended to such particulars of the tragedy as appeared in

all the morning papers, roused the city--I may even say the country--to

even greater wonder and excitement than had followed the first details

given in the journals of the evening before.

Would anything come of it?

Morning passed; no news of Antoinette Duclos.

Afternoon: messages of all kinds leading to much work, but bringing no

result.

Five o'clock: a missive from the directors of the museum to the effect

that under the peculiar circumstances and the seeming absence of any

friends of the deceased, they would be glad to furnish the means

necessary to the proper care and burial of the young woman killed in such

an unhappy manner within their walls.

A half-hour later, Gryce, for whose appearance the Inspector had been

anxiously waiting, came in with his report. A chair was pushed up for

him, for he was an old man and had had a sleepless night, as we know,

besides two days of continued work. But he did not drop into it, as the

Inspector expected, or give any other signs of exceptional fatigue; yet

when he had seated himself and they were left alone, he did not hasten to

speak, though he evidently had much to say, but remained quiet, holding

counsel, as it were, in his old way, with some small object he had picked

up from the desk before him.

At last the Inspector spoke:

"You have been on the hunt; what did you find?"

"Not much, Inspector--and yet enough to disturb me in a way I was not

looking for. Of course, in studying the situation carefully, you have

asked yourself how the man who shot the arrow from behind the upper

pedestal got away. He did not wait as Travis did till the first

excitement had abated and the way was, in a manner, cleared for an escape

into the court. For X, as we will call him, was certainly among those I

saw lined up before me at the moment I bade them one and all to return

and stand until released, in the exact spot occupied by them when the

first alarm rang out. After the surprise Travis gave us we had the

building searched from roof to cellar. Not another soul was found in it

whose name was not registered on the chart. As I have already said, the

guilty one had managed to escape immediately upon the flight of the

arrow, though how, even then, he could have got below in the time he did

is a mystery which trips me up every time I think of it. But letting that

go for the present, he did get there and get there unnoticed. How? Now,

there are three ways of escape from behind either of those pedestals. The

way Travis took, that is, toward the front, and round through the suite

of rooms headed by the one marked H, to the rear staircase; the more

direct one of an immediate exit from the gallery through Sections VI and

VII to this same staircase; and (the only one worth considering) a

straight plunge for the door behind the tapestry and so down by the

winding staircase beyond, into the Curator's office. The unknown never

went Travis' way, and he couldn't have gone the other without running

into the arms of Correy; so he must have made use of the hidden door. So

convinced was I of this, after last night's discovery eliminated Travis

as a suspect, that I made it my first duty this morning to examine this

door and the mysterious little passageway back of it. When first notified

of this door, we had been assured that it had not been opened in years,

that the only key remaining to it was the one the Curator showed us

hanging from the ring he drew from his own pocket; and acting upon these

statements, which I would not allow myself to doubt for a moment, we

decided to open the door in our own way, which we immediately did. The

result was the instant discovery that some one had passed through this

door and down these stairs very much later than years ago. We could see,

without taking a step beyond the doorway, traces of a well-shod foot in

the dust lying thickly on every tread. These traces were so many and so

confused that I left them for Stevens' experienced eye and deft

manipulation to separate and make plain to us. He is making an

examination of them now, and will be able to report to you before night."

The Inspector was a man of little pretense. He felt startled and showed

it.

"But this is a serious matter, Gryce."

"Very serious."

"No mere visitor to the museum would have presumed upon this venture."

"No."

"Which means----"

"That some one actively connected with it had a guilty hand in this

deplorable affair."

"I am afraid so."

"Some one well acquainted with the existence of this door and who had

means of opening it. The question is--who?"

In saying this, Mr. Gryce studiously avoided the Inspector's eye; while

the Inspector in his turn looked up, then down--anywhere but in the

detective's direction. It was a moment of mutual embarrassment, broken,

when it was broken, by a remark which manifestly avoided the issue.

"Possibly those traces you speak of were not made at the time you

specify. They may have been made since, or they may have been made

before. Perhaps the Curator was curious and tried his hand at a little

detective work on his own account."

"He hadn't the chance. Every portion of the building has been very

thoroughly guarded since first we entered it. He may have gone up prior

to the shooting. That is open to dispute; but if he had done so, why did

he not inform us of the fact when he showed us the key? The Curator is

the soul of honor. He would hardly deceive us in so important a matter."

The quick glance which this elicited from the Inspector awoke no

corresponding flash in the eye of the imperturbable detective. He

continued to shake his head over the small object he was twirling

thoughtfully about between his thumb and finger, and only from his

general seriousness could the Inspector gather that his mind was no more

at rest than his fingers. Was this why his remark took the form of a

question?

"Where was the Curator when you forced open that door behind the

tapestry? Was he anywhere in the building?"

"No, sir; he has not been there to-day. He was ill last night, and he is

ill to-day. He sent us his excuses. If he had been in the building, I

doubt whether I would have given the order to burst open the door. I

would simply have requested him to use his key. And he would have done so

and kept his own counsel. I do not know as I can say as much for any of

his subordinates. Happily, no spying eye was about at that time; and

Stevens will be sure to see that he is not watched at his work if he

has to lock the door upon the whole bunch of directors."

"This is to be a secret investigation, then?"

"I would so advise."

"With every reporter headed off, and anyone likely to report to a

reporter headed off also?"

"Do not _you_ advise this?"

"I do. Anything more?"

"Not till we hear from Stevens."

