He stood filling his pipe. Assuredly this fresh mystery must be investigated. And so must that of the lady that swam rivers in the night and blinded her pursuer’s eyes and assaulted his heart in the morning. If it had not been for Her all this would have been great fun; but now—well, it was anything but amusing. She must know something, and since Boyd had seen fit to suspect the one obviously innocent person, it was Anthony Ruthven Gethryn’s business to find out what she knew. What was so disturbing was the unreasonableness of the affair. Nothing seemed to have motive behind it. Of course, there was reason for everything—the Lady of the Sandal’s swim over the river, the secret ravishing of the study by the bosomless, sexless sister of the corpse, even the appearance of an innocent man’s finger-prints on the murderer’s weapon—but were they sane reasons? At present it seemed as if they could not be, and what could be more hopeless than the search of a sane man for the motives of lunatics! Anthony shook himself, chided and took himself in hand. “Gethryn,” he murmured, “do something, man! Don’t stand here saying how difficult everything is. Well, what shall I do? Have a look at the study? All right.” He still had the hall to himself. Quietly, he entered the study and closed the door behind him. He surveyed the room. He strove for memory of the sounds he had heard just now when Laura Hoode had been there and he outside. There had been a fumbling, a click, a pause and then the rustling of paper. The writing-table was the most likely place. The drawers, he knew, were all locked, but perhaps the gaunt sister had duplicate keys. The originals were in Boyd’s official possession. But it was unlikely that sister would have keys. He looked thoughtfully at the table. Something of a connoisseur, he judged it as belonging to the adolescence of the last century. A desk more than a hundred years old! A mysterious, sinister woman searching in it! “A hundred to one on. Secret Drawer!” thought Anthony, and probed among the pigeon-holes. He met with no success, and felt cheated. His theory of the essential reality of story-books had played him false, it seemed. Loath to let it go, he tried again; this time pulling out from their sheaths the six small, shallow drawers which balanced the pigeon-holes on the other side of the alcove containing the ink-well. The top drawer, he noticed with joy, was shorter by over an inch than its five companions. He felt in its recess with long, sensitive fingers. He felt a thin rim of wood. He pressed, and nothing happened. He pulled, and it came easily away. The Great Story-book Theory was vindicated. He peered into the unveiled hollow. It was filled with papers, from their looks recently tossed and crumpled. “Naughty, naughty Laura!” said Anthony happily, and pulled them out. There were letters, a small leather-covered memorandum-book, a larger note-book and a bunch of newspaper-cuttings.