“I know that; but for the present perhaps it will be best for me to follow your lead, and when I have to speak of a certain person, say X as you do.  X, Mr. Gryce, is the man who for reasons we do not yet understand brought up the discarded bow from the cellar and stored it somewhere within reach on the floor above.  X is also the man who for the same unknown reason robbed the quiver hanging in the southern gallery of one of its arrows and kept the same on hand or in hiding, till he could mate it with the bow.  My dreams showed me this picture: 

“A man with a predominating interest in sport, but otherwise active in business, correct in his dealings and respectable in private life, sees and frequently handles weapons of ancient and modern make which rouse his interest and awaken the longing, common to such men, to test his skill in their use.  Sometimes it is a sword, which he twirls vigorously in sly corners.  Again, it is a bow calling for a yeoman’s strength to pull.  He is a man of sense and for a long time goes no further than the play I have just indicated.  Perhaps he has no temptation to go further until one unfortunate day he comes upon an idle bow, rotting away in the cellar.”

Here Mr. Gryce looked sharply up—­a proof of awakened interest which Sweetwater did not heed.  Possibly he was not expected to.  At all events he continued rapidly: 

“It was a fine, strong bow, a typical one from the plains.  He took it up—­examined it closely—­noted a slight defect in it somewhere—­and put it back.  But he did not forget it.  Before many days had passed, he goes down cellar again and brings it up and stands it on end in—­where do you think, sir?—­in the closet of the Curator’s office!”

“How did you learn that?”

“From the woman who comes every day to wipe up the floors.  I happened to think she might have something worth while to tell us, so I hunted her up——­”

“Go on, boy.  Another long mark in your favor.”

“Thank you, sir.  I’m relating a dream, you know.  He stands it on end then in this closet into which nobody is supposed to go but the Curator and the scrubwoman, and there he leaves it, possibly as yet with no definite intention.  How long it stood there I cannot say.  It was well hidden, it seems, by something or other hanging over it.  Nor am I altogether sure that it might not be standing there yet if the impulse swaying X had not been strengthened by seeing daily over his head a quiver full of arrows admirably fitted for this bow.  Time has no place in dreams, or I might be able to state the day and the hour when he stood looking at the ring of keys lying on the Curator’s desk, and struck with what it might do for him, singled out one of the keys which he placed in the keyhole of a door opening upon a certain little iron staircase.  He was alone, but he stopped to listen before turning that key.  I can see him, can’t you?  His air is a guilty one; but it is the guilt of folly, not of premeditated crime.  He wants a try at that bow and recognizes his weakness and laughs.