"So did we," said Singleton. "We sent a man on board to induce her quietly to change her mind; but that woman's the devil. Simply vanished into air, or, rather, I believe she dived." All the same, they went on with their examination. Napier meanwhile had his bag brought into Hallett Newcomb's carriage. The fruitless search for Greta ended; the train was allowed to proceed.
On that journey back to London Napier heard through what the survivors of the Leyden had lived, to what Julian had succumbed.
In those next days Nan lay in that house in Berkeley Street where she had helped to nurse Julian back to health. Napier sent or telephoned daily to inquire for her. "Great care, complete quiet," Lady Grant wrote at the end of a week. "Not easily or soon will she shake off the horror of that voyage and of Julian's death."
Napier was the less prepared for Singleton's visit, a few days later, hot-foot from Berkeley Street. Singleton had, as he said, hunted up Miss Ellis "as a last hope." Oh, yes, he'd seen her.
"She'd been on the point of sending to you to get my address. What I hoped she'd tell me, I've come to doubt if she knows. I want your opinion on that. I see now I shall have to go warily." Singleton drew his chair closer to the fire and held out a hand to the blaze. There was not wariness only in the fine eyes, but the passion of the quest, and behind all a suppressed excitement, new in Napier's knowledge of the man. "For months," he went on, "there's been a leakage at the War Office."
Yes, Napier knew that. What he didn't know was that Schwarzenberg had been the one to make first-hand use of the leakage. Singleton had come to believe she'd engineered it. However that might be, "there's leakage still."
Napier caught the infection of Singleton's excitement.
"Can't Ernst get to the bottom of it—with the lady's kind help?"
"Her help? After he'd let her into the Liverpool trap?" inquired Singleton with scorn for such innocence. "Ernst, poor devil, won his release from Miss Greta, when he'd got her into our hands." The secret-service man studied the fire, frowning. "I didn't get what I went for, but I've had a rather curious interview with your American friend. She'd been looking at back copies of the newspapers. The library, where she was lying, was half snowed under with newspapers. Been poring over accounts of the torpedoing and the rescue. But she hadn't been able to find anything about Greta, not a breath. 'Well,' I said, 'doesn't that mean there's nothing to say?'
"'Only something to keep dark?' she suggested. Oh, she's no fool! She sat up and looked through me. I explained that all I meant was that Schwarzenberg mightn't be of such general interest as she imagined. She thought that over a moment, and then she said something that astonished me a good deal, given the terms Newcomb tells me they'd been on.' If it isn't known where Greta is,' she said, 'that's bad all round.' I asked, 'Why, all round?'