a director now these many years?  Am I a madman, or a destroyer of youth?  I love the young.  This inhuman death of one so fair and innocent has whitened my locks and seared my very heart-strings.  I shall never get over it; and whatever evidence you may have or think you have, of my having handled bow and arrow in that museum gallery, it must fall before the fact of my natural incapability to do the thing with which you have charged me.  No act possible to man is more in contradiction to my instincts, than the wanton or even casual killing of a young girl.”

“I believe you.”

It was the Inspector who spoke, and the emphasis which he gave to his words lifted the director’s head again into its old self-reliant poise.  But the silence which followed was so weighted with possibilities of something yet to be said by this portentous holder of secrets, that it caused the nobly lifted head slowly to droop again and the lips which had opened impulsively to close.

Were the words coming—­the words which might at a stroke pull down the whole fabric of his life, past, present and to come?

In his excited state of mind he seemed already to hear them.  Doom was in their sound, and the world, once so bright, was growing dark about him—­dark!

Yet how could these men know?  And if they did why did they not speak?  And they did not; they did not.  There was silence in the air, not words; and life for him was taking on once more its ancient colors, when sharp and merry through the heavy quiet there rang out the five clear calls of a cuckoo clock from some near-by room.  One, two, three, four, five!  Jolly reminder of old days!  But to the men who listened, the voice of doom spoke in its gladsome peal, whether the ears which caught it were those of accuser or accused.  Old days were not the days to be rejoiced in at a moment so perilous to the one and so painful to the others.

With the cessation of the last shrill cry, the Inspector repeated the phrase: 

“I believe you, Mr. Roberts.  But how about the woman who was troubling you with demands you had no wish to grant?  Miss Willetts, as you choose to call her, though you must know that her name is Duclos, was not the only person in the line of the arrow shot on that day from one gallery to the other.  Perhaps this weapon of destruction was meant for one it failed to reach.  Perhaps—­but I have gone far enough.  I should not have gone so far if it had not been my wish to avoid any misunderstanding with one of such undoubted claims to consideration as yourself.  If you have explanations to offer—­if you can in any way relieve our minds from the responsibilities which are weighing upon us, pray believe in our honest desire to have you do so.  There may be something back of appearances which has escaped our penetration; but it will have to be something startlingly clear, for we know facts in your life which are not open to the world at large, I may even say to your most intimate friends.”