"I don't give opinions on deteckative matters until I'm sure," said Mr. Gubb. "She seems nice enough to the naked eye. I don't want to get you to suspicion her or nobody, Miss Scroggs, but about the only clue I can grab hold of is that first letter you got. It said to look on page fourteen, and all the pages by that number was torn out of your books--" "Except my cook-book," said Miss Petunia. "And a person naturally wouldn't go to think of a cook-book as a real book," said Mr. Gubb. "If you stop to think, you'll see that whoever wrote that letter must have beforehand tore out all the page fourteens from the books into your house, for some reason." "Why, yes!" exclaimed Miss Scroggs, clapping her hands together. "How wise you are!" "Deteckative work fetches deteckative wisdom," said Mr. Gubb modestly. "I don't want to throw suspicion at Mrs. Canterby, but Letter Number One points at her first of all." "O--h, yes! O--h my! And I never even thought of that!" cried Miss Petunia admiringly. "Us deteckatives have to think of things," said Philo Gubb. "And so we will say, just for cod, like, that Mrs. Canterby got at your books and ripped out the pages. She'd think: 'What will Miss Petunia do when she finds she hasn't any page fourteens to look at? She'll rush out to borrow a book to look at.' Now, where would you rush out to borrow a book if you wanted to borrow one in a hurry?" "To Mrs. Canterby's house!" exclaimed Miss Petunia. "Just so!" said Mr. Gubb. "You'd rush over and you'd say, 'Mrs. Canterby, lend me a book!' And she would hand you a book, and when you looked at page fourteen, and read the first full sentence on the page, what would you read?" "What would I read?" asked Miss Scroggs breathlessly. "You would read what she meant you to read," said Mr. Gubb triumphantly. "So, then what? If I was in her place and I had written a letter to you, meaning to give you a threat in a roundabout way, and it went dead, I'd write some foolish letters to you to make you think the whole thing was just foolishness. I'd write you letters about weather and tacks and cats and lime and trout, and such things, to throw you off the scent. Maybe," said Mr. Gubb, with a smile, "I'd just copy bits out of a newspaper." "How wonderfully wonderful!" exclaimed Miss Petunia. "That is what us deteckatives spend the midnight oil learning the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's Correspondence School lessons for," said Mr. Gubb. "So, if my theory is right, what you want to do when you get back home is to rush over to Mrs. Canterby's and ask to borrow a book, and look on page fourteen." "And then come back and tell you what it says?" asked Miss Petunia. "Just so!" said Philo Gubb.