They had not long to wait. Sooner than they expected the expert mentioned

came in. He held a batch of papers in his hand, which at a gesture from

the Inspector he spread out before them. Then he spoke:

"One man and one man only has passed down those stairs. But that man has

passed down them twice--once with rubbers on and once without. There are

signs equally plain of his having gone up them, but only once, and at the

time he wore the rubbers. I took every pains possible to preserve and

photograph the prints, but as you see, great confusion was caused by the

second line of steps falling half on and half off the other. All I dare

read there is this: A quick run up and a quick run down by a man in

rubbers, and then a second run down by the same man in shoes. That's the

whole story. These other scraps of paper," he went on as he saw the

Inspector's eye travel to some small bits lying on the side, "are what I

have to show as the result of my search on and about the western pedestal

for finger-prints. A gloved hand drew that bow. See here: this is an

impression I obtained from the inner edge of the pedestal in question."

He pulled forward a small square of paper; the sewing of a kid glove was

plainly indicated there.

When Stevens had gone, the Inspector exclaimed meaningly:

"Gryce! Name your man; we shall get on faster."

The aged detective rose.

"I dare not," he said. "Give me one--two days. I must have time to

think--to collect my evidence. A name once mentioned leaves an echo. When

my echo rings, it must carry no false sound. Remember, I did not sleep

last night. When I present this case to you as I see it, I must be at my

best. I am not at my best to-day."

This was doubtless true, but the Inspector had not discovered it.

XII

"SPARE NOBODY! I SAY, SPARE NOBODY!"

On his way home Mr. Gryce stopped at the Calderon to inquire how Mrs.

Taylor was doing, and what his prospects were for a limited interview

with her.

He was told that no such interview could be considered for days--that she

still lay in a stupor, with brief flashes of acute consciousness, during

which she would scream "No! no!"--that brain fever was feared and that

increased excitement might be fatal.

Another bar to progress! He had hoped to help her memory into supplying

him with a fact which would greatly simplify a task whose anomalies

secretly alarmed him. She had been in a fair state of mind before her

nerve was attacked by the event which robbed the little Angeline of life

and herself of reason, and if carefully approached, might possibly recall

some of the impressions made upon her previous to that moment. If, for

instance, she could describe even in a general way the appearance of any

person she may have seen advancing in the direction of the northern

gallery at the moment she herself turned to enter the southern one, what

a stability it would give to his theory, and what certainty to his future

procedure!

But he must wait for this, as he must wait for Angeline's story from

Madame Duclos. Meantime, a word with Sweetwater--after which, rest.

It was Mr. Gryce's custom, especially when engaged upon a case of marked

importance, to receive this, his recognized factotum, in his own home. No

prying ears, no watchful eyes, were to be feared there. He was the

absolute master of everything, even of Sweetwater, he sometimes thought.

For this young fellow loved him--had reason to; and when Sweetwater

played the violin, as he sometimes did after one of their long talks, the

aged detective came as near happiness as he ever did, now that his little

grandchild was married and had gone with her husband to the other side of

the world.

To-night he was not anticipating any such relaxation as this, yet to

Sweetwater, arriving later than he wished, he had never looked more in

need of it, as, sitting in his old and somewhat dingy library, he mused

over some little object he held in his half-closed palm, with an intent,

care-worn gaze which it distressed his young subordinate to see.

Uncertainty incites the young and fires them to action; but it wearies

the old and saps what little strength they have; and Sweetwater detected

uncertainty in his patron's troubled brow and prolonged stare at the

insignificant article absorbing his attention.

However, Gryce roused quickly at the young detective's cheery greeting,

and looking up with an answering welcome, plunged at once into business.

"So you have seen Turnbull! What did the man say?"

"That it was the left-hand upper corner of the tapestry he saw shaking,

and not the right-hand one as we had blindly supposed."

"Good! Then we can take it for granted that our new theory is well

founded. Certain things have come to light in your absence. That tapestry

was pulled aside not merely for the purpose of flinging in the bow, but

to let the flinger pass through the door at its back down to the

Curator's office and so out into the court."

"Whew! And who...."

"If this fact had been made known to me sooner, you would have had a

different day's work; not getting it until late this afternoon, we have

perhaps wasted some valuable hours. But we won't fret about that. Mrs.

Taylor being no better, we are likely to have all the time we want for

substantiating my idea. It cannot take long if we succeed either in

tracing the Duclos woman or in drawing the net I am quietly

manufacturing, so closely about--well, I've decided to call him X--that

it will hold against all opposition. I have hopes of finding the woman,

but great doubts as to the efficacy of the net I have mentioned; it will

have to be so wide and deep, and so absolutely without a single weak

strand."

Sweetwater sat astonished, and what was more, silent--he who had a word

for everything. Accustomed as he was to the varying moods of his

remarkable friend, he had never before been met with a reticence so

absolute. It made him think; but for once in his life did not make him

loquacious.

Mr. Gryce seemed to be gratified by this, though he made no remark to

that effect and continued to preserve his abstracted look and quiet

demeanor. So Sweetwater waited, and while waiting managed to steal a

glimpse at the small object to which his professional friend still paid

his undivided attention.

It looked like a narrow bit of dingy black cloth--just that and nothing

more--a thing as trivial as the band which clips a closed umbrella. Was

it such a band, and would he presently be asked to find the umbrella from

which it had fallen or been twisted away? No. Umbrellas are not carried

about museum buildings. Besides, this strip of cloth had no ring on the

end of it. Consequently it could not have served the purpose he had just

ascribed to it. It must have had some other use.

