as yet unrevealed which would throw a different light upon this matter.  For his mind—­or shall we say the almost unerring instinct of this ancient delver into human hearts?—­would not accept without question this theory of sudden madness in one of Mrs. Taylor’s appearance, strange and inexplicable as her conduct seemed.  Though it was quite among the possibilities that she had struck the fatal blow and in the manner mentioned, it was equally clear to his mind that she had not done it in an access of frenzy.  He knew a mad eye and he knew a despairing one.  Fantastic as her story certainly was, he found himself more ready to believe it than to accept any explanation of this crime which ascribed its peculiar features to the irresponsibilities of lunacy.

However, he kept his impressions to himself and in his anxiety to pursue his inquiries among the people below, was on the point of descending thither, when he found his attention arrested, and that of the Curator’s as well, by the sight of a young man hastening toward them through the northern gallery. (The tragedy, as you will remember, had occurred in the southern one.) He was dressed in the uniform of the museum, and moved so quickly and in such an evident flurry of spirits that the detective instinctively asked: 

“Who’s that?  One of your own men?”

“Yes, that’s Correy, our best-informed and most-trusted attendant.  Looks as if he had something to tell us.  Well, Correy, what is it?” he queried as the man emerged upon the landing where they stood.  “Anything new?  If there is, speak out plainly.  Mr. Gryce is anxious for all the evidence he can get.”

With an ingenuousness rather pleasing than otherwise to the man thus presented to his notice, the young fellow stopped short and subjected the famous detective to a keen and close scrutiny before venturing to give the required information.

Was it because of the importance of what he had to communicate?  It would seem so, from the suppressed excitement of his tone, as after his brief but exceedingly satisfactory survey, he jerked his finger over his shoulder in the direction from which he had come, with the short remark: 

“I have something to show you.”

Something!  Mr. Gryce had been asking for this something only a moment before.  We can imagine, then, the celerity with which he followed this new guide into the one spot of all others which possessed for him the greatest interest.  For if by any chance the arrow which had done such deadly work had been sped from a bow instead of having been used as a dart, then it was from this gallery and from no other quarter of the building that it had been so sped.  Any proof of this could have but the one effect of exonerating from all blame the woman who had so impressed him.  He had traversed the first section and had entered the second, when the Curator joined him; together they passed into the third.