“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?” The black eyes of his little assistant sparkled. “Of course I do! He had the room papered in order to hide his precious recipe.” “Right! Now, we may have to peel off the paper from the whole room,—for it’s not probable he kindly left it folded, in order to help us along.” Dorcas listened with growing surprise. Here was a clever detective, indeed, to jump to this important conclusion,—if it was the true one. “Let’s feel around,” Zizi said, and began passing her little brown paw over the walls. “Not in plain sight, Ziz,” said Wise, and he started moving out a bookcase to look behind it. They felt nothing that seemed like a paper behind the wall paper, but if the recipe had been placed without folding at all it would doubtless cause no appreciable extra thickness. “Maybe he left a memorandum,” suggested Zizi, “or even a cryptogram in his desk telling where he hid it.” “Not likely,” said Wise. “You see he wouldn’t forget and he had no reason to make the thing clear to anybody else.” “Molly said somebody was in here prowling,” Dorcas reminded, “so somebody knew there was a paper to look for.” “But all this paper business presupposes the bread or cake people, and they aren’t women,” objected Wise. “That paper about the women may be misleading,” Zizi said, thoughtfully. “They may have been back of the murder, or, on the other hand, they may have been the tools of men responsible for the murder.” “But you can’t get away from women’s connection with the crime. Whether directly or indirectly guilty, they are the people to look for,—they are our quarry, and they must be found.” Dorcas paled and her red lower lip quivered. “Oh, Mr Wise,” she begged, “do be careful! It would be so awful if you suspected innocent women just because of the paper! Even granting it is a genuine dying message, it may mean so many things——” She broke down and Zizi ran to her and threw her aims around the shaking form. “Come, dear,” she said; “you’re all unstrung; don’t look around here any more now. If there’s a paper to be found, Penny will find it.” She led Dorcas away and took her back to her own home, and, urging her to lie down, she soothed the throbbing forehead with her magnetic finger-tips and soon Dorcas fell asleep. Zizi tiptoed from the girl’s bedroom, and encountered Mrs Everett on her way out. “Do sit down, Miss Zizi,” the lady urged. “I’m pining for some one to talk to. Tell me now, do you think Letitia Prall is at the back of all this? Not of course, the actual criminal, but in any way implicated?” The plump little blonde lady fluttered about and finally settled herself among some cushions on a couch and turned an inquisitive gaze on her visitor. “What would be her motive?” Zizi parried. “To say she did it for young Bates’ sake sounds poppycock to me.”