For those who have not visited this museum, a more detailed description of these galleries may be welcome.  Acting as a means of communication between the row of front rooms and those at the back, they also serve to exhibit certain choice articles which call for little space, and are of a nature more or less ornamental.  For this purpose they are each divided into five sections connected by arches narrower but not less decorative than those which open in a direct row upon the court.  Of these sections the middle one on either side is much larger than the rest; otherwise they do not differ.

It was in the midst of this larger section that Correy now stood, awaiting their approach.  There had been show-cases filled with rare exhibits in the two through which they had just passed, but in this one there was nothing to be seen but a gorgeous hanging, covering very nearly the whole wall, flanked at either end by a pedestal upholding a vase of inestimable value and corresponding ugliness.  A highly decorative arrangement, it is true, but in what lay its interest for the criminal investigator?

Correy was soon to show them.  With a significant gesture toward the tapestry, he eagerly exclaimed: 

“You see that?  I’ve run by it several times since the accident sent me flying all over the building at everybody’s call.  But only just now, when I had a moment to myself, did I remember the door hid behind it.  It’s a door we no longer use, and I’d no reason for thinking it had anything to do with the killing of the young lady in the opposite gallery.  But for 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