epers would be sure to notice if the carpet or the linoleum
had been disturbed. So that brings us back to 'wood' again."

"How about the wall? A secret panel, or something of the kind?"

"I don't think he'd select anything so obvious," I said with a shake of
my head. "It had to be a place that we'd find, but that everyone else
would miss. There's quite a lot of wooden articles here, Moira, so we'll
go over them very carefully."

I surveyed the furniture ruefully. "Looks as if we'll have to chop a lot
of things to pieces," I remarked.

"Silly!" said Moira Drummond disgustedly. "We're looking for something
hollow, so why not tap?"

"Brilliant idea!" I said.

As I sit writing at this table in that very same room, the scene comes
back to me with all the clearness of a well-developed photograph. In my
mind's eye I see Moira and myself on our knees tapping every inch of the
old mahogany and the newer imitation Chippendale, and I realise as I
have realised a dozen times since to what needless trouble we went, when
a little thought upon the lines that I have already mapped out would
have led us just as easily, and perhaps a good deal quicker, to the very
spot itself. But we were young then--though for that matter we are
still--and to young people all motion is progress. It is only when one
gets older and sees things in perspective that one realises.... But that
wasn't what I set out to write about.

The long and short of it was that we tapped all the furniture most
carefully, and at the end of it found that our persistence was still
unrewarded.

"There's something wrong somewhere," Moira said disappointedly.

"It seems as if there's been a mistake in our judgment," I agreed.
"Still I fancy the table's the most likely place. You see he sat there
always."

"Suppose you sit in his place then, Jim."

"Excellent idea, Moira," I said, and at once proceeded to put it into
practice.

"Now if I had just finished typing anything and was looking for a safe
place to hide it, where would I naturally go?" I said out aloud. Moira
dropped into a chair on the other side of the table and leaned forward,
her chin resting in her hand, and regarded me with intense interest. I
went on talking to myself. "I'm thinking of wood, and the nearest wood
to me is the table. Therefore I'd hide it somewhere about the table, not
in or on it, but just about it."

Moira's eyes glowed--I remember that particularly--and we both must have
seized on