blindly supposed."

"Good! Then we can take it for granted that our new theory is well
founded. Certain things have come to light in your absence. That tapestry
was pulled aside not merely for the purpose of flinging in the bow, but
to let the flinger pass through the door at its back down to the
Curator's office and so out into the court."

"Whew! And who...."

"If this fact had been made known to me sooner, you would have had a
different day's work; not getting it until late this afternoon, we have
perhaps wasted some valuable hours. But we won't fret about that. Mrs.
Taylor being no better, we are likely to have all the time we want for
substantiating my idea. It cannot take long if we succeed either in
tracing the Duclos woman or in drawing the net I am quietly
manufacturing, so closely about--well, I've decided to call him X--that
it will hold against all opposition. I have hopes of finding the woman,
but great doubts as to the efficacy of the net I have mentioned; it will
have to be so wide and deep, and so absolutely without a single weak
strand."

Sweetwater sat astonished, and what was more, silent--he who had a word
for everything. Accustomed as he was to the varying moods of his
remarkable friend, he had never before been met with a reticence so
absolute. It made him think; but for once in his life did not make him
loquacious.

Mr. Gryce seemed to be gratified by this, though he made no remark to
that effect and continued to preserve his abstracted look and quiet
demeanor. So Sweetwater waited, and while waiting managed to steal a
glimpse at the small object to which his professional friend still paid
his undivided attention.

It looked like a narrow bit of dingy black cloth--just that and nothing
more--a thing as trivial as the band which clips a closed umbrella. Was
it such a band, and would he presently be asked to find the umbrella from
which it had fallen or been twisted away? No. Umbrellas are not carried
about museum buildings. Besides, this strip of cloth had no ring on the
end of it. Consequently it could not have served the purpose he had just
ascribed to it. It must have had some other use.

But when, after an impatient flinging aside of this nondescript article,
Mr. Gryce spoke, it was to say:

"I had a long talk with Correy to-day. It seems that he goes through both
galleries every morning before the museum opens. Though he will not swear
to it, he is of the opinion that the quiver hold