From all this Zizi gleaned one bit of satisfaction. She felt positive that Mrs Everett herself was innocent. She had never really suspected the little widow but her name had been mentioned as a possible suspect, and Zizi wondered. Now, she decided that, whatever might be true about Letitia Prall, Mrs Everett could not, were she guilty herself, talk the way she did about her enemy. Not so much the accusation as the way it was said. Had Mrs Everett killed the man, or assisted or directed the murder, she would have shown fear, secretiveness, or at least a harassed demeanor. Instead of which, she had apparently no interest in the matter save a vindictive desire to see her enemy in the clutches of the law. Anyway, thought Zizi, I cross her off from my list of suspects, and now for the Prall side of the story. Leaving the Everett apartment Zizi went up the stairs to the eighth floor, and though she was headed for Letitia Prall’s, she paused at the Binney rooms. “Come in,” called Wise, as the sleek black little head peeped in at the door; “I’ve struck it!” “Where?” asked Zizi, intuitively knowing that he had found the hiding place of the paper. “Here,” and Wise drew her attention to a fairly large mirror that was above the mantel in the sitting-room. “Why, that thing was screwed fast,” the girl said, “and we couldn’t move it.” “I unscrewed it—and, behold.” Loosening the screws, which he had only partially readjusted, Wise lifted down the mirror, and disclosed a rectangular space where the wall paper had been cut away. “The bakery men!” Zizi cried. “Why ‘women,’ then?” “Now, look here, Ziz,” and Wise replaced the mirror, “get it in your head that women may have been interested in getting this recipe. To suppose a woman may have been acting for a man, while possible, is not probable.” “Why not? Suppose a woman, say a working girl, so devoted to a man that she’d commit murder at his bidding——” “No man could be such a coward as that!” “Oh, Penny, what an exalted opinion you have of your sex! Of course he could! A man who would murder would use a woman to help him murder. Of course he offered a big inducement,—marriage maybe——” “You’re romancing——” “No, I’m not; I’m reconstructing. I see a man wanting that recipe desperately. He sets a woman to get it. He may not have meant her to go to such lengths as murder, to get it, but——” “All right, but stick to facts. The recipe has been stolen by someone in the know. Some one who realized why Sir Herbert had his room repapered——” “Clever trick, wasn’t it?” “Yes, but unnecessary. He could have put the thing in safe deposit.” “Englishmen are queer that way. And he may have distrusted our American institutions——” “Well, anyway, there’s no doubt he did hide the paper behind the new wallpaper, and there’s no doubt somebody has stolen it. I suppose you agree to that?” “Yea, my lord! But it may have been taken after the murder.” “Of course it was. Why kill the man, else?” “Why kill him at all?”