The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow | Page 9

all
that I felt it would do no harm to give it a look, and running from the
front, where I happened to be, I pulled out the tapestry and saw--but
supposing I wait and let you see for yourselves. That will be better."
Leaving them where they stood face to face with the great hanging, he
made a dive for the pedestal towering aloft at the farther end, and
edging himself in behind it, drew out the tapestry from the wall, calling
on them as 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 should say that it has not been taken from any of our exhibits."
"I am sure it has not," muttered Correy. Then with a side glance at Mr.
Gryce, he added: "Shall I slip in behind and get it?"
The detective, thus appealed to, hesitated a moment; then with an
irrelevance perhaps natural to the occasion, he inquired where this door
so conveniently hidden from the general view led to. It was the Curator
who answered.
"To a twisting, breakneck staircase opening directly into my office. But
this door has not been used in years. See! Here is the key to it on my
own ring. There is no other. I lost the mate to it myself not long after
my installation here."
The detective, working his way back around the pedestal, cast another
glance up and down the gallery and over into the court. Still no spying
eye, save that of the officer opposite.
"We will leave that bow where it is for the present," he decided, "a
secret between us three." And motioning for Correy to let the tapestry
fall, he stood watching it settle into place, till it hung quite straight
again, with its one edge close to the wall and the other sweeping the
floor. Had its weight been great enough to push the bow back again
into its former place close against the door? Yes. No eye, however
trained, would, from any bulge in the heavy tapestry, detect its presence
there. He could leave the spot without fear; their secret would remain
theirs until such time as they chose to disclose it.
As