This passage has been
here for years, with an opening at one end into the library, and
at the other end into the shed. Then Mark discovered it, and
immediately he felt that everybody else must discover it. So he
made the shed end more difficult by putting the croquet-box
there, and this end more difficult by--" he stopped and looked at
the other "by what, Bill?"
But Bill was being Watsonish.
"What?"
"Obviously by re-arranging his books. He happened to take out
'The Life of Nelson' or 'Three Men in a Boat,' or whatever it
was, and by the merest chance discovered the secret. Naturally
he felt that everybody else would be taking down 'The Life of
Nelson' or 'Three Men in a Boat.' Naturally he felt that the
secret would be safer if nobody ever interfered with that shelf
at all. When you said that the books had been re-arranged a year
ago just about the time the croquet-box came into existence; of
course, I guessed why. So I looked about for the dullest books I
could find, the books nobody ever read. Obviously the collection
of sermon-books of a mid-Victorian clergyman was the shelf we
wanted.
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