“In any ordinary case,” he continued, “I would not ask you to betray your employer’s confidence. As things are, I think I am justified. You are English, are you not? You realise, I suppose, that the country is on the brink of war?”
She looked at him from the depths of her still, lusterless eyes.
“You must be a very foolish person,” she remarked, “if you expect to obtain information in this manner.”
“Perhaps I am,” he confessed, “but my folly has brought me to you, and you can give me the information if you will.”
“Where is Mr. Fentolin?” she asked.
“Down at the Tower,” he replied. “I left him there. He sent me up to see Miss Fentolin. I was looking for her when the click of your typewriter reminded me of other things.”
She turned composedly back to her work.
“I think,” she said, “that you had better go and find Miss Fentolin.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! You can’t think I have risked giving myself away to you for nothing? I mean to search this room, to read the papers which you are typing.”
She glanced around her a little contemptuously.