CHAPTER XIV
Singleton stood there in the middle of the hall, facing the open door, and still, as though he had the smallest right to touch anything of hers, he held Miss Anne Ellis's letter in his hand.
"Something must have happened to Sir William," he said.
"Puncture," suggested Napier, all his energies concentrated for the moment on suppressing every outward sign of concern about the fate of the letter. He had forced his eyes away from it. Yet, wherever he looked, he was more aware of that white square in Singleton's hands than of anything else in the hall.
But Napier had pulled himself together with a strong hand. He mustn't lose an instant; he shied away from formulating even in secret the idea of which Singleton's mind must be disabused. He got only as far as to ask himself, with a ghastly inner sinking, just what danger was there—could there conceivably be—of Nan's being inadvertently caught in the net he, Gavan Napier, had helped to spread? Nan! He leaned hard against the table. Of course—he told himself—of course, they'd find nothing, nothing in the world to implicate Nan. But the shock, the wound! How she'd loathe this England! He sat down heavily.
Singleton came sauntering back, the long chin in one hand, the overbrilliant eyes on Napier. To make an enemy of this man, in the present universal instability of equilibrium, wouldn't it be a stupid as well as dangerous mistake?
"Smoke?" suggested Napier. He felt for his cigar case.
Singleton didn't mind if he did. As he sat down on the other side of the table, he dropped Miss Ellis's letter on the pile.
Oh, but the letter looked well on the table! It suddenly occurred to Napier, lightly slapping his pockets—what had he done with those cigars?—there was something not only attractive about Singleton, but downright likeable.
"It must be a curious life, yours," he said.