"No, he did not," Moira admitted. So then and there I told her the tale. "You can understand from that," I concluded, "that whatever he was typing had something to do with that piece of wood. Now when he had made up his mind to secrete the papers two words would be prominent in his thoughts."
"I know," she said with a flash of intuition.
"Tell me," I smiled.
"'Sands' and 'wood,'" she said eagerly.
"'Wood' is one of them," I answered, "but I rather prefer to say 'bury' for the other. Now the only place he could bury anything about here in such a way that it wouldn't be noticed is under the hearthstone; but, as it's cement in this case, I think we can leave it out of the question. He wouldn't put them under the floor. For one thing it'd take too long, and the sweepers would be sure to notice if the carpet or the linoleum had been disturbed. So that brings us back to 'wood' again."
"How about the wall? A secret panel, or something of the kind?"
"I don't think he'd select anything so obvious," I said with a shake of my head. "It had to be a place that we'd find, but that everyone else would miss. There's quite a lot of wooden articles here, Moira, so we'll go over them very carefully."
I surveyed the furniture ruefully. "Looks as if we'll have to chop a lot of things to pieces," I remarked.
"Silly!" said Moira Drummond disgustedly. "We're looking for something hollow, so why not tap?"
"Brilliant idea!" I said.