connecting link? How can we hope to establish it? That is
what it has now become my unfortunate duty to make plain to you. Carleton
Roberts drawing a bow to shoot an innocent schoolgirl is incredible. In
spite of all I have said and shown you, I do not believe him guilty of so
inhuman an act. He drew the bow, he shot the arrow, but----Here allow me
to pause a moment to present another aspect of the case as surprising as
any you have yet heard. You are aware--we all are aware--that the inquest
we await has been held back for the purpose of giving Mrs. Taylor an
opportunity to recover from the illness into which she has been thrown by
what she saw and suffered that day. Gentlemen, this Mrs. Taylor whom we
all--I will not even exclude myself from this category--regarded not only
as a casual visitor to the museum, but a stranger to all concerned, is,
on the contrary, as I think you will soon see, more closely allied to the
seemingly dispassionate director than even Madame Duclos. The shock which
laid her low was not that usually ascribed to her, or even the one she so
fantastically offered to our acceptance; but the recognition of Carleton
Roberts as the author of this tragedy,--Carleton Roberts whom she not
only knew well but had loved in days gone by, as sincerely as he had
loved her. This I now propose to prove to you by what I cannot but regard
as incontestable evidence."

Taking from a small portfolio which he carried another photograph,
unmounted this time and evidently the work of an amateur, he laid it out
before them. The silence with which his last statement had been received,
the kind of silence which covers emotions too deep for audible
expression, remained unbroken save for an involuntary murmur or so, as
the District Attorney and his assistant bent over this crude presentation
of something--they hardly knew what--which this old but long trusted
detective was offering them in substantiation of the well-nigh
unbelievable statement he had just made.

[Illustration]

"This, gentlemen," he went on, as he pointed to the following, "is the
copy of a label pasted on the back of a certain Swiss clock to be seen at
this very moment on the wall of Mr. Roberts' own bedroom in his home in
Belport, Long Island. He prizes this clock. He has been heard to say that
it goes where he goes and stays where he stays, and as it is far from a
valuable one either from intrinsic worth or from any accuracy it displays
in keeping time