'Who takes them from the study?'

'I do, sir.'

'Do they appear to have been read very carefully?'

'Well, no, sir; leastways, some of them seem never to have been opened, or else folded up very carefully again.'

'Did you notice that extracts have been clipped from any of them?'

'No, sir.'

'Does Mr. Summertrees keep a scrapbook?'

'Not that I know of, sir.'

'Oh, the case is perfectly plain,' said I, leaning back in my chair, and regarding the puzzled Hale with that cherubic expression of self-satisfaction which I know is so annoying to him.

'What's perfectly plain?' he demanded, more gruffly perhaps than etiquette would have sanctioned.