Miss Fordingbridge gazed from point to point, checking the various objects from her mental inventory.
“Yes,” she said suddenly, “there's a small silver inkstand missing from his desk.”
“I saw an inkstand in the sack,” Armadale confirmed.
Sir Clinton nodded approvingly.
“Anything else, Miss Fordingbridge?”
For a time her eyes ranged over the room without detecting the absence of anything. Then she gave a cry in which surprise and disappointment seemed to be mingled. Her finger pointed to a bookshelf on which a number of books were neatly arranged.
“Why,” she said, “there's surely something missing from that! It doesn't look quite as full as I remember it.”
She hurried across the room, knelt down, and scanned the shelves closely. When she spoke again, it was evident that she was cut to the heart.
“Yes, it's gone! Oh, I'd have given almost anything rather than have this happen! Do you know what it is, Paul? It's Derek's diary—all the volumes. You know how carefully he kept it all the time he was here. And now it's lost. And he'll be back here in a few days, and I'm sure he'll want it.”
Still kneeling before the bookshelves, she turned round to the chief constable.