"It is not of himself he is thinking," muttered Gryce.
"And he stood here?"
"No—we left him free to move about at will, and his will carried him into full view of the whole performance."
"And Sweetwater?"
"Was near enough to note his every move, but of course kept himself well out of sight."
Then as they both stepped back from the doorway: "Mr. Travis didn't know he was being watched. He thought himself alone; and having an expressive countenance,—very expressive for an Englishman,—it was easy enough for Sweetwater to read his thoughts."
"And those thoughts?"
"Relief to find an explanation of the phenomenon he had doubtless been puzzling over for hours. The moments he had spent in hiding behind one pedestal had evidently failed to suggest that another man might have been in hiding behind the other."
"I am not surprised. Coincidences of this astonishing kind are not often met with even by us," was the Inspector's dry retort.
During the interchange of these hurried sentences, they had withdrawn still farther out of sight and hearing of the man discussed. But at this point Inspector Jackson reapproached the doorway, and entering in a manner to intercept Mr. Travis in his nervous goings to and fro, remarked in an off-hand way: