Peter caught his breath, and thanked his lucky stars that there was no one in the apartment below. As he carefully returned them to their place he noted with some surprise that besides the more popular magazines of the day there were a number of scientific and medical journals, and several copies of a publication called _Beauty_. He had never even heard of this latter, and glanced through one or two copies curiously, smiling a little, in spite of the seriousness of his quest. There appeared to be no end of ways in which one could heighten one's beauty, and no practical limit to the absurdities which were recommended for the purpose. That someone had taken the suggestions seriously there could be little doubt, for in several cases articles had been carefully clipped from the body of the magazine. This had also happened, in one or two cases, in the medical journals. Peter wondered, in passing, what the subjects treated had been, but could form no idea, since the entire article, in each case, had been cut away. Peter had always been fascinated by people's books, their selection was a matter so strongly indicative of character. But in this instance the evidence was distinctly contradictory. "A lot of high-brow books," he thought, "and some of the rest of the stuff so low-brow it makes even me feel intellectual. Did Anne pick out one kind, and Mary the other--and if so, which? Oh, well, it's no use to speculate now. Better get on." He resumed his painstaking inspection. He had saved the desk till the last. Here, if anywhere, he was sure he would find what he so ardently sought. And yet, never in his life had he found so non-committal a lot of papers as were in the drawers and scattered on the floor. A great mass of press notices, with the little yellow slip of the clipping bureau still attached, were mixed up with plain white letter paper and envelopes. There were a few business letters from Frederick Jones, but not one from Mary's old manager, Arthur Quinn. In fact, there were no strictly private letters to either of the sisters, and he could find none at all addressed to Anne. To avoid the smallest chance of missing anything, Peter had seated himself beside the desk and had drawn out, one by one, each of the four drawers, placing them upon his knees while he minutely examined the contents. Satisfied, at last, that there was nothing to his purpose in any of them, with a feeling of deep discouragement he slid them back into their places. They all ran in with the ease which one encounters only in very good old American-made furniture--all but the bottom drawer on the right. This slipped in smoothly until it was nearly shut, and then stuck. "Oh, damn," said Peter, and pushed it hard.