Part 45 (1/2)

”No--I suppose not--and yet, why not? A messenger from the bakery people,--any of them,--of course, _could_ be a woman,--one of the maids, or some employee of the house.”

”Suppose we go and search.”

”Look here, Miss Everett, you are a sensible girl, and I'm going to speak frankly. You know that suspicion now is directed toward the aunt of Mr Bates or----”

”Or my mother! Yes, I do know it, but either supposition is so ridiculous----”

”Wait a minute; no matter how ridiculous a suspicion may seem to the people involved, it must be met and denied or it remains. Now, if suspicion in the two directions mentioned are so absurd, we must prove their absurdity.”

”How?”

”Either by making it clear that the suspected women could not have been guilty or, better still, finding the guilty party.”

”Let's do that, then! I know my mother had no hand in it,--and I'm equally sure that Miss Prall didn't----”

”But your surety and your certainty are of no evidential value.”

”That's why I say let's find the real women! You are a detective just as much as Mr Wise is one,--I'm an interested princ.i.p.al, just as much as Richard Bates is,--can't we do something big?”

”Good! That's the talk! We'll try, at least. Let's go to the Binney rooms now, and see what we can see.”

”Small chance of seeing anything in rooms that Mr Wise has already searched.”

”Oh, I don't know. Set a woman to catch a woman! If women have sought and found that recipe, we'll find their traces. If it's still there, we must find the paper ourselves.”

Zizi looked at Dorcas in surprise.

”You're a trump!” she exclaimed; ”good for you! Come along, we'll see what we can do.”

The two girls went to the Binney rooms and began their search. But it seemed useless to look through papers in the desk or books on the book shelves after Wise and the other detectives had gone over that ground.

”Was Sir Herbert sly and canny?” asked Zizi, thoughtfully.

”Oh, yes, indeed. He was never caught napping. If he hid that paper, he hid it in a good place. It won't be found easily. We must think of some inconspicuous place,--in the back of a picture, or tacked up above the inside of a drawer.”

”Clever girl!” and Zizi's admiration increased. ”Here goes, then.”

They both looked in all such places as Dorcas had suggested, but with no success at all.

Wise came in while they were thus busy, and smiled approval at the work in progress.

”h.e.l.lo,” he said, suddenly, as Dorcas peered behind a picture that was hung low, ”the wall paper isn't faded at all in this room. Must be new.”

”It is,” Dorcas told him. ”Sir Herbert had this room repapered when he took the apartment.”

”Why?”

”Said he didn't like the paper that was on.”

”And yet he could stand that frightful Cubist nightmare on the wall of the bedroom! H'm! Well, well! Very interesting--ve-ry interesting! See, Ziz?”