But when, after an impatient flinging aside of this nondescript article,

Mr. Gryce spoke, it was to say:

"I had a long talk with Correy to-day. It seems that he goes through both

galleries every morning before the museum opens. Though he will not swear

to it, he is of the opinion that the quiver holding the Apache arrows had

its full complement when he passed it that morning. He has a way of

running things over with his eye which has never yet failed to draw his

attention to anything defective or in the least out of order."

"I see, sir," acquiesced Sweetwater in an odd tone, Mr. Gryce's attitude

showing that he awaited some expression of interest on his part.

The elder detective either did not notice the curious note in the younger

one's voice, or noticing it, chose to ignore it, for with no change of

manner he proceeded to say:

"I wish you would exercise your wits, Sweetwater, on the following

troublesome question: if the arrow which slew this young girl was in one

gallery at ten o'clock, how did it get into the other at twelve? The

bow"--here he purposely hesitated--"might have been brought up the iron

staircase. But the arrow----"

His eyes were on Sweetwater (a direct glance was a rare thing with Mr.

Gryce), and he waited--waited patiently for the word which did not come;

then he remarked dryly:

"We are both dull; you are tired with your day's work and I with mine:

we will let difficult questions rest until our brains are clearer.

But"--here he reached for the strip of dingy cloth he had cast aside, and

tossing it over to Sweetwater, added with some suggestion of humor,--"if

you want a subject to dream upon to-night, there it is. If you have no

desire to dream, and want work for to-morrow, make an effort to discover

from whose clothing that fell and what was its use. It was picked up in

Room B on the second floor, the one where Mrs. Taylor was detained before

going downstairs."

"Ah, something tangible at last!"

"I don't know about that; I honestly don't know. But we cannot afford to

let anything go by us. Little things like that have not infrequently

opened up a fresh trail which otherwise might have been missed."

Sweetwater nodded, and laying the little strip along his palm, examined

it closely. It was made of silk, doubled, and stitched together except at

the ends. These were loose, but rough with bits of severed thread, as if

the thing had been hastily cut from some article of clothing to which it

had been attached by some half-dozen very clumsy stitches.

"I think I understand you, Mr. Gryce," observed Sweetwater, rising slowly

to his feet. "But a dream may help me out; we will see."

"I shall not leave here till ten to-morrow morning."

"Very good, sir. If you don't mind, I'll take this with me."

"Take it, by all means."

As Sweetwater turned to go, he was induced by the silence of his patron

to cast a backward glance. Mr. Gryce had risen to his feet and was

leaning toward him with an evident desire to speak.

"My boy," said he, "if your dreams lead you to undertake the search I

have mentioned, spare nobody; I say, spare _nobody_."

Then he sat down; and the memory which Sweetwater carried away with him

of the old detective at the moment he uttered this final injunction was

far from being a cheerful one.

XIII

"WRITE ME HIS NAME"

Refreshed by a good night's rest and quite ready to take up his task

again, Mr. Gryce sat at the same table in the early morning, awaiting the

expected message from Sweetwater. Meanwhile he studied, with a fuller

attention than he had been able to give it the evening before, the

memorandum which this young fellow had handed him of his day's work. A

portion of this may be interesting to the reader. Against the list of

people registered on his chart as present in the museum at the moment of

tragedy, he had inscribed such details concerning them as he could gather

in the short time allotted him.

* * * * *

I--Ephraim Short. A sturdy New Englander visiting New York for the first

time. Has a big story to take back. Don't care much for broken marbles

and pictures so dingy you cannot tell what you are looking at; but the

sight of a lot of folks standing up like scarecrows in a field, here and

there all over a great building, because something had happened to

somebody, will make a story the children will listen to for years.

Address taken, and account of himself verified by telegraph.

II--Mrs. Lynch. Widow, with a small house in Jersey and money to support

it. No children. Interested in church work. Honest and of reliable

character. Only fault a physical one--extreme nervousness.

III--Mr. Carleton Roberts, director; active in his work, member of the

Union League and an aspirant for the high office of U. S. Senator. Lives

in bachelor apartment, 67 W. ---- Street. A universally respected man of

unquestioned integrity and decided importance. Close friend of Curator

Jewett.

IV--Eben Clarke, door-man. Been long in the employ of museum. Considered

entirely trustworthy. Home in decent quarter of West 80th Street. Wife

and nine children, mostly grown. Never been abroad. Has no foreign

correspondence.

V--Emma Sutton, an art enthusiast, gaining her living by copying old

masters. Is at museum six days in the week. It was behind her easel

Travis found a hiding-place in Room H.

VI--Mrs. Alice Lee, widowed sister of Edward Cronk Tailor, ---- Sixth

Ave. Lives with brother. Kindly in disposition, much liked and truthful

to a fault. No acquaintance abroad.

VII-VIII--John and Mary Draper, husband and wife, living in East Orange,

N. J. Decent, respectable folk with no foreign connections.

IX--Hetty Armstrong, young girl, none too bright but honest to the core.

Impossible to connect her with this affair.

X--Charles Simpson, resident of Minneapolis. In town on business, stopping

at Hotel St. Denis. Eager to return home, but willing to remain if

requested to do so. Hates foreigners; thinks the United States the

greatest country on earth.

XI--John Turnbull, college professor; one of the new type, alert,

observant and extremely precise. Not apt to make a misstatement.

