III
"I HAVE SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU"
Mr. Gryce took advantage of the momentary disturbance to slip from theroom. He was followed by the Curator, who seemed more than ever anxiousto talk.
"You see! Mad as a March hare!" was his hurried exclamation as the doorclosed behind them. "I declare I do not know which I pity more, hervictim or herself. The one is freed from all her troubles; the other--Doyou think we ought to have a doctor to look after her? Shall Itelephone?"
"Not yet. We have much to learn before taking any decided steps." Then ashe caught the look of amazement with which this unexpected suggestion ofdifficulties was met, he paused on his way to the stair-head to ask in atentative way peculiarly his own: "Then you still think the girl diedfrom a thrust given by this woman?"
"Of course. What else is there to think? You saw where the arrow camefrom. You saw that the only bow the place contained was hanging high andunstrung upon the wall, and you are witness to this woman's irresponsiblecondition of mind. The sight of those arrows well within her reachevidently aroused the homicidal mania often latent in one of her highlyemotional nature; and when this fresh young girl came by, the naturalresult followed. I only hope I shall not be called upon to face the poorchild's parents. What can I say to them? What can anybody say? Yet I donot see how we can be held responsible for so unprecedented an attack asthis, do you?"
Mr. Gryce made no answer. He had turned his back toward the stair-headand was wondering if this easy explanation of a tragedy so peculiar as tohave no prototype in all of the hundreds of cases he had been called uponto investigate in a long life of detective activity would satisfy all theother persons then in the building. It was his present business to findout--to search and probe among the dozen or two people he saw collectedbelow, for the witness who had seen or had heard some slight thing as yetunrevealed which would throw a different light upon this matter. For hismind--or shall we say the almost unerring instinct of this ancient delverinto human hearts?--would not accept without question this theory ofsudden madness in one of Mrs. Taylor's appearance, strange andinexplicable as her conduct seemed. Though it was quite among thepossibilities that she had struck the fatal blow and in the mannermentioned, it was equally clear to his mind that she had not done it inan access of frenzy. He knew a mad eye and he knew a despairing one.Fantastic as her story certainly was, he found himself more ready tobelieve it than to accept any explanation of this crime which ascribedits peculiar features to the irresponsibilities of lunacy.
However, he kept his impressions to himself and in his anxiety to pursuehis inquiries among the people below, was on the point of descendingthither, when he found his attention arrested, and that of the Curator'sas well, by the sight of a young man hastening toward them through thenorthern gallery. (The tragedy, as you will remember, had occurred in thesouthern one.) He was dressed in the uniform of the museum, and moved soquickly and in such an evident flurry of spirits that the detectiveinstinctively asked:
"Who's that? One of your own men?"
"Yes, that's Correy, our best-informed and most-trusted attendant. Looksas if he had something to tell us. Well, Correy, what is it?" he queriedas the man emerged upon the landing where they stood. "Anything new? Ifthere is, speak out plainly. Mr. Gryce is anxious for all the evidence hecan get."
With an ingenuousness rather pleasing than otherwise to the man thuspresented to his notice, the young fellow stopped short and subjected thefamous detective to a keen and close scrutiny before venturing to givethe required information.
Was it because of the importance of what he had to communicate? It wouldseem so, from the suppressed excitement of his tone, as after his briefbut exceedingly satisfactory survey, he jerked his finger over hisshoulder in the direction from which he had come, with the short remark:
"I have something to show you."
Something! Mr. Gryce had been asking for this something only a momentbefore. We can imagine, then, the celerity with which he followed thisnew guide into the one spot of all others which possessed for him thegreatest interest. For if by any chance the arrow which had done suchdeadly work had been sped from a bow instead of having been used as adart, then it was from this gallery and from no other quarter of thebuilding that it had been so sped. Any proof of this could have but theone effect of exonerating from all blame the woman who had so impressedhim. He had traversed the first section and had entered the second, whenthe Curator joined him; together they passed into the third.
For those who have not visited this museum, a more detailed descriptionof these galleries may be welcome. Acting as a means of communicationbetween the row of front rooms and those at the back, they also serve toexhibit certain choice articles which call for little space, and are of anature more or less ornamental. For this purpose they are each dividedinto five sections connected by arches narrower but not less decorativethan those which open in a direct row upon the court. Of these sectionsthe middle one on either side is much larger than the rest; otherwisethey do not differ.
It was in the midst of this larger section that Correy now stood,awaiting their approach. There had been show-cases filled with rareexhibits in the two through which they had just passed, but in this onethere was nothing to be seen but a gorgeous hanging, covering very nearlythe whole wall, flanked at either end by a pedestal upholding a vase ofinestimable value and corresponding ugliness. A highly decorativearrangement, it is true, but in what lay its interest for the criminalinvestigator?
Correy was soon to show them. With a significant gesture toward thetapestry, he eagerly exclaimed:
"You see that? I've run by it several times since the accident sent meflying all over the building at everybody's call. But only just now, whenI had a moment to myself, did I remember the door hid behind it. It's adoor we no longer use, and I'd no reason for thinking it had anything todo with the killing of the young lady in the opposite gallery. But forall that I felt it would do no harm to give it a look, and running fromthe front, where I happened to be, I pulled out the tapestry and saw--butsupposing I wait and let you see for yourselves. That will be better."
