The Mystery of the Hasty ArrowGreen, Anna Katharine
General
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
Green, Anna Katharine
Detective and mystery stories
He had noticed how the heavy tapestry shivered under Correy's clutch. Had
this been observed by anyone besides himself? If by chance some person
wandering about the court had been looking up--but no, the few people
gathered there stood too far forward to see what was going on in this
part 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 in
squeezing himself around it into the small space they had left for him
between the pushed-out hanging and the wall. An exclamation from the
Curator, who had only waited for his coming to take his first look, added
zest to his own scrutiny. It would take something more than the sight of
a 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 his
imagination, did not succeed in guessing. But when his eyes, once
accustomed to the semi-darkness of the narrow space which Correy had thus
opened 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 dozen
years before, he certainly would have done so.
It was a _bow_--not like the one hanging high in the Apache exhibit, but
yet a bow strong of make and strung for use.
* * * * *
Here was a discovery as important as it was unexpected, eliminating Mrs.
Taylor at once from the case and raising it into a mystery of the first
order. By dint of long custom, Mr. Gryce succeeded in hiding his extreme
satisfaction, but not the perplexity into which he was thrown by this
complete change of base. The Curator appeared to be impressed in much the
same way, and shook his head in a doubtful fashion when Correy asked him
if he recognized the bow as belonging to the museum.
"I should have to see it nearer to answer that question with any sort of
confidence," he demurred. "From such glimpses as I can get of it from
here 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 an
irrelevance perhaps natural to the occasion, he inquired where this door
so conveniently hidden from the general view led to. It was the Curator
who answered.
"To a twisting, breakneck staircase opening directly into my office. But
this door has not been used in years. See! Here is the key to it on my
own ring. There is no other. I lost the mate to it myself not long after
my installation here."
The detective, working his way back around the pedestal, cast another
glance up and down the gallery and over into the court. Still no spying
eye, save that of the officer opposite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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