y journal, when
they both stepped out. Miss Willetts was dressed for the street, but
Madame Duclos was not, which seemed very strange to me. But I felt no
concern till I caught some fragments of what Madame said in passing me.
She spoke in French, a language I understand, and she was exclaiming
over her misfortune at not being allowed to accompany her young charge to
whatever place she was going. It was bad, bad, she cried, and she would
not have a moment's peace till her dear Angeline got back. Anxiety of
this kind was natural in a Frenchwoman not accustomed to see a young lady
enter the streets alone; but the force with which she expressed it
betrayed a real alarm--an alarm which communicated itself to me. Where
could this unprotected girl be going, alone and in a hotel cab?

"I could not imagine, and when I saw Madame stop in the middle of her
talk to buy some fresh flowers and pin them to Miss Willetts' corsage, I
got a queer feeling, and flinging my newspaper aside, I strolled to the
door and so out in time to hear Madame's orders to the chauffeur. The
young lady was to be taken to a museum. To a museum, at this early hour!
and alone, alone! Such a proceeding is not at all in accord with French
ideas, and I feared a plot. Though it was far from being my affair, I
determined to make it so; and as soon as I dared, I followed her just as
I had followed her from the dock. But fruitlessly! Not knowing the
danger, how could I avert it? I was in one gallery, she in the other. It
was my evil fate to see her fall, but by whose hand I am as ignorant as
yourselves. _Now_ I have told it all. Will you let me go?"

"Not yet," interposed the Coroner. "There are one or two questions more
which you will undoubtedly answer with the same frankness. Were you
standing in front of the pedestal or behind it when you saw Miss Willetts
fall?"

"I was standing just where I said, somewhere near it in the open
gallery."

This seemed so open to question that the Coroner paused a moment to
recall the exact situation and see if it were possible for a man as
conspicuous in figure as Mr. Travis to have stood thus in full view of
gallery and court, without attracting the attention of anyone in either
place. He found, after a moment's consideration, that it was possible.
Mr. Gryce, for all his efforts and systematic inquiry into the position
which each person had held at or near this time, had been able to find
but one who chanced to be looking