“Indeed, he did not.”
“In fact, I could swear that he locked them away from you at once?” the Count continued on a jocular note.
“Not at once. But he certainly locked them away soon after, and whilst I was still there.”
“In your place, then,” said Samoval, ever on the same note of banter, “I should have been tempted to steal the key.”
“Not so easily done,” she assured him. “It never leaves his person. He wears it on a gold chain round his neck.”
“What, always?”
“Always, I assure you.”
“Too bad,” protested Samoval. “Too bad, indeed. What, then, should you have done, Miss Armytage?”
It was difficult to imagine that he was drawing information from them, so bantering and frivolous was his manner; more difficult still to conceive that he had obtained any. Yet you will observe that he had been placed in possession of two facts: that the plans of the lines of Torres Vedras were kept locked up in Sir Terence’s own room—in the strong-box, no doubt—and that Sir Terence always carried the key on a gold chain worn round his neck.
Miss Armytage laughed. “Whatever I might do, I should not be guilty of prying into matters that my husband kept hidden.”