An exclamation from the Curator, who had only waited for his coming to take his first look, added zest to his own scrutiny.

It would take something more than the sight of a well-known door to give it such a tone of astonished discovery.

What?
Even he, with the accumulated surprises of years to give wings to his imagination, did not succeed in guessing.

But when his eyes, once accustomed to the semi-darkness of the narrow space which Correy had thus opened out before him, saw not the door but what lay within its recess, he acknowledged to himself that he should have guessed--and that a dozen years before, he certainly would have done so.
It was a _bow_--not like the one hanging high in the Apache exhibit, but yet a bow strong of make and strung for use.
* * * * * Here was a discovery as important as it was unexpected, eliminating Mrs.
Taylor at once from the case and raising it into a mystery of the first order.

By dint of long custom, Mr.Gryce succeeded in hiding his extreme satisfaction, but not the perplexity into which he was thrown by this complete change of base.