Singleton dropped his long fingers on the orange envelope and played a brief tattoo.
"We stopped another of the same sort, signed in her name, this morning at the local post-office."
"And you could read it?"
"Anybody could read it. Order on an Amsterdam broker to buy Tarapaca nitrates."
"And what did that tell you?"
"Absolutely nothing. We've tapped messages of the same sort before."
"Then you are no forrader."
"We weren't when we got here this afternoon." Although the conversation had been carried on in low-voiced French, Singleton leaned over the table and dropped out the next sentence in a tone that barely escaped the suspicion-stirring whisper, "Grindley found a French dictionary in her writing-table."
"What good did that do you?"
"All the good in the world." Singleton's face shone with the good it did him. "You see," he went on, in that careless-sounding undertone, "the hitch was we couldn't hit on the code. That's why we've been giving her rope."