IV
A STRATEGIC MOVE
He found the unhappy woman quite recovered from her fainting spell, butstill greatly depressed and not a little incoherent. He set himself towork to soothe her, for he had a request to make which called for anintelligent answer. Relieved from all suspicion of her having been anactive agent in the deplorable deed he was here to investigate, he waslavish in his promises of speedy release, and seeing how much thissteadied her, he turned to Mr. Roberts, who was still in the room, andthen to the young lady who had been giving her a woman's care, andsignified that their attentions were no longer required and that he wouldbe glad to have them join the people below.
When the door had closed and Mr. Gryce found himself for the first timealone with Mrs. Taylor, he drew up a chair to her side and remarked inhis old benevolent way:
"I feel guilty of cruelty, madam, in repeating a question you havealready answered. But the conditions are such that I must, and do it now.When this young lady fell so unexpectedly at your feet, was your firstlook at her or at the opposite gallery?"
For an instant her eyes held his--something which did not often happen tohim.
"At her," she vehemently declared. "I never thought of looking anywhereelse. I saw her at my feet, and fell on my knees at her side. Whowouldn't have done so! Who would have seen anything but that arrow--_thatarrow_! Oh, it was terrible! Do not make me recall it. I have sorrowsenough----"
"Mrs. Taylor, you have my utmost sympathy. But you must realize howimportant it is for me to make sure that you saw nothing in the placefrom which that arrow was sent which would help us to locate the authorof this accident. The flitting of an escaping figure up or down theopposite gallery, even a stir in the great tapestry confronting you fromthat far-away wall, might give us a clue."
"I saw nothing," she replied coldly but with extreme firmness, "nothingbut that lifeless child and the picture of desolation which rose in myown mind. Do not, I pray, make me speak again of that. It would soundlike delirium, and it is my wish to impress you with my sanity, so thatyou will allow me to go home."
"You shall go, after the Coroner has had an opportunity to see you. Weexpect him any moment. Meanwhile, you will facilitate your release andgreatly help us in what we have to do, if you will carry your fortitudeto the point of showing me in your own person just where you werestanding when this young girl dashed by you to her death."
"Do you mean for me to go back to that--that----"
"Yes, Mrs. Taylor. Surely you can do so if you will. When you have timeto think, you will be as anxious as ourselves to know through whosecarelessness (to call it nothing worse) this child came to her death.Though it may prove to be quite immaterial whether you stood in one placeor another at that fatal moment, it is a question which will be sure tocome up at the inquest. That you may be able to answer correctly I urgeyou to return with me to the exact spot, before your recollection of thesame has had time to fade. After that we will go below and I will seethat you are taken to some quiet place where you can remain undisturbedtill the Coroner comes."
Had she been a weak woman she would have succumbed again at this. Butshe was a strong one, and after the first moment of recoil she rosetremulously to her feet and signified her willingness to follow him tothe scene of death.
"Is--is she there alone?" was her sole question as they crossed thecorridor separating the room they had been in from the galleries.
"No--you will find an officer there. We could not leave the place quiteunguarded."
If she shuddered he did not observe it. Having summoned up all herforces to meet this ordeal, she followed him without further word, andre-entering the spot she had so lately left in great agony of mind,stopped for one look and for one look only at the sweet face of the deadgirl smiling up at her from the cold floor, then she showed Mr. Gryce asnearly as she could just where she had paused in shock and horror whenthe poor child smitten by the fatal arrow fell back almost into her arms.
The detective, with a glance at the opposite gallery, turned and spoke tothe officer who had stepped aside into the neighboring section.
"Take the place just occupied by this lady," he said, "and hold it tillyou hear from me again." Then offering his arm to Mrs. Taylor, he led herout.
"I see that you were approaching the railing overlooking the court whenyou were stopped in this fearful manner," he remarked when well down thegallery toward its lower exit. "What did you have in mind? A nearerglimpse of the tapestry over there and the two great vases?"
"No, no." She was wrought up by now to a tension almost unendurable. "Itwas the court--what I might see in the court. Oh!" she impulsively cried:"the child! the child! that innocent, beautiful child!" And breaking awayfrom his arm, she threw herself against the wall in a burst ofuncontrollable weeping.
He allowed her a moment of unrestrained grief, then he took her on hisarm again and led her down into the court where he gave her into thecharge of Correy. He had gone as far as he dared in her presenthysterical condition. Besides, he could no longer defer the greatexperiment by means of which he hoped to reach the heart of this mystery.