Leaving them where they stood face to face with the great hanging, hemade a dive for the pedestal towering aloft at the farther end, andedging himself in behind it, drew out the tapestry from the wall, callingon them as he did so to come and look behind it. The Curator did nothesitate. He was there almost as soon as the young man himself.
But the detective was not so hasty. With a thousand things in mind, hestopped to peer along the gallery and down into the court before givinghimself away to any prying eye. Satisfied that he might make the desiredmove with impunity, Mr. Gryce was about to turn in the desired directionwhen, struck by a new fact, he again stopped short.
He had noticed how the heavy tapestry shivered under Correy's clutch. Hadthis been observed by anyone besides himself? If by chance some personwandering about the court had been looking up--but no, the few peoplegathered there stood too far forward to see what was going on in thispart of the gallery; and relieved from all further anxiety on this score,he joined Correy at the pedestal and at a word from him succeeded insqueezing himself around it into the small space they had left for himbetween the pushed-out hanging and the wall. An exclamation from theCurator, who had only waited for his coming to take his first look, addedzest to his own scrutiny. It would take something more than the sight ofa well-known door to give it such a tone of astonished discovery. What?Even he, with the accumulated surprises of years to give wings to hisimagination, did not succeed in guessing. But when his eyes, onceaccustomed to the semi-darkness of the narrow space which Correy had thusopened out before him, saw not the door but what lay within its recess,he acknowledged to himself that he should have guessed--and that a dozenyears before, he certainly would have done so.
It was a _bow_--not like the one hanging high in the Apache exhibit, butyet a bow strong of make and strung for use.
* * * * *
Here wa
s a discovery as important as it was unexpected, eliminating Mrs.Taylor at once from the case and raising it into a mystery of the firstorder. By dint of long custom, Mr. Gryce succeeded in hiding his extremesatisfaction, but not the perplexity into which he was thrown by thiscomplete change of base. The Curator appeared to be impressed in much thesame way, and shook his head in a doubtful fashion when Correy asked himif he recognized the bow as belonging to the museum.
"I should have to see it nearer to answer that question with any sort ofconfidence," he demurred. "From such glimpses as I can get of it fromhere I should say that it has not been taken from any of our exhibits."
"I am sure it has not," muttered Correy. Then with a side glance at Mr.Gryce, he added: "Shall I slip in behind and get it?"
The detective, thus appealed to, hesitated a moment; then with anirrelevance perhaps natural to the occasion, he inquired where this doorso conveniently hidden from the general view led to. It was the Curatorwho answered.
"To a twisting, breakneck staircase opening directly into my office. Butthis door has not been used in years. See! Here is the key to it on myown ring. There is no other. I lost the mate to it myself not long aftermy installation here."
The detective, working his way back around the pedestal, cast anotherglance up and down the gallery and over into the court. Still no spyingeye, save that of the officer opposite.
"We will leave that bow where it is for the present," he decided, "asecret between us three." And motioning for Correy to let the tapestryfall, he stood watching it settle into place, till it hung quite straightagain, with its one edge close to the wall and the other sweeping thefloor. Had its weight been great enough to push the bow back again intoits former place close against the door? Yes. No eye, however trained,would, from any bulge in the heavy tapestry, detect its presence there.He could leave the spot without fear; their secret would remain theirsuntil such time as they chose to disclose it.
As the three walked back the way they had come, the Curator glancedearnestly at the detective, who seemed to have fallen into a kind ofanxious dream. Would it do to interrupt him with questions? Would heobtain a straight answer if he did? The old man moved heavily but the nowfully alert Curator could not fail to see that it was with the heavinessof absorbed thought. Dare he disturb that thought? They had both reachedthe broad corridor separating the two galleries at the western end beforehe ventured to remark:
"This discovery alters matters, does it not? May I ask what you proposeto do now? Anything in which we can help you?"
1--Ephraim Short.2--Mrs. Lynch.3--Director Roberts.4--Door-man.5--Copyist.6--Mrs. Alice Lee.7-8--Mr. and Mrs. Draper.9--Mr. Coit.10--Mr. Simpson.11--Prof. Turnbull.12--Second Door-man.13--Miss Hunsicker.14--Attendant.15--Miss Blake.16--Officer.]
The detective may have heard him and he may not; at all events he made noreply though he continued to advance with a mechanical step until hestood again at the top of the marble steps leading down into the court.Here some of the uncertainty pervading his mind seemed to leave him,though he still looked very old and very troubled, or so the Curatorthought, as pausing there, he allowed his glance to wander from themarble recesses below to the galleries on either side of him, and fromthese on to the seemingly empty spaces back of the high, carved railingguarding the great well. Would a younger man have served them better? Itbegan to look so; then without warning and in a flash, as it were, thewhole appearance of the octogenarian detective changed, and turning witha smile to the two men so anxiously watching him, he exclaimed with anair of quiet triumph:
"I have it. Follow and see how my plan works."
Amazed, for he looked and moved like another man,--a man in whom thealmost extinguished spark of early genius had suddenly flared again intofull blaze,--they hastily joined him in anticipation of they knew notwhat. But their enthusiasm received a check when at the moment of descentMr. Gryce again turned back with the remark:
"I had forgotten. I have something to do first. If you will kindly seethat the people down there are kept from growing too impatient, I willsoon join you with Mrs. Taylor, who must not be left on this floor afterwe have gone below."
And with no further explanation of his purpose, he turned and proceededwithout delay to Room B.