"What do you mean!"—her voice was hysterical. "Oh, everybody's mad!"
As the hammer was raised, Lady McIntyre flung out her hand toward the top of the chisel. Grindley, his shoulder against the box, pushed it a trifle to the left, and down fell the hammer in a resounding stroke. The lady wrung ineffectual fingers, as though they had succeeded in taking the blow aimed at Greta's lock. "Never, never shall I forgive myself! If she were to come in while we are at this horrible business—"
"She won't." But as it now struck Napier, Singleton hadn't once glanced out of the window.
Blow upon blow, till the lock fell to the floor. Grindley raised the lid. He said nothing, uttered no sound, but he smiled for the first and only time. A sheet of dull silvery metal had met his eye—the top of an inner box.
Lady McIntyre sat down in the solitary chair, as though her legs had suddenly given way.
By its two steel handles, which had fitted neatly into felt-lined sockets in the cane-and-canvas top, Grindley and Singleton lifted out the metal box. They laid it on its front. With those short, vicious hammer-strokes that seemed to shake the house, Grindley cut the hinges through. He and Singleton set the box upright and forced back the top.
CHAPTER XIII
After the first moment of stupefaction, Lady McIntyre's, "Oh—a—is that all?" resolutely proclaimed there was nothing out of the way in a governess having a box half full of ... books chiefly, weren't they?
The first thing Grindley took out was a roll of tracing-paper. He undid it. He smoothed it flat. He turned it over. He held it up to the light.