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 ?" The Chief, possibly with a shade less of irony in his manner, answered this direct question with one equally direct: "And what connection have you succeeded in establishing between this abominable crime and the coat with or without a loop worn by the museum's leading director?
One as straight and indisputable, no doubt, as that you have just attempted to make between this same gentleman and the museum bow," he added with biting incredulity.
"Yes," returned the other in calm disregard of the sarcasm, "straighter and more indisputable, if anything.

We are asking, as you will remember, how an arrow could have been carried from the southern to the northern gallery without attracting anyone's attention.

I will show you how." With a rap on the table which brought Sweetwater into the room, he proceeded to pin again into its old place on the lining of Mr.Roberts' coat the so-called tag.