XII--James Hunter, door-man, a little old for his work, but straight as

a string and methodical to a fault. No wife, no child. Bank account more

than sufficient for his small wants.

XIII--Miss Charlotte Hunsicker, one of last season's débutantes. Given to

tennis and all outdoor sports generally. Offhand but stanch. It was she

who gave a woman's care to Mrs. Taylor when the latter fainted in Room B.

XIV--Museum attendant coming up from basement.

XV--Eliza Blake a school-teacher, convalescing after a long illness.

XVI--Officer Rudd.

XVII--Tommy Evans, boy scout. Did not lose his game. Went to the field

after lunching on pie at a bakery.

XVIII--Mrs. Nathaniel Lord, wealthy widow, living at the St. Regis.

XIX--Mrs. Ermentrude Taylor. (Nothing to add to what is already known.)

XX--Henry Abbott, Columbia student, good-hearted and reliable, but living

in a world of his own to such an extent as to make him the butt of his

fellow students.

XXI-XXII--Young couple from Haverstraw. Just married. He a drug-clerk,

she a farmer's daughter. Both regarded in their home town as harmless.

XXIII--James Correy, attendant. Bachelor, living with widowed mother.

Fair record on the whole. Reprimanded once, not for negligence, but for

some foolish act unbecoming his position. Thorough acquaintance with the

museum and its exhibits. A valuable man, well liked, notwithstanding the

one lapse alluded to. At home and among his friends regarded as the best

fellow going. A little free, perhaps, when unduly excited, but not given

to drink and very fond of games. A member once of a club devoted to

contests with foils and target-shooting. Always champion. Visits a

certain young lady three times a week.

XXIV--Curator Jewett. A widower with two grandchildren--a daughter

married to an Englishman and living in Ringold, Hants, and a son, owner

of a large ranch in California. Lives, when in city, at Hotel Gorham.

Known too well for any description of himself or character to be

necessary here. If he has a fault, or rather a weakness, it is his

extreme pride in the museum and his own conduct of its many affairs.

As on the evening before, Mr. Gryce lingered longest over one name. He

was still brooding anxiously over it when the telephone rang at his

elbow and he was called up from Headquarters. Cablegrams had been

received from London and Paris in acknowledgment of those sent, and in

both these cablegrams promises were made of a full examination into the

antecedents of Madame Duclos and her companion, Miss Willetts.

That was all. No further news regarding them from any quarter. Mr. Gryce

hung up the receiver with a sigh.

"It is likely to be a long road full of unexpected turns and perilously

near the precipice's edge," he muttered in weary comment to himself.

"Nothing to start from but----"

Here Sweetwater walked in.

Mr. Gryce showed surprise. He had not expected to see the young man

himself. Perhaps he was not quite ready to, for he seemed to shrink, for

one brief instant, as from an unwelcome presence.

But the cheer which always entered with Sweetwater was contagious,

and the old detective smiled as the newcomer approached, saying

significantly:

"I had those dreams you spoke of last night, Mr. Gryce, and found them

too weighty for the telephone."

"I see, I see! Sit down, Sweetwater, and tell me how they ran. I haven't

as much confidence in my own dreams as I hope to have in yours. Speak

up! Mention names, if you want to. No echo follows confidences uttered in

this room."

"I know that; but for the present perhaps it will be best for me to

follow your lead, and when I have to speak of a certain person, say X as

you do. X, Mr. Gryce, is the man who for reasons we do not yet understand

brought up the discarded bow from the cellar and stored it somewhere

within reach on the floor above. X is also the man who for the same

unknown reason robbed the quiver hanging in the southern gallery of one

of its arrows and kept the same on hand or in hiding, till he could mate

it with the bow. My dreams showed me this picture:

"A man with a predominating interest in sport, but otherwise active in

business, correct in his dealings and respectable in private life, sees

and frequently handles weapons of ancient and modern make which rouse his

interest and awaken the longing, common to such men, to test his skill in

their use. Sometimes it is a sword, which he twirls vigorously in sly

corners. Again, it is a bow calling for a yeoman's strength to pull. He

is a man of sense and for a long time goes no further than the play I

have just indicated. Perhaps he has no temptation to go further until one

unfortunate day he comes upon an idle bow, rotting away in the cellar."

Here Mr. Gryce looked sharply up--a proof of awakened interest which

Sweetwater did not heed. Possibly he was not expected to. At all events

he continued rapidly:

"It was a fine, strong bow, a typical one from the plains. He took it

up--examined it closely--noted a slight defect in it somewhere--and put

it back. But he did not forget it. Before many days had passed, he goes

down cellar again and brings it up and stands it on end in--where do you

think, sir?--in the closet of the Curator's office!"

"How did you learn that?"

"From the woman who comes every day to wipe up the floors. I happened to

think she might have something worth while to tell us, so I hunted her

up----"

"Go on, boy. Another long mark in your favor."

"Thank you, sir. I'm relating a dream, you know. He stands it on end then

in this closet into which nobody is supposed to go but the Curator _and_

the scrubwoman, and there he leaves it, possibly as yet with no definite

intention. How long it stood there I cannot say. It was well hidden, it

seems, by something or other hanging over it. Nor am I altogether sure

that it might not be standing there yet if the impulse swaying X had not

been strengthened by seeing daily over his head a quiver full of arrows

admirably fitted for this bow. Time has no place in dreams, or I might be

able to state the day and the hour when he stood looking at the ring of

keys lying on the Curator's desk, and struck with what it might do for

him, singled out one of the keys which he placed in the keyhole of a door

opening upon a certain little iron staircase. He was alone, but he

stopped to listen before turning that key. I can see him, can't you? His

air is a guilty one; but it is the guilt of folly, not of premeditated

crime. He wants a try at that bow and recognizes his weakness and laughs.

