Henriette, very proudly, declared:
"Yes, I cut out the words and stick them on."
"And who taught you that pretty game?"
"Mademoiselle ... my governess.... I saw her do it. She takes words out of newspapers and sticks them on...."
"And what does she do with them?"
"Makes telegrams and letters which she sends off."
Holmlock Shears returned to the schoolroom, singularly puzzled by this confidence and doing his utmost to extract from it the inferences of which it allowed.
There was a bundle of newspapers on the mantel-piece. He opened them and saw, in fact, that there were groups of words or lines missing, regularly and neatly cut out. But he had only to read the words that came before or after to ascertain that the missing words had been removed with the scissors at random, evidently by Henriette. It was possible that, in the pile of papers, there was one which mademoiselle had cut herself. But how was he to make sure?
Mechanically, Shears turned the pages of the lesson-books heaped up on the table and of some others lying on the shelves of a cupboard. And suddenly a cry of joy escaped him. In a corner of the cupboard, under a pile of old exercise-books, he had found a children's album, a sort of picture alphabet, and, in one of the pages of this album, he had seen a gap.
He examined the page. It gave the names of the days of the week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on. The word "Saturday" was missing. Now the Jewish Lamp was stolen on a Saturday night.