Two mornings after the eventful day in Heidenmuller’s laboratory, I knocked at Dorothy’s door, and entered to find the broad table of her sunny parlor covered with piles of neat clippings, each with a docketed slip at the top. The clipping bureau had exceeded my best hopes, and had turned in the information in quantities. Tom and Dorothy were bending over the piles sorting them, as the maid ushered me in.
“If you hadn’t told them to sort these things at their office, we should have been swamped beyond all hope of salvation,” grumbled Tom, as he stood with a bundle of clippings between every finger of both hands. “Where are the Westminster shutters, Dorothy?”
“Here they are,” said Dorothy. “Now I want the Chelsea signs. It’s just like solitaire. The signs are my cards. The blinds go to Tom, and you can take stolen iron. That’s stolen iron, that heap of packets over on the other side of the table.”
I sat down to my task. Hour after hour passed, and we sorted, read, and rejected. Now and then a clipping would go aside for further reference. Occasionally a packet or a single slip would pass from one to another. Lunch took an hour, but after lunch we turned again to our labors, and afternoon tea time came and went before we were done. At length Tom rose and gave a mighty yawn. “Eight that look good,” he remarked.
“Eight from me,” I echoed.
“Ten,” chimed in Dorothy.
“That’s not half bad,” said Tom reflectively. “There were hundreds of clippings there, and we’ve brought them down pretty low, all things considered.”
We three dined alone that night, and when the coffee came on, Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out a long envelope with the twenty-six clippings. “Which comes first?” he asked, “Signs or blinds or stolen iron?”
“Match you to decide,” I answered, and I pulled out a sovereign. “I’ll take signs, you take shutters.” Tom won.
“Shutters against stolen iron then,” cried Dorothy.