"But his longing holds, and running up the little staircase to a second

door, he unlocks this also and after another moment of hesitation pulls

it open. He has brought the bow with him, but he does not take it past

the drapery hanging straight down before his eyes. He simply drops it in

the doorway and leaves it there within easy reach from the gallery if

ever his impulse should be strong enough to lead him to make an attempt

at striking a feather from the Indian headdress on the other side of the

court. You think him mad. So do I, but dreams are filled with that kind

of madness; and when I see him shut the door upon this bow, and steal

back without relocking it or the one below, I have no other excuse than

this to give in answer to your criticisms."

"I do not criticise; I listen, Sweetwater."

"You will criticise now. As Bunyan says in his 'Pilgrim's Progress': 'I

dreamed again!' This time I saw the museum proper. It was filled with

visitors. The morning of May twenty-second was a busy one, I am told, and

a whole lot of people, singly and in groups, were continually passing up

and down the marble steps and along the two galleries. Partaking of the

feelings of the one whose odd impulses I am endeavoring to describe, I

was very uneasy and very restless until these crowds had thinned and most

of the guests vanished from the building. The hands of the clock were

stealing toward twelve--the hour of greatest quiet and fewest visitors.

As it reached the quarter mark, I saw what I was looking for, the man X

reaching for one of those arrows hanging in the southern gallery, and

slipping it inside his coat.--Did you speak, sir?"

No, Mr. Gryce had not spoken; and Sweetwater, after an interval of

uncertainty, went quietly on:

"As I saw both of his hands quite free the next minute, I judge that

something had been attached to the lining of that coat to hold the arrow

by its feathered head. But this is a deduction rather than a fact."

He stopped abruptly. An exclamation--one of Mr. Gryce's very own--had

left that gentleman's lips, and Sweetwater felt that he must pause if

only for an instant, to enjoy his small triumph. But the delay was short.

"Go on," said Mr. Gryce; and Sweetwater obeyed, but in lowered tones as

though the vision he was describing was actually before his eyes.

"Next, I see a sweep of tapestry, and an eager, peering figure passing

slowly across it. It is that of the love-lorn Travis watching his

inamorata tripping up the marble staircase and turning at its top in the

direction of the opposite gallery. His is a timid soul, and anxious as he

is to watch her, he is not at all anxious to be detected in the act of

doing so. So he slips behind the huge pedestal towering near him, thus

causing the whole gallery to appear empty to the eyes of X, now entering

it at the other end. This latter has come there with but one idea in his

head--to shoot an arrow across the court at the mark I have mentioned. It

may have been on a dare--sometimes I think it was; but shoot it he means

to, before a fresh crowd collects.

"He already has, as you will remember, the arrow hidden somewhere about

his person, and it is only a few steps to the edge of the tapestry behind

which he has secreted the bow. If he takes a look opposite, it is at the

moment when both Mrs. Taylor and Miss Willetts are screened from his view

by one of the partitions separating the various sections. For unless he

felt the way to be free for his arrow, he would never have proceeded to

slip behind his chosen pedestal, secure the bow, pause to string it, then

crouch for his aim in such apparent confidence. For after he has left the

open gallery and limited his outlook to what is visible beyond the

loophole through which he intends to shoot, he can see--as we know from

Mr. La Flèche--little more than the spot where the cap hangs and the one

narrow line between. Unhappily, it was across this line the young girl

leaped just as the arrow left the bow. Don't you see it, sir? I do; and I

see what follows, too."

"The escape of X?"

"Yes. Inadvertently, as you see, he has committed a horrible crime; he

can never recall it. Whatever his remorse or shame, nothing will ever

restore the victim of his folly to life, while he himself has many days

before him--days which would be ruined if his part in this tragedy were

known. Shall he confess to it, then, or shall he fly (the way is so

easy), and leave it to fate to play his game--fate, whose well-known

kindness to fools would surely favor him? It does not take long for such

thoughts to pass through a man's head, and before the dying cry of his

innocent victim had ceased to echo through those galleries, he is behind

the tapestry and on his way toward the court. Beyond that, my dream does

not go. How about yours, sir?"

"My dream was of a crime, not of an accident. No man could be such a fool

as you have made out this X of yours to be. Only an extraordinary purpose

or some imperious necessity could drive a man to shoot an arrow across an

open court where people were passing hither and yon, even if he didn't

see anyone in the gallery."

"By which you mean----"

"That he had already marked the approach of his victim and was ready with

his weapon."

"You are undoubtedly right, and I only wish to say this: that the purpose

in my relation was merely to show the method and manner of this shooting,

leaving _you_ to put on the emphasis of crime if you saw fit."

The gravity with which Mr. Gryce received this suggestion had the effect

of slightly embarrassing Sweetwater. Yet he presently ventured to add

after a moment of respectful waiting:

"Did you know that after I woke from my dream I had a moment's doubt as

to its accuracy on one point? The bow was undoubtedly flung behind the

curtain, but the man----"

He paused abruptly. A morsel of clean white paper had just been pushed

across the table under his eyes, and a peremptory voice was saying:

"Write me his name. I will do the same for you."

