"No. He for one will have a sleepless night."
"Not he alone. I must and will see a way through this maze. To-morrow may bring luck. Ah, I forgot to say that I spent an hour of the three you allowed me with the captain of the steamer which brought over these two women. As might be expected, he had no information of any significance to give me; nor could I obtain much from such members of the crew as I could get hold of. One steward remembered the Englishman, chiefly because he never showed himself unless the young lady was on deck. But he never saw them speak."
"Which bears out Travis' story to the last detail."
"Exactly. I think we can depend upon him; otherwise we should be at sea."
"Yet his story is a very strange one."
"The whole affair is strange—the strangest I ever knew. But that isn't against it. It's the commonplace case which baffles. We shall get the key to the whole mystery yet."
"I've no doubt. Is Mr. Travis to be detained?"
"Yes, as witness."
"Does he object?"
"Not at all. Having spoken—told his whole story, as he says—he is rather glad than otherwise to be relieved from the common curiosity of strangers. He's a rare bird, Gryce. If he stops to think, he must see that he stands in a more or less ticklish position. But he does not betray by look or action any doubt of our entire belief in the truth of all his statements. His only trouble seems to be that he has lost, by these inhuman means, the girl upon whom he had set his heart. To-morrow we will confront him with Mrs. Taylor. She should be able to say whether he did or did not stand out in the open gallery at the moment Miss Willetts fell."
But Mr. Gryce had no encouragement to give him on this head.
"Mrs. Taylor is ill—very ill, as I take it. I stopped at her hotel to inquire. I was anxious about her for more than one reason and the report I got of her condition was far from favorable. She is suffering cruelly from shock. How occasioned, whether by the peculiar and startling death to which she was a witness or by the strangely coincident fancy to which she herself attributes her deep emotion, will have to be decided by further developments. Nothing which I was able to learn from doctor or nurse settled this interesting question. Meanwhile, no one is allowed to see her—or will be till she is on the direct road to recovery. Let us hope that this may be soon, or the inquest may be delayed indefinitely."
"I don't know as that is to be deplored. I imagine we shall find enough to fill in our time.... Any communications made by her before she collapsed? Did she send out or receive messages of any kind since her return from the museum?"
"She received none; but it is impossible to say whether or not she sent any out. There is a letter-chute very near her door. She may have dropped a letter in that any time before a watch was put upon her. You are thinking, of course, of the anxiety she expressed about her husband, and whether she took any measures for ascertaining if her fears for him had any foundation in fact?"
"I was, yes; but I presume this fancy had passed, or else she is too ill to remember her own aberrations. Were you able to effect an understanding with her nurse?"
"Yes; that's fixed. I had a short talk, too, with the proprietor of the hotel. He thinks very highly of Mrs. Taylor. She has lived in the one apartment for years, and he cannot say enough of her discreet and uniform life. Though she made no secret of the fact that she does not live with her husband, her conduct has always been such as to insure universal respect. He did not even make mention of eccentricities. If she is crazy, it is a late development. She seemed to have been all right up to this morning. Whichever way you turn, you encounter mystery and a closed door."
"The papers may spring the lock of that door at any moment. Publication does much in a case of this kind. To-morrow we may be in a much more favorable position. Meantime, let us recount the facts it is our business to clear up."
"On what hypothesis?"
"On all hypotheses. We are not sure enough of our premises, as yet, to confine ourselves to one."
"Very good, these are the ones which seem to me to be of the greatest importance:
"Whose hand carried the bow from cellar to gallery?
"Was it the same which carried the arrow from one gallery to the other?
"Is it possible for an arrow, shot through the loophole made by the curving-in of the vase, to reach the mark set for it by Mr. Travis' testimony?
"Which one of the men or women known to be in the museum when this arrow was released has enough knowledge of archery to string a bow? A mark can be reached by chance; but only an accustomed hand can string a bow as unyielding as this one.
"Who telephoned to Madame Duclos; and of what nature was the message which sent her from the hotel so precipitately that she not only left the most important part of her baggage behind but went away without making adequate provision for the young girl confided to her charge?
"Does this mean that she had been made acquainted with the fate of the young girl; and if so, by whom?"
"Business enough for us all," was the Inspector's comment as Gryce paused in this enumeration. "As you put it, I am more and more convinced that the key you spoke of a short time ago will be found in this missing woman's tightly shut hand."
"Which brings us round full-circle to our first conclusion: that Miss Willetts' death is not only a crime, but a premeditated one."
"Carried out, not by the one benefited, but by an agent selected for the purpose."
"An agent, moreover, who knew the ways and possibilities of the place."
"A logical conclusion; but still too incredible for belief. I find it hard to trust to appearances in this case."
"And I also. But as we have both said, time may clear away some of its incongruities. Meanwhile I have an experiment to propose." And leaning close to the Inspector, notwithstanding the fact that there was nobody within hearing and he knew it, he whispered a few words in his ear.
The Inspector stared.
"To-night?" he asked.
The detective nodded.
IX
WHILE THE CITY SLEPT
Night—the night of a great city with its myriad of garish lights and its many curious and incongruous activities.
Who has not felt his imagination stirred by the contrasts thus offered—contrasts never more apparent than at these hours of supposed rest? Grim walls, with dimpled children sleeping behind them! Places of merrymaking athrob with music and dazzling with jets of incandescent light, with grief in the heart of the dancer and despair making raucous the enforced laugh!
But nowhere in the great city of which we write on this night of May 23, 1913, was there to be found a scene of greater contradictions than in the court and galleries of its famous museum.
Lighted as for a reception, the architectural beauties of its Moorish arcades and carven balustrades flashed in full splendor. Gems of antique art, casts in which genius had stored its soul and caused to live before us the story of the ancients, pillars from desert sands, friezes from the Parthenon and bas-reliefs from Nineveh and Heliopolis, filled every corner, commanding the eye to satisfy itself in forms of deathless grace or superhuman power. And no one to heed! Not an eye to note that the Venus in one corner seemed to smile in the soft light with more than its accustomed allurement, or that the armor in which kings had fought wore a menacing sparkle exceeding that of other times and quieter days. Ghosts of vanished ages might parade at will among the chattels of their time or drain the iridescent beaker to their unknown gods—no one would have noticed or turned aside to see. For there was something else within these walls to-night for the men assembled there to look upon, and a story to be read which shut the imagination upon the past by amply filling it with the present.