Taking the slip of paper handed him by Sweetwater, he crossed the courtto where the various visitors, detained, some against their will and somequite in accordance with it, stood about in groups or sat side by side onthe long benches placed along the front for their comfort. As heconfronted them, his face beamed with that benevolent smile which haddone so much for him in days gone by. Raising his hand he calledattention to himself; then, when he was quite sure of being heard by themall, he addressed them with a quiet emphasis which could not fail to gainand hold their attention:
"I am Detective Gryce, sent here from Police Headquarters to look intothis very serious matter. Till the Coroner arrives, I am in authorityhere, and being so, will have to ask your indulgence for any discomfortyou may experience in helping me with my investigation. A young girl,full of life an hour ago, lies dead in the gallery above. We do not knowher name; we do not know who killed her. But there is some one here whodoes. The man or woman who, wittingly or unwittingly, launched that fatalshaft, is present with us in this building. This person has not spoken.If he will do so now, he will save us and himself, too, no end oftrouble. Let him speak, then. I will give him five minutes in which tomake this acknowledgment. Five minutes! If that man is wise--or can itbe a woman?--he will not keep us waiting."
Silence. Heads moving, eyes peering, excitement visible in every face,but not a word from anybody. Mr. Gryce turned and pointed up at theclock. All looked--but still no word from man or woman.
One minute gone!
Two minutes!
Three!
The silence had become portentous. The movement, involuntary andsimultaneous, which had run through the crowd at first had stopped. Theywere waiting--each and all--waiting with eyes on the minute-hand creepingforward over the dial toward which the detective's glance was stillturned.
The fourth minute passed--then the fifth--and no one had spoken.
With a sigh Mr. Gryce wheeled himself back and faced the crowd again.
"You see," he quietly announced, "the case is serious. Twenty-two of you,and not one to speak the half-dozen words which would release the restfrom their present embarrassing position! What remains for us to do undercircumstances like these? My experience suggests but one course: tonarrow down this inquiry to those--you will not find them many--who fromtheir nearness to the place of tragedy or from some other cause equallypertinent may be looked upon as possible witnesses for the Coroner'sjury. That this may be done speedily and surely, I am going to ask you,every one of you, to retake the exact place in the building which youwere occupying when you heard the first alarm. I will begin with theCurator himself. Mr. Jewett, will you be so good as to return to theroom, and if possible to the precise spot, you were occupying when youfirst learned what had occurred here?"
The Curator, who stood at his elbow, made a quick bow and turned in thedirection of the marble steps, which he has
tily remounted. A murmur fromthe crowd followed this action and continued till he disappeared in therecesses of the right-hand gallery. Then, at a gesture from Mr. Gryce, itsuddenly ceased, and with a breathless interest easy to comprehend, theyone and all waited for his next word. It was a simple one.
"We are all obliged to Mr. Jewett for his speedy compliance with sounusual a request. He has made my task a comparatively easy one."
Then, glancing at the list of names and addresses which had been compiledfor him by Sweetwater, he added:
"I will read off your names as recorded here. If each person, on hearinghis own, will move quickly to his place and remain there till my youngman can make a note of the same, we shall get through this matter inshort order. And let me add"--as he perceived here and there a shouldershrugged, or an eye turned askance--"that once the name is called, noexcuse of non-recollection will be accepted. You must know, every one ofyou, just where you were standing when the cry of death rang out, and anyattempt to mislead me or others in this matter will only subject theperson making it to a suspicion he must wish to avoid. Remember thatthere are enough persons here for no one to be sure that his whereaboutsat so exciting a moment escaped notice. Listen, then, and when your ownname is spoken, step quickly into place, whether that place be on thisfloor or in the rooms or galleries above.--Mrs. Alice Lee!"
You can imagine the flurry, the excitement and the blank looks of theaverage men and women he addressed. But not one hesitated to obey. Mrs.Lee was on the farther side of one of the statues before her name hadmore than left his lips. Her example set the pace for those who followed.Like soldiers at roll-call, each one responded to the summons, going nowin one direction and now in another until on reaching the proper spot heor she stopped.
