The room was not very large, and lined on all four sides with books. A writing-desk, littered with papers, stood before the single window, and a few chairs were scattered round. There were also a horsehair sofa, a small sideboard of varnished deal, three or four china ornaments, and a little clock on the mantelpiece. The floor was covered with straw matting, but what the pattern of the paper was like no one could tell, for it was hidden completely by the books. The whole apartment looked penurious in the extreme and very untidy. Books lay on chairs and sofas, and the fireplace was filled with torn-up letters, newspapers, and hastily scribbled manuscripts. "The books first," decided Dora, after a look at this chaos. There was no need to go through them one by one, for dust lay thickly upon bindings and shelves. She had only to glance to see those which had been disturbed within the last few weeks. Those that had been taken down she examined carefully, but could find no trace of the manuscript. She looked on the top of the bookcase, went down on her knees to search the lower shelves, and still found nothing. At the end of an hour Dora had gone through the whole library of Joad, but had come across no trace of the wished-for paper. He had hidden it--always presuming that it was in his possession--more cunningly than she had thought. "Now for the desk." Another hour's search in drawers and pigeonholes and blotting-pad likewise revealed nothing. Dora emptied out the wastepaper basket, and sorted every scrap, and still she was unsuccessful. Then she lifted portions of the matting, removed the cushions of the chairs, searched the sideboard, and dived into the recesses of the sofa. All to no purpose. "Perhaps he has not got it after all," thought Dora, disappointed, "or he has burnt it." Burning suggested the fireplace; but she saw that there had not been a fire for months in the grate. It then struck her that Mr. Joad might have taken an idea from Poe's "Purloined Letter," and have hidden the manuscript in some conspicuous place. The fireplace alone was unsearched, so she went down on her knees and turned out the disorderly mass of papers. Her patience was rewarded at last. From under the heap she drew forth a crumpled mass of paper, foolscap size, and spread it out carefully. Then she uttered a cry. "The Confession of Julian Dargill, better known as Julian Edermont," she read. "Ah! I was right. Here is the stolen story of the past, and Joad is the man who killed my guardian." CHAPTER XXIII. THE MADNESS OF LAMBERT JOAD.