she goes to the dead professor 's office and looks through the old pages the old papers nothing nothing nothing she finds nothing and still she looks a scribble here a note here a fragment they seem promising at first seem like they might be a part of some larger puzzle and she sets them excitedly aside and the piles grow and as they grow it becomes more and more obvious that there was no connection that while they may have been puzzle pieces they are pieces of many incomplete puzzles rather than one whole waiting to be unified there is nothing to be found nothing waiting to be uncovered no secret manuscript there is simply nothing he left nothing behind nothing that any other teacher would n't have only graded papers course documents reading lists photocopied pages from a thousand sources attendance rolls names checked off all those names waiting now for an impossible return .