Only six persons followed the Curator upstairs--an old woman who shookher head violently as she plodded slowly up the marble steps; Correy; aman with a packet of books under his arm (the same who had been studyingcoins in Section II); a young couple whose movements showed such a markedreluctance that more than one eye followed them as they went hesitatinglyup, clinging together with interlocking hands and stopping now on onestep and now on another to stare at each other in visible consternation;and a boy of fourteen who grinned from ear to ear as he bounded gaylyup three steps at a time and took his position on the threshold of oneof the upper doors with all the precision of a soldier called tosentry-duty--a boy scout if ever there was one.
There were twenty-two names on the list, and with the calling out of thetwenty-second, Mr. Gryce perceived the space before him entirely clearedof its odd assortment of people. As he turned to take a look at theresult, a gleam of satisfaction crossed his time-worn face. By thisscheme, which he may be pardoned for looking upon as a stroke of geniusworthy of his brilliant prime, he had set back time a full hour,restoring as by a magician's wand the conditions of that fatal moment ofinitial alarm. Surely, with the knowledge of that hidden bow in his mind,he should be able now to place his hand upon the person who had made useof it to launch the fatal arrow. No one, however sly of foot and quick ofaction, could have gone far from the gallery where that bow lay in thefew minutes which were all that could have elapsed between the shootingof the arrow and the gasping cry which had brought all within hearing tothe Apache section. The man or woman whom he should find nearest to thatconcealed door in the northern gallery would have to give a very goodaccount of himself. Not even the Curator would escape suspicion underthose circumstances.
However, it is only fair to add that Mr. Gryce had no fear of any suchembarrassing end to his inquisition as that. He had noticed the youngcouple who had betrayed their alarm so ingenuously to every eye, and hadalready decided within himself that the man was just such a fool as mightin a moment of vacuity pick up a bow and arrow to test his skill at agiven mark. Such things had been and such results had followed. The manwas a gawk and the woman a ninny; a few questions and their guiltinesswould appear--that is, if they should be found near enough the tapestryto warrant his suspicion. If not--the alternative held an interest allits own, and sent him in haste toward the stairway.
To reach it Mr. Gryce had to pass several persons standing where fate hadfixed them among the statuary grouped about the court, and had hisattention been less engrossed by what he expected to discover above, hewould have been deeply interested in noting how these persons, or most ofthem at least, had so thoroughly accepted the situation that they hadtaken the exact position and the exact attitude of the moment precedingthe alarm. Those who were admiring the great torsos or carved chariots ofthe ancients, made a show of admiring them still. The man or woman whohad been going in an easterly direction, faced east; and those who hadbeen on the point of entering certain rooms, stood halting in thedoorways with their backs to the court.
Unfortunately, he did not take note of all this, or give the poor pawnsthus parading for his purpose more than a cursory glance. When he didthink, which was when he was halfway up the staircase, it was to lookback upon a changed scene. For with his going, interest had flagged andthe tableau lost its pointedness. No one had ventured as yet to leave hisplace, but all had turned their faces his way, and on many of these facescould be seen signs of fatigue if not of absolute impatience. He hadordered them to stand and they had stood, but to be left there while hewent above was certainly trying. The one spot which held the interest wasin the southern gallery. If they could only follow him there----
All this was to be seen in their faces, and possibly the cunning old manread it there; but if he did, it was to ask himself if their conclusionswere quite correct. The locale of interest had shifted in the last halfhour; and while most of these people believed him to be searching for thewitness who could tell him what had occurred in the death gallery, hereally was hunting for one who could add to his knowledge of what hadhappened in the opposite one. And this witness might not be found in thegallery, or even on the upper floor. It was well among the probabilitiesthat there might be among the various persons he saw posing in the courtbelow some who by an upward look might take in a part of if not the wholebroad sweep of that huge square of tapestry upon which his thoughts werecentered. It was for him to make a note of these persons. A diagram ofthe court as it looked to him at that moment is shown for yourenlightenment.
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.]
Sixteen persons! Ten in view from the steps and six not. Of the sixteen,only the following seemed to afford any excuse for future interrogation:Numbers Two, Six, Ten, Seven, Eight and Thirteen. Making a mental note ofthese, during which operation the poor unfortunates who had just beenconsidering themselves as quite out of the game revived in a startlingmanner under his eye, he proceeded on his way.
As the action has now shifted to the upper floor, a diagram of thissecond story is now in order.
As you will see, a straight glimpse is given down either gallery from thearches opening into the broad corridor into which Mr. Gryce had steppedon leaving the central staircase. He had therefore only to choose whichof the two would better repay his immediate investigation.
