Mr. Gryce did not seek to detain her. Indeed, he appeared to be anxious
to leave the place himself. They, however, stopped long enough to cast
one final look around them. As they did so Miss Butterworth's finger
slowly rose.
"See!" said she, "you can hardly perceive from this side of the wall the
opening made by the removal of that picture on the stair landing.
Wouldn't you say that it was in the midst of those folds of dark-colored
tapestry up there?"
"Yes, I had already located that spot as the one. With the picture hung
up on the other side, it would be quite invisible."
"One needs to keep one's eyes moving in a case like this. That picture
must have been drawn aside several times while we were in this room. Yet
we failed to notice it."
"That was from not looking high enough. High and low, Mr. Gryce! What
goes on at the level of the eye is apparent to every one."
The smile with which he acknowledged this parting shot and prepared to
escort her to the door had less of irony than sadness in it. Was he
beginning to realize that years tell even on the most sagacious, and
that neither high places nor low would have escaped his attention a
dozen years before?
CHAPTER X.
BRIDE ROSES.
"A blonde, you say, sir?"
"Yes, Sweetwater; not of the usual type, but one of those frail,
ethereal creatures whom we find it so hard to associate with crime. He,
on the contrary, according to Miss Butterworth's description (and her
descriptions may be relied upon), is one of those gentlemanly athletes
whose towering heads and powerful figures attract universal attention.
Seen together, you would be apt to know them. But what reason have we
for thinking they will be found together?"
"How were they dressed?"
"Like people of fashion and respectability. He wore a brown-checked suit
apparently fresh from the tailor; she, a dove-colored dress with white
trimmings. The parasol shows the color of her hat and plumes. Both were
young, and (still according to Miss Butterworth) of sensitive
temperament and unused to crime; for she was in a fainting condition
when carried from the house, and he, with every inducement to
self-restraint, showed himself the victim of such powerful emotion that
he would have been immediately surrounded and questioned if he had not
set his burden down in the vestibule and at once plunged with the girl
into the passing crowd. Do you think you can find them, Sweetwater?"
"Have you no clews to their identity beyond this parasol?"
"None, Sweetwater, if you except these few faded rose leaves picked up
from the floor of Mr. Adams's study."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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