he did so to come and look behind it. The Curator did not
hesitate. He was there almost as soon as the young man himself.

But the detective was not so hasty. With a thousand things in mind, he
stopped to peer along the gallery and down into the court before giving
himself away to any prying eye. Satisfied that he might make the desired
move with impunity, Mr. Gryce was about to turn in the desired direction
when, struck by a new fact, he again stopped short.

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 sho