He decided upon the northern one, which you will remember was the oneholding the tapestry; since, to find anybody there, no matter whom, wouldcertainly settle the identity of the person responsible for that flyingarrow. For, as all conceded, too little time had elapsed between itsdelivery and the discovery of the victim for the quickest possibleattempt at escape to have carried the concealer of the bow very far fromthe spot where he had thrown it. It was possible--just possible--that hemight have got as far as one of the four large rooms opening into thecorridor stretching across the front, but that he was not in the galleryitself Mr. Gryce soon convinced himself by a rapid walk through itsentire length.
That he did not follow up this move by an immediate searching of therooms I have mentioned was owing to a wish
he had to satisfy himself onanother point first.
What was this point?
In passing along the rear on his way to this gallery, he had noticed thenarrow staircase opening not a dozen feet away to his left. Thisundoubtedly led down to the side-entrance. If by any chance the user ofthe bow had fled to the rear instead of to the front, he would be foundsomewhere on this staircase, for he never could have got to the bottombefore the cry of "Close the doors! Let no man out!" rendered this chanceof immediate exit unavailable. So Mr. Gryce retraced his steps, andbarely stopping to note the boy eying him with eager glances from thedoorway of Room A, he approached the iron balustrade guarding the smallstaircase, and cautiously looked over.
A man was there! A man going down--no, coming up; and this man, as hesoon saw from his face and uniform, was Correy the attendant.
"So that is where _you_ were," he called down as he beckoned the man up.
"As near as I can remember. I was on my way in search of Mr. Jewett, forwhom I had a message, and had got as far as you saw me, when I heard acry of pain from somewhere in the gallery. This naturally quickened mysteps and I was up and on this floor in a jiffy."
"Did you notice, as you stepped from the landing, whether the boy staringat us from the doorway over there was facing just as we see him now?"
"He was. I remember his attitude perfectly."
"Coming out of the door--not going in?"
"Sure. He was on the run. He had heard the cry too."
"And followed you into the gallery?"
"Preceded me. He was on the scene almost as soon as the man who steppedin from the adjoining section."
"I see. And this man?"
"Was well within my view from the minute I entered the first arch.He seemed more bewildered than frightened till he had passed thecommunicating arch and nearly stumbled over the body of the girl shotdown almost at his elbow."
"And yourself?"
"I knew by his look that something dreadful had happened, and when I sawwhat it was, I didn't think of anything better to do than to order thedoors shut."
"On your own initiative? Where was the Curator?"
"Not far, it seems. But he gets awfully absorbed in whatever he is doing,and there was no time to lose. Some one had shot that arrow, some one whomight escape."
Mr. Gryce never allowed himself--or very rarely--to look at anyone fulland square in the face; yet he always seemed to form an instant opinionof whomever he talked with. Perhaps he had already gauged this man andnot unfavorably, for he showed not the slightest distrust as he remarkedquite frankly:
"You must have had some suspicion of foul play even then, to act in soexpeditious a manner."
"I don't know what my suspicions were. I simply followed my firstimpulse. I don't think it was a bad one. Do you, sir?"
"Far from it. But enough of that. Do you think"--here he drew Correy intothe gallery out of earshot of the boy, who was watching them with all thecuriosity of his fourteen years--"that this lad could have stolen fromwhere we are standing now to the door where you first saw him, during thetime you were making your rush up the stairs? Boys of his age are mightyquick, and----"
"I know it, sir; and I see what you mean. But even if he had been able todo this,--which I very much doubt,--no boy of his age could have strungthat bow, or had he found it strung, have shot an arrow from it withforce enough to kill. Only a hand accustomed to its use could handle abow like that with any success."
"You know the bow, then? Saw it nearer than you said--possibly handledit?"
"No, sir; but I know its kind and have handled many of them."
"In this building?"
"Yes, sir, and in other museums where I have been. I have arranged andrearranged Indian exhibits for years."
"Then you think that the bow we saw behind the tapestry is an Indianone?"
"Without question."
The detective nodded and left him. One word with the boy, and he wouldfeel free to go elsewhere.
