"Exactly; but which one?"
"Ask me another," I said. "You'll never find that out."
He smiled and arranged his hands again like Holmes.
"I have," he said.
"Then you know?"
"On the contrary, I know nothing."
"It wasn't James's book?"
"It wasn't. The first thing was to find a book with a sheet torn out. I tried twenty-five books, and seven had pages torn out. But James's book had not. Then judge of my surprise, Maydew, when, coming to my desk for the form of the thing, and looking at my own exercise-book, I found a sheet was torn out; and this is it, for the tear fits!"
"What frightful cheek!" I cried out.
"I don't so much mind that," said Peters; "but the point is that, splendid though this clue seems to be on the surface, I can't get any forwarder by it. In fact, it may be the act of a friend, and not a foe."