“True; our minds were diverted.  But you are waiting for me to explain what I mean by opportunity.  Since my attention has been drawn to Mrs. Taylor again, I have been making inquiries.  The chauffeur who drove her to her hotel has been found, and he admits that she stopped once on her way home, to buy some coffee.  He watched her as she went into the store and he watched her as she came out; and he smelled the coffee.  Happily, the interest he took in her as a sick woman intrusted to his care was strong enough for him to remember the store.  It was one with two entrances, front and back; and next door to it there is a public building with a long row of telephone booths on the ground floor.  If I read the incident aright, she bought her coffee, ordered it ground, slipped out at the rear door and into the adjoining building, where, unnoticed and unheard, she called up the Universal and got into communication with Madame Duclos.  When she returned it was by the same route.  She did not forget her coffee nor give way under the great strain to which she had subjected herself till she reached her own apartment.”

“Clever.”

“And true, gentlemen; I will stake my reputation on it, unable as I am to explain every circumstance, and close up every gap.  Have you any further questions to ask or shall I leave you to your deliberations?”

XXIX

A STRONG MAN

An hour later when the Chief Inspector rose to depart, it was with the understanding that until their way cleared and their duty in this matter had become inevitable, no word of this business should reach the press, or even pass beyond the three officials interested.

Strange to say, they were able to keep this compact, and days elapsed without any public recognition of the new factor which had entered into the consideration of this complicated crime.

Then a hint of what was seething in the official mind was allowed to carry its own shock to the person most interested.  Mr. Roberts was summoned to an interview with Coroner Price.  No reason was given for this act, but the time was set with an exactness which gave importance to a request which they all felt the director would not venture to disregard.

Nor did he.  He came at the time appointed, and Coroner Price in welcoming him with becoming deference could not but notice the great change which had taken place in him since that night they stood together in the museum and saw the Indian make the trial with bow and arrow which located the point of delivery as that of the upper pedestal.  In just what this change lay, the Coroner hardly knew, unless it was in the increased grayness of his hair.  Mr. Roberts’ face, handsome as it was, was not an expressive one.  Slight emotions made no impression there; nor did he to-day present anything but a calm and dignified appearance.  Yet he was changed; and anyone who had not seen him since that night must certainly observe it.