The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow by Anna Katharine Green
page 12 of 351 (03%)
page 12 of 351 (03%)
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"But--but these galleries are visible from below. Some one may have been looking up from the court and----" "If there was any such person in the building, he would have been here by this time. People don't hold back such information." "Then--then--" she stammered, her eyes taking on a hunted look, "you conclude--these people conclude _what_?" "Madam,"--the word came coldly, stinging her into drawing herself to her full height,--"it is not for me to conclude in a case like this. That is the business of the police." At this word, with its suggestion of crime, her air of conscious power vanished in sudden collapse. Possibly she had seen the significant gesture with which the Curator pointed out a quiver from which one of the arrows was missing. That this was so, was shown by her next question: "But where is the bow? Look about on the floor. You will find none. How can an arrow be shot without a bow?" "It cannot be," came from some one at her back. "But it can be driven home like a dagger if the hand wielding it is sufficiently powerful." A cry left her lips; she seemed to listen as for some echo; then in a wild abandonment which ignored person and place she flung herself again at the dead girl's side, and before the astonished people surrounding her could intervene, she had caught up the body in her arms, and bending over it, whispered word after word into the poor child's closed ear. |
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