The flowered chintz which covered the chairs and window seat was the same as the curtains at both windows, and it was not new—so the room had all been done over at the same time, as a whole, by the same person. (Elementary, my dear Watson! Sabrina was enjoying herself.) The desk stood where the sun from the south would fall across the shoulders of the person who sat there, the light coming properly from the left. Child of an habitual desk-worker who was fussy about his light, Sabrina deduced that the owner of the desk must use it a good deal. Did he perhaps write books, like Father? A thorough search of his own shelves might catch him there.

It was a spacious, workman-like desk, with rows of drawers either side of the knee-hole, and on its broad surface a book-blotter and a silver inkwell, with a few enticing small objects round the edges, such as an ivory carving of a mermaid with her tail pulled round under her chin. There was also a very modern fountain-pen in an onyx desk-stand. Father still preferred fine steel nibs.

How long since that fountain-pen had been used? Again her fingers itched. She lifted the pen from its holder and tried it on the blank side of the desk-calendar engagement-pad. The pen was quite dry, of course, and the calendar presented its large black figures for evidence: June 5, 1936.

For a moment she stared at it, paralyzed by the coincidence—for today was the fifth of June too. He had last turned the date leaf of that calendar exactly two years ago today. She told herself at once that it was no good feeling creepy about a thing like that, nor was it any wonder that everything had got so dusty. But still—it was a coincidence.

On the far corner of the desk were book-ends modeled from the Sphinx’s head, holding between them a dictionary, a thesaurus, a   grammar, Kipling’s collected verse, and a cross-word puzzle book. Was this strange assortment what he wanted oftenest? A Hindu grammar— Kipling — Asia — the ivory carvings — and the sphinxes — that all hung together. He traveled. He had been out East. His books went with him. That made sense.

She slid out the puzzle book and opened it. He had solved them methodically about halfway through the volume, and a glance at the clues told her they were difficult ones. All her good resolutions about not touching anything forgotten now in the thrill of the chase, she put the book back and lifted one of the sphinxes. A small label pasted on the underside of its base bore a foreign name and Cairo. He must have been to Egypt....