Grail, however, evidently preferred to decide this point for himself; for slowly and painstakingly he ran over the pages, scrutinizing each entry carefully before he passed on to the next.
The detective, fidgeting at what he manifestly regarded as wasted time, presently excused himself, on the plea of wanting to do some telephoning, and sauntered off, and, with his going, Grail turned back a couple of pages to point out significantly to Cato the name of Dabney, with a little, almost indistinguishable mark set opposite it.
No further discovery was elicited until they reached the last page; then Grail gave a sudden start, as he read, with the same cabalistic mark against it, the name of Rezonoff.
“Rezonoff!” he muttered, with a frown of grave foreboding. “That can only be Count Boris Rezonoff, captain in the imperial engineers!”
Cato, gathering from his tone that something was seriously wrong, edged up closer.
“Is it bad, sir?” he whispered.
Grail vouchsafed no answer, but stood silent a moment, the look of apprehension growing on his face; then snapped open his watch and glanced at the time.
“Too early, by far,” he commented, under his breath. “I shall have to wait at least two hours yet.”
Meanwhile, Cato, glancing over his shoulder, had been reading down the page of the notebook, and now he gave a quick exclamation.
“There’s another name with that same mark against it,” he breathed excitedly. “Don’t you see it! Down there at the bottom, underneath your thumb!”