XIV

A LOOP OF SILK

Sweetwater hesitated.

"I am very fond of the one of your own choosing," he smiled, "but if you

insist----"

Mr. Gryce was already writing.

In another moment the two slips were passed in exchange across the table.

Instantly, a simultaneous exclamation left the lips of both.

Each read a name he was in no wise prepared to see. They had been

following diverging lines instead of parallel ones; and it took some few

minutes for them to adjust themselves to this new condition.

Then Mr. Gryce spoke:

"What led you into loading up Correy with an act which to accept as true

would oblige us to deny every premise we have been at such pains to

establish?"

"Because--and I hope you will pardon me, Mr. Gryce, since our conclusions

are so different--I found it easier to attribute this deed of folly--or

crime, if we can prove it such--to a man young in years than to one old

enough to know better."

"Very good; that is undoubtedly an excellent reason."

As this was said with an accent we will for want of a better word call

_dry_, Sweetwater, hardy as he was, flushed to his ears. But then any

prick from Mr. Gryce went very deep with him.

"Perhaps," he ventured, "you will give even less indulgence to what I

have to add in way of further excuse."

"I shall have to hear it first."

"Correy is a sport, an incorrigible one; it is his only weakness. He

bets like an Englishman--not for the money, for the sums he risks are

small, but for the love of it--the fun--the transient excitement It

might be"--here Sweetwater's words came slowly and with shamefaced

pauses--"that the shooting of that arrow--I believe I said something like

this before--was the result of a dare."

A halt took place in the quick tattoo which Mr. Gryce's fingers were

drumming out on the table-top. It was infinitesimal in length, but it

gave Sweetwater courage to add:

"Then, I hear that he wishes to marry a rich girl and shrinks from

proposing to her on account of his small salary."

"What has that got to do with it?"

"Nothing so far as I can see. I am only elaborating the meager report

lying there under your hand. But I recognize my folly. You ordered me

to dream, and I did so. Cannot we forget my unworthy vaporings and enter

upon the consideration of what may prove more profitable?"

Here he glanced down at the slip of paper he himself held--the slip which

Mr. Gryce had handed him with a single word written on it, and that word

a name.

"In a moment," was Mr. Gryce's answer. "First explain to me how, with the

facts all in mind, and your chart before your eyes, you reconciled

Correy's position on the side staircase two minutes after the shooting

with your theory of a quick escape to the court by means of the door back

of the tapestry? Haven't you hurried matters to get him so far in such a

short space of time?"

"Mr. Gryce, I have heard you say yourself that this question of time has

been, from the first, our greatest difficulty. Even with these three

means of escape in our minds, it is difficult to see how it was possible

for anyone to get from the gallery to the court in the minute or so

elapsing between the cry of the dying girl and the appearance at her side

of the man studying coins in the adjoining section."

"You are right. There was a delay somewhere, as we shall find later on.

But granting this delay, a man would have to move fast to go the full

length of the court from the Curator's room even in the time which this

small delay might afford him. But perhaps you cut this inextricable knot

by locating Correy somewhere else than where he placed himself at the

making of the chart."

"No, I cut it in another way. You remember my starting to tell you just

now how, in my dissatisfaction with a certain portion of my dream, I

refused to believe in the escape of my Mr. X by the way of the Curator's

office. The tapestry was lifted, the bow flung behind, but the man

stepped back instead of forward. An open flight along the gallery

commended itself more to him than the doubtful one previously arranged

for. If you will accept that for fact, which of course you will not, it

is easy to see how Correy might have been somewhere on that staircase

when the inspiration came to turn the appearance of flight into a show

of his own innocence, by a quick rush back into the further gallery

and a consequent loud-mouthed alarm. But I see that I am but getting

deeper and deeper in the quagmire of a bad theory badly stated. I am

forgetting----"

"Many things, Sweetwater. I will only mention a very simple one. The

man who shot the arrow wore gloves. You wouldn't attribute any such

extraordinary precaution as that to a fellow shooting an arrow across

the court on a dare?"

"You wouldn't expect it, sir. But in going about the museum that

afternoon, I came upon Correy's coat hanging on its peg. In one of its

pockets was a pair of kid gloves."

"You say the fellow is courting a rich girl," suggested Mr. Gryce. "Under

those circumstances some show of vanity is excusable. Certainly he would

not carry his folly so far as to put on gloves for the shooting match

with which you credit him, unless there was criminal intent back of his

folly--which, of course, would be as hard for you as for me to believe."

Sweetwater winced, but noting the kindly twinkle with which Mr. Gryce

softened the bitterness of this lesson, he brightened again and listened

with becoming patience as the old man went on to say:

"To discuss probabilities in connection with this other name seems futile

this morning. The ease with which one can twist the appearances of things

to fit a preconceived theory as exemplified by the effort you have just

made warns us to be chary of pushing one's idea too far without the

firmest of bases to support it. If you find a man's coat showing

somewhere on its lining evidences that there had once been sewed to it a

loop of the exact dimensions of the one I passed over to you last night,

I should consider it a much more telling clue to the personality of X

than a pair of gloves in the pocket of a man who in all probability

intends to finish up the day with a call on the girl he admires."

"I understand." Sweetwater was quite himself again. "But do you know that

this is no easy task you are giving me, Mr. Gryce. Where a man has but

two coats, or three at best, it might not be so hard, perhaps, to get at

them. But some men have a dozen, and if I don't mistake----"

"Sweetwater, I meant to give you a task of no little difficulty. It will

keep you out of mischief."

