I.
That he was to be so fortunate as to lay an immediate hand on the person who had shot the fatal arrow was no longer regarded by him as among the possibilities.

Whoever this person was, he had found a way of escape which rendered him for the time being safe from discovery.

But there was another possible miscalculation which he felt it his duty to recognize before he proceeded further in his difficult task.

The bow found back of the tapestry had every appearance of being the one used for the delivery of the arrow.

But was it?
Might it not, in some strange and unaccountable way, have been flung there previous to the present event and by some hand no longer in the building?
Such coincidences have been known, and while as a rule this old and experienced detective put little confidence in coincidences of any kind, he had but one thought in mind in approaching this final witness, which was to get from him some acknowledgment of having seen, on or about the time of the accident, a movement in the tapestry behind which this bow lay concealed.