"Oh, come away and shut the door!" wailed Lady McIntyre, casting a look of horror about the raided room. A few paces down the hall she loosed her hold on Napier and walked in front of the three men. Even before she got to her own room, she put out her hand like a blind person feeling for the door. She seemed to fall against it. It opened and hid the little figure from their sight.
Napier followed guiltily behind the brown case, glancing in at open doors, listening over the banister.
Nan! His heart suddenly stood still. There was the cap of Mercury on the chest in an angle of the lower hall.
"What is it?" asked the observant Singleton.
"She has—they have come back!" said Napier.
"Oh, no." He went on with the same light, swinging gait.
If Singleton was not, certainly the noiseless brown presence at Napier's side could not fail to be aware of the afternoon letters on a table in the hall below. The uppermost in one pile bore the American stamp. That would be addressed Miss Anne Ellis.
An undefined dread which had lurked in the dark of Napier's mind, masking itself as dislike of the man Singleton, betrayed more than a hint of its presence in an anxious speculation as to whether these men, licensed to break all laws of human dealing, ought to be left alone a moment in company with letters and telegrams, and God knew what, down there on the hall table.
"We'll go into Sir William's room and telephone him," Napier suggested.
Singleton looked at his watch.