Vance, freeing himself from Markham’s hold, ran stumbling up the steps with the rest of us at his heels. There was no light in the attic, and we paused for a moment at the head of the stairs to accustom our eyes to the darkness. Then Vance struck a match and, groping forward, sent up the window shade with a clatter. The sunlight poured in, revealing a small room, scarcely ten feet square, cluttered with all manner of discarded odds and ends. The atmosphere was heavy and stifling, and a thick coating of dust lay over everything.
Vance looked quickly about him, and an expression of disappointment came over his face.
“This is the only place left,” he remarked, with the calmness of desperation.
After a more careful scrutiny of the room, he stepped to the corner by the little window and peered down at a battered suit-case which lay on its side against the wall. I noticed that it was unlatched and that its straps hung free. Leaning over he threw the cover back.
“Ah! Here, at least, is something for you, Markham.”
We crowded about him. In the suit-case was an old Corona typewriter. A sheet of paper was in the carriage; and on it had already been typed, in pale-blue élite characters, the two lines:
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
At this point the typist had evidently been interrupted, or for some other reason had not completed the Mother-Goose rhyme.
“The new Bishop note for the press,” observed Vance. Then reaching into the suit-case he lifted out a pile of blank paper and envelopes. At the bottom, beside the machine, lay a red-leather note-book with thin yellow leaves. He handed it to Markham with the terse announcement:
“Drukker’s calculations on the quantum theory.”