“I am not surprised.  Coincidences of this astonishing kind are not often met with even by us,” was the Inspector’s dry retort.

During the interchange of these hurried sentences, they had withdrawn still farther out of sight and hearing of the man discussed.  But at this point Inspector Jackson reapproached the doorway, and entering in a manner to intercept Mr. Travis in his nervous goings to and fro, remarked in an off-hand way: 

“I see that you have met with a surprise, Mr. Travis.  Like ourselves, you gave little thought to what that upper pedestal might conceal.”

“You are right.  I never even glanced that way.  But if I had, I should have seen nothing.  He was well hid, exceedingly well hid, whoever he was.  But he cannot escape now; you’ll get him, won’t you, Inspector?  He could not have left the building—­all say that this was impossible.  He was one, then, of the people I saw moving about when I went down into the court.  Find him!  Find this murderer of innocence! of the sweetest, purest child——­”

He turned away; grief was taking the place of indignation and revenge.  At this sight the two men left him.  The Inspector was at last convinced, both of the man’s probity and of one stern, disconcerting fact:  that the real culprit—­the man whose guilty fingers had launched the fatal arrow—­had been, as Travis said, one of the twenty-two persons who had been moving about for hours not only under his eyes but under those of the famous detective posted there.

XI

FOOTSTEPS

WANTED—­A WOMAN CALLING HERSELF ANTOINETTE Duclos, just arrived from Europe on the steamer Castania, who after taking rooms at the Universal for herself and her steamer companion, Angeline Willetts, left the hotel in great haste late in the afternoon of May twenty-third and has not been heard of since.

In person she is of medium height, but stocky for a Frenchwoman.  Dark hair, black eyes, with an affection of the lid which causes the left one to droop.  Her dress consisted of skirt and jacket of a soft shade of brown.  Hat indistinguishable.  She carried, on leaving the hotel, a dark brown leather bag of medium size, long and narrow in shape.  Her only peculiarity, saving the one drooping eyelid, is a hesitating walk.  This is particularly obvious when she attempts to hasten.

  It is to be hoped that this person on hearing of Miss Willetts’ death,
  will communicate at once with the clerk of the hotel.

  If in two days this does not occur, a reward of five hundred dollars
  will be given to the man or woman who can give definite news of this
  Frenchwoman’s whereabouts.

  Police Headquarters, Mulberry St.

This notice, appended to such particulars of the tragedy as appeared in all the morning papers, roused the city—­I may even say the country—­to even greater wonder and excitement than had followed the first details given in the journals of the evening before.