us something
by which to trace her. I have put Sweetwater on that job. He never tires,
never wearies, never lets go. No report in yet from the terminals?"

"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 per