“Oh! Oh! Oh! if only we could find it!”
“Well, let’s get on with the spade work.”
They were sorting through the big box of papers, a wearisome affair, as they were all jumbled up pell mell without any kind of order or method. Every few minutes they compared notes.
“What’s the latest, Tuppence?”
“Two old receipted bills, three unimportant letters, a recipe for preserving new potatoes and one for making lemon cheesecake. What’s yours?”
“One bill, poem on Spring, two newspaper cuttings: ‘Why Women buy Pearls—a sound investment’ and ‘Man with Four Wives—Extraordinary Story,’ and a recipe for Jugged Hare.”
“It’s heart breaking,” said Tuppence, and they fell to once more. At last the box was empty. They looked at each other.
“I put this aside,” said Tommy, picking up a half sheet of notepaper, “because it struck me as peculiar. But I don’t suppose it’s got anything to do with what we’re looking for.”
“Let’s see it. Oh! it’s one of those funny things, what do they call them? Anagrams, charades or something.”
She read it:
“My first you put on glowing coal And into it you put my whole My second really is the first My third mislikes the winter blast.”
“H’m,” said Tommy critically. “I don’t think much of the poet’s rhymes.”