For a time her eyes ranged over the room without detecting the absence of anything. Then she gave a cry in which surprise and disappointment seemed to be mingled. Her finger pointed to a bookshelf on which a number of books were neatly arranged. “Why,” she said, “there's surely something missing from that! It doesn't look quite as full as I remember it.” She hurried across the room, knelt down, and scanned the shelves closely. When she spoke again, it was evident that she was cut to the heart. “Yes, it's gone! Oh, I'd have given almost anything rather than have this happen! Do you know what it is, Paul? It's Derek's diary—all the volumes. You know how carefully he kept it all the time he was here. And now it's lost. And he'll be back here in a few days, and I'm sure he'll want it.” Still kneeling before the bookshelves, she turned round to the chief constable. “Sir Clinton, you _must_ get that back for me. I don't care what else they've taken.” The chief constable refrained from making any promise. He glanced at Paul Fordingbridge, and was puzzled by what he read on his features. Commiseration for his sister seemed to be mingled with some other emotion which baffled Sir Clinton. Acute vexation, repressed only with difficulty, seemed to have its part; but there was something also which suggested more than a little trepidation. “It's a rather important set of documents,” Paul Fordingbridge said, after a pause. “If you can lay your hands on them, Sir Clinton, my sister will be very much indebted to you. They would certainly never have been left here if it had not been for her notions. I wish you'd taken my advice, Jay,” he added irritably, turning to his sister. “You know perfectly well that I wanted to keep them in my own possession; but you made such a fuss about it that I let you have your way. And now the damned things are missing!” Miss Fordingbridge made no reply. Sir Clinton interposed tactfully to relieve the obvious strain of the situation. “We shall do our best, Miss Fordingbridge. I never care to promise more than that, you understand. Now, can you see anything else that's gone a-missing from here?” Miss Fordingbridge pulled herself together with an effort. Clearly the loss of the diary had been a severe blow to her sentiment about her nephew's study. She glanced round the room, her eyes halting here and there at times when she seemed in doubt. At last she completed her survey. “I don't miss anything else,” she said. “And I don't think there's anything gone that I wouldn't miss if it had been taken away.”