The House of the Arrow

by A. E. W. Mason

He took the end of the arrow shaft from one envelope, and the barb from his pocket, and fitted them together. The iron barb was loose now because the hole to receive it at the top of the arrow shaft had been widened to take a nib. But the spoke was just about the right length. He laid the arrow down upon the table, and opened his green file. A small square envelope, such as chemists use, attracted Jim's notice. He took it up. It seemed empty, but as he shook it out, a square tablet of some hard white substance rolled on to the table. It was soiled with dust, and there was a smear of green upon it; and as Jim turned it over, he noticed a cut or crack in its surface, as though something sharp had struck it.

"What in the world has this to do with the affair?" he asked.

Hanaud looked up from his file. He reached out his hand swiftly to take the tablet away from Jim, and drew his hand in again.

"A good deal perhaps. Perhaps nothing," he said gravely. "But it is interesting—that tablet. I shall know more about it to-morrow."

Jim could not for the life of him remember any occasion which had brought this tablet into notice. It certainly had not been discovered in Jean Cladel's house, for it was already there in the safe in the office. Jim had noticed the little square envelope as Hanaud fetched it out of the safe. The tablet looked as if it had been picked up from the road like Monsieur Bex's famous match-box. Or—yes, there was that smear of green—from the grass. Jim sat up straight in his chair. They had all been together in the garden this morning. Hanaud, himself, Betty and Ann Upcott. But at that point Frobisher's conjectures halted. Neither his memory nor deduction could connect that tablet with the half-hour the four of them had passed in the shade of the sycamores. The only thing of which he was quite sure was the great importance which Hanaud attached to it. For all the time that he handled and examined it Hanaud's eyes never left him, never once. They followed each little movement of finger tip and thumb with an extraordinary alertness, and when Jim at last tilted it off his palm back into its little envelope, the detective undoubtedly drew a breath of relief.

Jim Frobisher laughed good-humouredly. He was getting to know his man. He did not invite any "Aha's" and "Oho's" by vain questionings. He leaned across the table and took up his own memorandum which Hanaud had just laid aside out of his file. He laid it on the table in front of him and added two new questions to those which he had already written out. Thus:

(5) What was the exact message telephoned from Paris to the Prefecture and hidden away in an envelope marked by Hanaud: "Address"?

(6) When and where and why was the white tablet picked up, and what, in the name of all the saints, does it mean?

With another laugh Frobisher tossed the memorandum back to Hanaud. Hanaud, however, read them slowly and thoughtfully. "I had hoped to answer all your questions to-night," he said dispiritedly. "But you see! We break down at every corner, and the question must wait."

He was fitting methodically the memorandum back into the file when a look of extreme surprise came over Frobisher's face. He pointed a finger at the file.