"Is that all?" Singleton dismissed it.
Not so Grindley. He stooped, and laid the book on the floor beside his brown case.
Singleton was obviously disappointed. He glanced back at the open writing-table. "Nothing else?" he said.
"Only this," Grindley took a ball-nibbed pen out of the tray.
Singleton examined it carefully, "Yes." He, too, appeared to think the pen worthy of all care. He opened Grindley's nearly empty attaché case and laid the pen on top of a piece of brown paper, which covered something at the bottom. "And the ink?" He seemed to wait for it.
Grindley was understood to say, "Not yet." Lady McIntyre pointed out the twin pots on the silver tray engraved G. v. S. from N. E. Christmas 1913. "This is the ink," she said. Nobody seemed to hear. Grindley had gone to the dressing-table, leaving behind him open drawers and Greta's papers in confusion.
Lady McIntyre followed. "I must trouble you," she said, with dignity, "to put the writing-table as you found it."
"It isn't necessary," murmured the outrageous Grindley.
"But that is monstrous! You promised—at least, the other one—" She looked round. The other one, lost to view, was pursuing his nefarious course in the hanging cupboard.
"You heard him, Mr. Napier?" She spoke with tremulous bitterness.