XV

NEWS FROM FRANCE

For the next three days the impatience of the public met with nothing

but disappointment. The police were reticent,--more reticent far than

usual,--and the papers, powerless to add to the facts already published,

had little but conjectures to offer.

The hunt for Madame Duclos continued, joined in now by the general

public. But for all the efforts made, aided by a careful search through

her entire baggage, there was as little known concerning her as on the

morning of her disappearance.

Nor did any better success follow the exhibition at the morgue of the

poor little victim's innocent body. The mystery covering the whole affair

seemed to be impenetrable, and the rush made on the museum upon its first

reopening to the public was such as to lead to its being closed again

till some limit could be put upon the attendance.

And thus matters stood when one morning the country was startled, and

the keenest interest again aroused in this remarkable case, by an

announcement received from France to the effect that the young lady so

unfortunately killed in one of the public buildings in New York City was,

from the description sent, not the ward of the woman Antoinette Duclos,

but her own child, Angeline Duclos. That the two were well known in St.

Pierre sur Loire, where they had lived for many years in the relationship

mentioned. At the convent where she was educated, she had been registered

under the name of Duclos--also at the hotel where she and her mother had

spent a few days before leaving for England. Though of pure French

descent, the father being a Breton, they could not furnish her

birth-certificate, as she had not been born in France. According to the

records to be seen at the convent, the father, Achille Duclos, was a

professor of languages, whom her mother had met in England and married in

France before going to the States. So far as known, their story was a

simple one, affording no reason, so far as could be learned, for any

change of name on the part of the young woman, in her visit to America.

This was supplemented by a word from Scotland Yard, England, received a

few hours after the other, to the effect that Madame Duclos and Miss

Willetts arrived at the Ritz from Dover, on the morning of May 16th, and

left the next morning for Southampton. They spent the evening at the

theater with friends who called for them in a public automobile. These

people had not been found, but they had been advertised for and might yet

show up. Nothing more could be learned of either of them.

Now here was an astonishing discovery! That two women known and

recognized as mother and daughter in France should pass for unrelated

companions on leaving that country to enter ours. What were we Americans

to think of this, especially in the light of the tragic event which so

soon terminated this companionship.

That the French records, imperfect as they were, were to be relied upon

as stating the truth as to the exact nature of the connection between

these two, there could be no doubt. But granting this, what fresh

complexities were thus brought into an affair already teeming with

incongruities--nay, absolute contradictions.

Madame Duclos' conduct, as shown toward her young charge, had seemed

sufficiently strange and inconsistent when looked upon as that of

governess or guardian. But for a mother, and a French mother at that, to

allow a young and inexperienced girl to go alone to a strange museum on

the very day of their arrival, and then, with or without knowledge of

what had happened to her there, to efface herself by flight without

promise of return, was inconceivable to anyone acquainted with the most

ordinary of French conventions.

Some sinister secret, despite the seeming harmlessness of their lives,

must hide behind such unnatural conduct! Was it one connected with or

entirely dissociated from the tragedy which had terminated the poor

child's existence? This was the great question. This was what gave new

zest to the search for the dark-skinned Frenchwoman, with her drooping

eyelid and hesitating walk, and led Sweetwater to whisper into Gryce's

ear, as they stepped out that same day from Headquarters:

"No more nonsense now. We must find that woman or her dead body before

the next twenty-four hours have elapsed. With our fingers on that end of

the string----"

"We will get hold of some family secret, but not of the immediate one

which especially concerns us. Madame Duclos sent her daughter unattended

to the museum, but she did not direct the shaft which killed her. That

was the work of our friend X. Let us then make sure that we fit the right

man to this algebraic symbol, and trust to her testimony to convict him."

By this time they had reached the taxi which was to convey Mr. Gryce

home. But though Sweetwater lent his arm to help the old man in, he did

it with such an air of hesitation that it caused the other to remark:

"You have not ended your argument. There is something more you want to

say. What is it? Speak up."

"No, no. I am quite satisfied, so far as the Duclos matter is concerned.

It is only--would you mind stepping aside for a moment till I tell you a

bit of gossip which has just come to my ears? Thank you, sir. Forbes is

all right" (Forbes was the chauffeur), "but confidences are sacred and

this thing was told me in confidence."

The humorous twist of his features as he said this quite transformed his

very plain countenance. Mr. Gryce, noting it, began to stare at the first

isolated object handy, which in this case happened to be the crooked end

of his umbrella--a sign, to those who knew him well, of awakened

interest.

"Well? Let's hear," he said.

"It doesn't sound like much; but it will probably be news to you, as it

certainly was to me. It's this, Mr. Gryce: A certain gentleman we know

has been contemplating matrimony; but since this accident happened at the

museum,--that is, within the last two days,--the engagement has been

broken off."

"So! But I thought he had not got so far as an engagement. You mean young

Correy----"

"No, Mr. Gryce, I do not. I mean--_the other_."

"The other! Well, that's worth listening to. Engaged, eh, and now all of

a sudden free again? At whose instance, Sweetwater, his or hers? Did you

hear?"

"Not exactly, but--it's quite a story, sir. I had it from his chauffeur

and will tell it to you later if you are in a hurry to go home."

"Home! Come back with me into Headquarters. I've got to sleep to-night."

Sweetwater laughed, and together they retraced their steps.

