“It worked, sir.  He flushed like a man who had been struck; then he grew white with indignation and blurted forth that it was no more his shadow than it was Mr. Roberts’—­that indeed it was much more like Mr. Roberts’ than the Curator’s.  At which I simply remarked:  ‘You think so, Correy?’ To which he replied:  ’I do not think anything.  But I know that Curator Jewett never brought up that bow from the cellar, or he would have said so the minute he saw it.  There’s no better man in the world than he.’  ‘Nor than Mr. Roberts either,’ I put in, and left him comforted if not quite reassured.

“So much for Question One—­

“Number Two is of a similar nature.  ’Was the transference of the arrow from one gallery to the other due to the same person who brought up the bow?’ Now, in answer to that, I have a curious thing to show you.”  And lifting into view a bundle of goodly size, wrapped in heavy brown paper, he opened it up and disclosed a gentleman’s coat.  Spreading this out between them lining side out, and pointing out two marks an inch or so apart showing the remains of stitches for which there seemed to have been no practical use, he took from his own vest-pocket what looked like a bit of narrow black tape.  This he laid down on the upturned lining in the space bounded by the two lines of marks I have mentioned, and drawing the Chief’s attention to it, observed in quiet explanation: 

“The one fits the other—­stitch for stitch.  Look closely at them both, I beg, and tell me if in your judgment it is not evident that this strap or loop, or whatever we may call it, has been cut away from this coat to which it had been previously sewed—­and by no woman either.”

Anyone could see that this had been so.  There could be but one reply: 

“This coat I bought from an old man to whom it had been given by Mr. Roberts’ housekeeper on their arrival at his new home on Long Island.  The strip was picked up at the museum in the room where Mrs. Taylor spent an hour or so immediately upon leaving the scene of crime.  With her at the time was the young lady who had kindly offered to look after her and two or three men directly associated with the museum, of whom Mr. Roberts was one.  These and these only.  Now, this strap or let us say loop, since we are beginning to see for what purpose it was used, was not on the floor previous to the entrance of these few persons into this room—­or, indeed, for some little time afterward.  Otherwise this young lady, who was the one to open my eyes to this clue, surely would have seen it in the half-hour she stood at Mrs. Taylor’s side with no one to talk to and quite free to look about her.  But it was there after that lady had revived from her fainting-fit—­dropped, as you see—­cut from its owner’s coat and dropped!  Chief, let me ask why this should have been done in a time of such suspense if it had had nothing to do with the crime then occupying everybody’s attention—­a good coat too, almost new, as you will observe?”