The Mystery of the Hasty ArrowGreen, Anna Katharine
General
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
Green, Anna Katharine
Detective and mystery stories
"No, there was no harm," Mr. Gryce reluctantly admitted. Caught in an
absurdity amusing enough in its way, he would certainly under less
strenuous circumstances have rather enjoyed his own humiliation. But the
occasion was too serious and his part in it too pronounced for him to
take any pleasure in this misadventure. In the prosecution of so daring
a scheme for locating witnesses if not of discovering the actual user of
the bow, it would not do to fail. He _must_ find the man he sought. If
the Curator--but one glance into the room where that gentleman stood amid
a litter of prints satisfied him that Sweetwater was right as to the
impossibility of getting any information from this quarter. Nor could he
hope, remembering what he had himself seen, that he would succeed any
better with the last person now remaining on this floor--the young man
busy with the coins in No. I.
That he was to be so fortunate as to lay an immediate hand on the person
who had shot the fatal arrow was no longer regarded by him as among the
possibilities. Whoever this person was, he had found a way of escape
which rendered him for the time being safe from discovery. But there was
another possible miscalculation which he felt it his duty to recognize
before he proceeded further in his difficult task. The bow found back of
the tapestry had every appearance of being the one used for the delivery
of the arrow. But was it? Might it not, in some strange and unaccountable
way, have been flung there previous to the present event and by some hand
no longer in the building? Such coincidences have been known, and while
as a rule this old and experienced detective put little confidence in
coincidences of any kind, he had but one thought in mind in approaching
this final witness, which was to get from him some acknowledgment of
having seen, on or about the time of the accident, a movement in the
tapestry behind which this bow lay concealed. If once this fact could
be established, there could be no further question as to the direct
connection between the bow there found and the present crime.
But Mr. Gryce might have spared his pains, so far as this young man was
concerned. He had been so engrossed in his search for a particularly rare
coin, that he had had no eyes for anything beyond. Besides, he was
abnormally nearsighted, not being able, even with his glasses, to
distinguish faces at any distance, much less a movement in a piece of
tapestry.
All of this was discouraging, even if anticipated; but there were still
the 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 incidentally
enlighten him in regard to another matter about which he had some doubts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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