It proved to be an amusing one. The boy, for all his enthusiasm as ascout, proved to be so hungry that he was actually doleful. More thanthat, he had a ticket for that afternoon's ball game in his pocket andfeared that he would not be let out in time to see it. He therefore wasquick with his answers, which certainly were ingenuous enough. He hadbeen looking at the model of a ship (which could be seen through an opendoor), when he heard a woman cry out as if hurt, from somewhere down thegallery. He was running to see what it meant when a man came along whoseemed in as great a hurry as himself. But he got there first--and so onand on, corroborating Correy's story in every particular. He was sohonest (Mr. Gryce had been at great pains to trip him up in one of hisstatements and had openly failed) and yet so anxious for the detective tonotice the ticket to the ball game which he held in one hand, that theold man took pity on him and calling an officer, ordered him to let theboy out--a concession to youth and innocence he was almost ready toregret when a woman of uncertain years and irate mien attacked him fromthe doorway he had just left, with the loud remark:
"If you let him go, you can let me go too. I was in this room at the sametime he was and know no more about what happened over there than thedead. I have an appointment downtown of great importance. I shall miss itif you don't let me go at once."
"Is it of greater importance than the right which this dead girl'sfriends have to know by whose careless hands the arrow killing herwas shot?" And without waiting for a reply, which was not readilyforthcoming, Mr. Gryce handed her over to Correy with an injunction tosee that she was given a comfortable seat below and proceeded to finishup this portion of the building by a search through the three great roomsextending along the rear.
He found them all empty and without clue of any kind, and satisfied thathis real work lay in front, he returned thither with as much expeditionas old age and rheumatism would admit. Why, in doing so, he went for thethird time through the gallery instead of through rooms J, H and I, hedid not stop to inquire, though afterward he asked that question ofhimself more than once. Had he taken this latter course, he might nothave missed--
But that will come later. What we have to do now is to accompany him tothe front of the building, where matters of importance undoubtedly awaithim. He had noted, in his previous passage to and fro, that the young manwho had been nearest to the tragedy was in his place before the case ofcoins in Section I. This time he noted something more. The young man wasin the selfsame spot, but during this brief interval of waiting, thepassion he evidently cherished for numismatics had reasserted itself, andhe now stood with his eyes bent as eagerly upon the display of coins overwhich he hung, as if no shaft of death had crossed the space without andno young body lay in piteous quiet beyond the separating partition.
It was an exhibition of one of the most curious traits of human nature,and Mr. Gryce would undoubtedly have expended a few cynical thoughts uponit if, upon entering the broad front corridor which he had hithertoavoided, he had not run upon Sweetwater pointing in a meaning way towardtwo huge cases which, stacked with medieval arms, occupied one of thecorners.
"Odd couple over there," he whispered as the older detective paused tolisten. "Been watching them for the last five minutes. They pretend to belooking at some old armor, but they are mighty uneasy and keep glancingup at the window overhead as if they would like to jump out."
Mr. Gryce indulged in one of his characteristic exclamations. This wasthe couple whose queer actions he had noticed on the staircase. "I'llhave a talk with them presently. Anyone in the rooms opposite?"
"Yes, the Curator. He's in Room A, where there are a lot of engravingswaiting to be hung. I guess he was pretty well up to his neck in businesswhen that fellow Correy set up his shout. And have you noticed that he'sa bit deaf, which is the reason, perhaps, why he was not sooner on thescene?"
"No, I hadn't noticed. Anyone else at this end?"
"Only the young couple I speak of."
Mr. Gryce gave them a second look. They were by many paces farther fromthe pedest
al from behind which the bow had been flung back of thetapestry than would quite fit in with the theory he had formed, and bymeans of which he hoped to single out the person who had sent the deadlyarrow. But then, under the stress of fear, people can move very swiftly;and besides, what guarantee did he have that these poor, frightenedcreatures had located themselves with all the honesty the occasiondemanded? According to Sweetwater there was nobody sufficiently near tonotice where they had been at the critical instant, or where they werenow. The student's back was toward them, and the Curator quite out ofsight behind a close-shut door.
With this doubt in his mind, Mr. Gryce started to approach the couple. Ashe did so, he observed another curious fact concerning them. They wereneither of them in the place natural to people interested in the contentsof the great cases which they had crossed the hall to examine. Instead ofstanding where a full view of these cases could be had, they hadwithdrawn so far behind them that they presented the appearance ofpersons in hiding. Yet as he drew nearer and noted their youth andcountrified appearance, Mr. Gryce was careful to assume his most benigndeportment and so to modulate his voice as to call up the pink into theyoung woman's cheek and the deep red into the man's. What Mr. Gryce saidwas this: "You are interested I see in this show of old armor? I don'twonder. It is very curious. Is this your first visit to the museum?"
The man nodded; the woman lowered her head. Both were self-conscious to apoint painful to see.
