And no one to heed! Not an eye to note that the Venus in one corner seemed to smile in the soft light with more than its accustomed allurement, or that the armor in which kings had fought wore a menacing sparkle exceeding that of other times and quieter days.

Ghosts of vanished ages might parade at will among the chattels of their time or drain the iridescent beaker to their unknown gods--no one would have noticed or turned aside to see.

For there was something else within these walls to-night for the men assembled there to look upon, and a story to be read which shut the imagination upon the past by amply filling it with the present.
What is this something?
Let us follow the gaze of the half-dozen persons grouped in front of the tapestry hanging in the northern gallery, and see.
But first, of whom is this small and mystic group composed?
Who are these men who in the middle of the night, in the security of a completely shuttered building, busy themselves, not with the inestimable treasures surrounding them, but with an odd and seemingly mountebank adventure totally out of keeping with the place and their absorbed demeanor?
We will name them: Mr.Roberts and a second director seen here for the first time, Inspector Jackson, Mr.Gryce, two lesser detectives, and a strange young man of undoubted Indian extraction who kept much in the background and yet stood always at attention like one awaiting orders.
Are these all?
Yes, in the one gallery; but in the other, shadowy figures are visible among the arches at one end, with whose identity we shall probably soon be made acquainted.
At what are these various persons, in the one gallery as in the other, looking so intently that all are turned one way--the way of greatest interest--the way the fatal arrow had flown some fourteen hours before, carrying death to the innocent girl smiling upon life in youthful exuberance?
Is it at some image of herself they see restored to hope and joy?
An image is there, but alas! it is but a dummy taken from one of the exhibits and so set up as to present the same angle to the gallery-front as her young body had done, according to Mr.Travis' reluctant declaration.
Why so placed, and why regarded with such concentrated interest by the men confronting it from the opposite gallery, will become apparent when, upon the Indian's being summoned from his place of modest retirement, it can be seen that the bow he carries in one hand is offset by the arrow he holds in the other.

A test is to be made which will settle, or so they hope, the truth of Mr.Travis' story.

If an arrow launched from before the pedestal or even from behind it through the loophole made by the curving-in of the vase toward its base can be made to reach its mark in the breast of this dummy, then they would feel some justification in doubting his statement that the arrow, whatever the appearances, was not shot from this gallery.