Grindley had thrown it down for Singleton to deal with, and now the unaddressed letter was being laid on the grille. Here for some reason the invisible ink answered less reluctantly to the warmth of the blue flames' invitation. Between the wide-apart lines appeared like magic the second letter. Again that stillness, a kind of drunkenness of pleasure on Grindley's part; again Singleton's quick reaction to success; again, the instant the lamp had done the work, its abandonment by Grindley. He looked at his watch. "I suppose we mustn't go without--" He moved toward the screen.
Lady McIntyre had made no effort to read a syllable of the new writing. She sat intensely quiet, while Singleton folded the letter and blew out the lamp. All her exclamatory speech, all her fluttering motions, were as stilled as death would one day leave them. It was like the rest one takes after a prodigious journey. The distance traversed since the hat-box had been wrenched open was made as clear as though the last object in the box had been yet another lamp shedding an intenser ray. Singleton had brought out something rolled in a scarf of Roman silk. The two objects inside were a small box of cartridges and a revolver. It was then that Lady McIntyre, rising and steadying herself by the chair, showed how far she had come in these last moments. "At all events, you can't say you've found any bombs!"
"No! oh, no!" If anything could minimize the implications of tragedy evoked by the sight of a revolver among the personal possessions of a lady in England, it would be the even pleasantness of Mr. Singleton's voice. "Nothing of _that_ sort."
Singleton was busy putting away a medley of things into the attaché case, while Grindley was churning up the contents of the drawers in the American wardrobe trunk with the energy that seemed so nearly passive and was so uncannily effectual. The great trunk held no papers and only the lesser trinkets. But the store of purple and fine linen! Lace and lawn, and cobweb silk, dribbled from half-open drawers. Brocade and cloth, chiffon and velvet, swung out to view on adjustable supports. And all that brave show the unappreciative Grindley dismissed with a single word, "Nothing," and back he went to La Motte's Dictionary.