"You see, sir," the young detective began as they drew their chairs

together in an unoccupied corner, "you gave me a task the other day which

called for the help of a friend--one at court, I mean, a fellow who not

only knows the gentleman but has access to his person _and_ his wardrobe.

X does not keep a man-servant--men of his intellectual type seldom

do--but does own a limousine and consequently employs a chauffeur. To

meet and make this chauffeur mine took me just two days. I don't know how

I did it. I never know how I do it," he added with a sheepish smile as

Mr. Gryce gave utterance to his old-fashioned "Umph!" "I don't flatter

and I don't bring out my pocketbook or offer drinks or even cigars, but

I get 'em, as you know, and get 'em strong, perhaps because I don't make

any great effort.

"After an evening spent in the garage with this man, he was ready to

talk, and this is what slipped out, among a lot of nonsensical gossip.

Mr. X, the real Mr. X this time, has, besides his apartment in New

York, a place on Long Island. The latter has been recently bought and,

though fine enough, is being added to and refitted as no man at his age

would take the trouble of doing, if he hadn't a woman in mind. The

chauffeur--Holmes is his name--is no fool, and has seen for some time

that Mr. X, for all his goings to and fro and the many calls he is in the

habit of making on a certain young lady, did not expect him--that is,

Holmes--to notice anything beyond the limits of his work, or to recognize

in any way his employer's secret intentions. But fortunately for us, this

man Holmes is just one of those singularly meddlesome people whose

curiosity grows with every attempt at repression; and when, coincident

with that disastrous happening at the museum, all these loverlike

attentions ceased and no calls were made and no presents sent, and gloom

instead of cheer marked his employer's manner, he made up his mind to

sacrifice a portion of his dignity rather than endure the fret of a

mystery he did not understand. This meant not only keeping his eyes

open,--this he had always done,--but his ears as well.

"The young lady, whose name he never mentioned, lives not in the city but

in that same Long Island village where Mr. X's country-house is in the

process of renovation. If he, Holmes, should ever be so fortunate as to

be ordered to drive there again, he knew of a gravel walk running under

the balcony where the two often sat. He would make the acquaintance of

that gravel walk instead of sitting out the hour somewhere in the rear,

as he had hitherto been accustomed to do. What's the use of having ears

if you don't use them? Nobody would be any the worse, and his mind would

be at rest.

"And do you know, sir, that he did actually carry this cowardly

resolution through. There came a night--I think it was Tuesday--when the

order came, and they took the road to Belport. Not a word did his

employer utter the whole way. Solemn and still he sat, and when they

arrived he descended without a word, rang the bell and entered the house.

It was very warm, that night, Holmes said, and before long he heard the

glass doors open onto the balcony, and knew that his wished-for chance

had come. Leaving the limousine, he crept around to secure a place among

the bushes, and what he heard while there seemed to compensate him for

what he called his loss of dignity. The young girl was crying, and the

man was talking to her kindly enough but in a way to end whatever hopes

she may have had.

"Holmes heard him say: 'It cannot be, now. Circumstances have changed for

me lately, and much as I regret it I must ask you to be so good as to

forgive me for giving up our plans.' Then he offered her money,--an

annuity, I believe they call it,--but she cried out at that, saying it

was love she wanted, to be petted and cared for--money she could do

without. When he showed himself again in front, he was stiffer and more

solemn than ever, and said 'Home,' in a dreary way which made the

chauffeur feel decidedly uncomfortable.

"Of course Holmes is quite blind to what this all means, but you may

possibly see some connection between this sudden act of sacrifice on X's

part and the work of the arrow. At all events, I thought you ought to

know that Mr. X's closet holds a skeleton which he will doubtless take

every pains to keep securely locked from general view. Holmes says that

his last word to the disappointed girl was in the way of warning. No

mention of this break in their plans was to be made without his

sanction."

"Good work, Sweetwater! You have strengthened my hands wonderfully. Does

this fellow Holmes know you for a police-detective?"

"Indeed not, sir. That would be fatal to our friendship, I am sure. I

haven't even let him discover that what he was burning to tell had any

especial interest for me. I let him ramble on with just a word here and

there to show I wasn't bored. He hasn't an idea----"

"Very good. Now, what do you propose to do next?"

"To take up my residence in Belport."

"Why Belport?"

"Because X proposes to move there, bag and baggage, this very week."

"Before his house is done?"

"Yes. He hates the city. Wants to have an eye to the changes being made.

Perhaps he thinks a little work of this kind may distract him."

"And you?"

"Was a master carpenter once, you know."

"I see."

"And have a friend on the spot who promises to recommend me."

"Are workmen wanted there?"

"A good one, very much."

"I'm sure you'll fill the bill."

"I shall try to, sir."

"But for the risk you run of being recognized, I should bet on you,

Sweetwater."

"I know; people will not forget the unfortunate shape of my nose."

"You were up and down the museum for hours. He must know your face like a

book."

"It can't be helped, I shall keep out of sight as much as possible

whenever he is around. I am an expert workman in the line wanted. I

understand my trade, and he will see that I do and doubt his eyes rather

than stretch probabilities to the point of connecting me with the Force.

Besides, I get quite another expression when my hands get in touch with

the wood; and I can look a man in the eye, if I have to, without a quiver

of self-consciousness. His will drop before mine will."

"Your name as carpenter?"

"Jacob Shott. It's the name by which Holmes already knows me."

"Well, well, the game may be worth the candle. You can soon tell. I will

keep you posted."

The rest was business with which we need not concern ourselves.