"It is a pity your first visit should be spoiled by anything so dreadfulas the accidental death of this young girl. It seems to have frightenedyou both very much."
"Yes, yes," muttered the man. "We never saw anybody hurt before."
"Did you know the young lady?"
"Oh, no; oh, no!" they both hastened to cry out in a confused jumble,after which the man added:
"We--we're from up the river. We don't know anybody in this big town."
As he spoke, he began to edge away from the wall, the girl following.
"Wait!" smiled the detective. "You are getting out of place. You werelooking at the armor when you first heard the hubbub over there?"
Both were silent.
"What were you looking at?"
"I was looking at her, and her was looking at me," stammered the man. "Wewere--were talking together here--we didn't notice----"
"Just married, eh?"
"Yesterday noon, sir. How--how did you know?"
"I didn't know; I only guessed. And I think I can guess somethingelse--what your reason was for stealing into this dark corner."
It was the man who now looked down, and the woman who looked up. In apinch of this kind, it is the woman who is the more courageous.
"He was a-kissin' of me, sir," she whispered in a frank but shamefacedway. "There was no harm in that, was there? We're so fond of one another,and how could we know that anyone was dying so near?"
"No, there was no harm," Mr. Gryce reluctantly admitted. Caught in anabsurdity amusing enough in its way, he would certainly under lessstrenuous circumstances have rather enjoyed his own humiliation. But theoccasion was too serious and his part in it too pronounced for him totake any pleasure in this misadventure. In the prosecution of so daringa scheme for locating witnesses if not of discovering the actual user ofthe bow, it would not do to fail. He _must_ find the man he sought. Ifthe Curator--but one glance into the room where that gentleman stood amida litter of prints satisfied him that Sweetwater was right as to theimpossibility of getting any information from this quarter. Nor could hehope, remembering what he had himself seen, that he would succeed anybetter with the last person now remaining on this floor--the young manbusy with the coins in No. I.
That he was to be so fortunate as to lay an immediate hand on the personwho had shot the fatal arrow was no longer regarded by him as among thepossibilities. Whoever this person was, he had found a way of escapewhich rendered him for the time being safe from discovery. But there wasanother possible miscalculation which he felt it his duty to recognizebefore he proceeded further in his difficult task. The bow found back ofthe tapestry had every appearance of being the one used for the deliveryof the arrow. But was it? Might it not, in some strange and unaccountableway, have been flung there previous to the present event and by some handno longer in the building? Such coincidences have been known, and whileas a rule this old and experienced detective put little confidence incoincidences of any kind, he had but one thought in mind in approachingthis final witness, which was to get from him some acknowledgment ofhaving seen, on or about the time of the accident, a movement in thetapestry behind which this bow lay concealed. If once this fact couldbe established, there could be no further question as to the directconnection between the bow there found and the present crime.
But Mr. Gryce might have spared his pains, so far as this young man wasconcerned. He had been so engrossed in his search for a particularly rarecoin, that he had had no eyes for anything beyond. Besides, he wasabnormally nearsighted, not being able, even with his glasses, todistinguish faces at any distance, much less a movement in a piece oftapestry.
All of this was discouraging, even if anticipated; but there were stillthe people below, some one of whom might have seen what this man had not.He would go down to them now, but by a course which would incidentallyenlighten him in regard to another matter about which he had some doubts.
In his goings to and fro through the hall, he had passed the open door ofRoom H and noted how easily a direct flight could be made through it andRooms I and J to the small staircase running down at the rear. Whether ornot this explained the absence of anyone on this floor who by the utmoststretch of imagination could be held responsible for the accident whichhad occurred there, he felt it incumbent upon him to see in how short atime the escape he still believed in could be made through these rooms.
Timing his steps from the pedestal nearest this end, he found that evenat his slow pace it took but three minutes for him to reach the arcadeleading into the court from the foot of the staircase. A man conscious ofwrong and eager to escape would do it in less; and if, as possiblyhappened, he had to wait in the doorway of Room J till Correy and the boyhad cleared the way for him by their joint run into the farther gallery,he would still have time to be well on his way to the lower floor beforethe cry went up which shut off all further egress. Relieved, if notcontented with the prospect this gave of a new clue to his problem, hereentered the court and was preparing to renew his investigations whenthe arrival of the Coroner put a temporary end to his efforts as well asto the impatience of the so-called pawns, who were now allowed, one andall, to leave their posts.
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow Page 4