The Mystery of the Hasty ArrowGreen, Anna Katharine
General
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
Green, Anna Katharine
Detective and mystery stories
"Not a word. But she will not get far. Sooner or later we shall find her
if she does not come forward herself after reading the evening papers."
"She will never come forward."
"I am not so sure. Something not a little peculiar happened at the
museum after you left. We had Reynolds up, and he made a most careful
examination of that bow for finger-prints. He did not find any. But
fortune favored us in another way almost as good."
"Now you interest _me_."
"We had brought the bow into the Curator's office, and it lay on the long
table in the middle of the room. I had been looking it over (this was
after Reynolds had gone, of course) and had already noted a certain
defect in it, when on chancing to look up, my eyes fell on a mirror
hanging in a closet the door of which stood wide open. A face was visible
in it--a very white face which altered under my scrutiny into a semblance
more natural. It was that of Correy--you remember Correy, one of the
assistants, and an honest fellow enough, but more troubled at this moment
than I had ever seen him. What could have happened?
"Wheeling quickly about, I caught him just as he started to go. He had
openly declared that he did not know this bow; but it was evident that he
did, and I did not hesitate to say so. Taken unawares, he could not hide
his distress, which he proceeded to explain thus: He did remember the
bow, now that he had the opportunity of seeing it closer. He pointed to
the nick I had myself noticed and said that owing to this defect the bow
had been cast aside, and the last time he had handled it----Here he
caught his breath and stopped. Another memory had evidently returned to
embarrass him."
"Did you succeed in getting him to acknowledge what it was?"
"Yes, after I had worked with him for some time. He didn't want to talk.
In a moment you will see why. Going back to the time he had seen it
before, he said that he had found it in the cellar in an old box, the
contents of which he had been pulling over in a search for something very
different. Amazed to find it there, he had taken it out, examined it
carefully, noted the nick I mentioned and tossed it back again into the
box. This he told, but reluctantly.
"Why reluctantly, I was soon to find out. He was not alone in the cellar.
The shadow of some person at his back had fallen across the lid of the
box as he was closing it. He did not recognize the shadow and had not
given it at the time a second thought, but the remembrance of it came
back vividly when he saw the bow lying before him and realized the part
it had played in the morning's tragedy. Was it because he knew that only
a person actively connected with the museum would have access to that
part of the cellar? I asked. I did not expect an answer, and I did not
get it. We looked at each other for a moment, then I let him go."
A momentary silence, which the Inspector broke by saying:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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