“Didn’t know you’d ever been here, Ziz,” and Wise smiled at the earnest little face.
“Yep, I was; and I happened to move the telephone, and under it was that drawing. I didn’t think anything about it, as evidence, but I looked at it ’cause it was so pretty. And I put the telephone back over it again.”
“But I searched this room,” and Wise looked mystified.
“You probably didn’t lift the telephone, then,” Zizi returned, shaking her elfin head, while a deep sorrow showed in her black eyes.
“I don’t believe I did,” Wise mused, thinking back. “I did pick up most of the desk fittings to examine them but I suppose I didn’t take hold of the telephone at all.”
“’Course not!” Zizi was always ready to defend Wise’s actions. “How could you know there was a picture under it? But, oh, Penny, what does it mean?”
“Wait,—let’s get at it carefully. On the face of it, it would seem as if Case Rivers must have drawn this figure of a snow crystal. Everybody has some peculiar habit, and especially, lots of people have a habit of drawing some particular thing when waiting at a telephone.
“I’ve asked half a dozen men of late, and every one says he scribbles words or draws some crude combination of lines. But each one says he always does the same thing, whatever it may be. Now, I imagine, very few men draw snow crystals,—and fewer still, draw them with this degree of perfection. Again, granting they did, would any other individual draw this identical design, with this accuracy of drawing, that Case Rivers drew on the desk-blotter at your house, Brice?”
“I should say it would be impossible that anyone else could have done it,” I replied, honestly, though I began to see where our investigation was leading us.
“It is impossible,” declared Wise. “Two men might draw snow crystals, but they would not both choose this particular one.”