“I was giving her messages to my husband.  I felt—­strange as it may seem to you—­that they had fled the earth together—­and I wanted him to know that I would be constant, and other foolish things you will not wish me to repeat here.  Is that all you wish to know?”

Mr. Gryce bowed, and cast a quizzical glance in the direction of the Curator.  Certainly for oddity this case transcended any he had had in years.  With this woman eliminated from the situation, what explanation was there of the curious death he was there to investigate?  As he was meditating how he could best convey to her the necessity of detaining her further, he heard a muttered exclamation from the young woman standing near her, and following the direction of her pointing finger, saw that the strange silence which had fallen upon the room had a cause.  Mrs. Taylor had fainted away in her chair.

III

“I have something to show you”

Mr. Gryce took advantage of the momentary disturbance to slip from the room.  He was followed by the Curator, who seemed more than ever anxious to talk.

“You see!  Mad as a March hare!” was his hurried exclamation as the door closed behind them.  “I declare I do not know which I pity more, her victim or herself.  The one is freed from all her troubles; the other—­Do you think we ought to have a doctor to look after her?  Shall I telephone?”

“Not yet.  We have much to learn before taking any decided steps.”  Then as he caught the look of amazement with which this unexpected suggestion of difficulties was met, he paused on his way to the stair-head to ask in a tentative way peculiarly his own:  “Then you still think the girl died from a thrust given by this woman?”

“Of course.  What else is there to think?  You saw where the arrow came from.  You saw that the only bow the place contained was hanging high and unstrung upon the wall, and you are witness to this woman’s irresponsible condition of mind.  The sight of those arrows well within her reach evidently aroused the homicidal mania often latent in one of her highly emotional nature; and when this fresh young girl came by, the natural result followed.  I only hope I shall not be called upon to face the poor child’s parents.  What can I say to them?  What can anybody say?  Yet I do not see how we can be held responsible for so unprecedented an attack as this, do you?”

Mr. Gryce made no answer.  He had turned his back toward the stair-head and was wondering if this easy explanation of a tragedy so peculiar as to have no prototype in all of the hundreds of cases he had been called upon to investigate in a long life of detective activity would satisfy all the other persons then in the building.  It was his present business to find out—­to search and probe among the dozen or two people he saw collected below, for the witness who had seen or had heard some slight thing