"I wasn't going to give it back," Hanaud answered, "and a copy at the present stage isn't necessary. A little later on I may ask for your assistance."
He put the letter away in his letter-case, and his letter-case away in his breast-pocket. When he looked up again he saw that Betty was holding out to him a key.
"This unlocks the cabinet at the end of the room," she said.
"Yes! Let us look now for the famous arrow, or we shall have Monsieur Frobisher displeased with us again," said Hanaud.
The cabinet stood against the wall at the end of the room opposite to the windows, and close to the door which opened on to the hall. Hanaud took the key, unlocked the door of the cabinet and started back with a "Wow." He was really startled, for facing him upon a shelf were two tiny human heads, perfect in feature, in hair, in eyes, but reduced to the size of big oranges. They were the heads of Indian tribesmen killed upon the banks of the Amazon, and preserved and reduced by their conquerors by the process common amongst those forests.
"If the arrow is anywhere in this room, it is here that we should find it," he said, but though he found many curious oddities in that cabinet, of the perfect specimen of a poison arrow there was never a trace. He turned away with an air of disappointment.
"Well then, Mademoiselle, there is nothing else for it," he said regretfully; and for an hour he searched that room, turning back the carpet, examining the upholstery of the chairs, and the curtains, shaking out every vase, and finally giving his attention to Betty's secretary. He probed every cranny of it; he discovered the simple mechanism of its secret drawers; he turned out every pigeon-hole; working with extraordinary swiftness and replacing everything in its proper place. At the end of the hour the room was as orderly as when he had entered it; yet he had gone through it with a tooth comb.
"No, it is not here," he said and he seated himself in a chair and drew a breath. "But on the other hand, as the two ladies and Monsieur Frobisher are aware, I was prepared not to find it here."
"We have finished then?" said Betty, but Hanaud did not stir.
"For a moment," he replied, "I shall be glad, Monsieur Girardot, if you will remove the seals in the hall from the door at the end of the room."