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There remained the despatch-box, the black japanned tin box which had proved obdurate yesterday. She had come prepared to break its lock this time, if need be; Maitland's carelessness spared her the necessity. She lifted it out of a lower drawer, and put it in her lap. The smallest key fitted the lock at the first attempt. The lid came up and....
In the morning before they left Héronac, Sabine's elderly maid, Simone, came to her with the face she always wore when her speech might contain any reference to the past. She had been with Sabine ever since the week after her marriage, and was a widow and a Parisian, with a kind and motherly heart. "Will madame take the blue despatch-box with her as usual?" she asked.
I actually opened the box while I was dressing for dinner and saw the document inside. This morning it was gone. The despatch-box had stood beside the glass upon my dressing-table all night. I am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. We are both prepared to swear that no one could have entered the room during the night. And yet I repeat that the paper is gone." "What time did you dine?"
We have not too much time." He seated himself opposite to Thresk and drew the despatch-box towards him. He had regained enough mastery over himself now to be able to speak in a level voice. No doubt too his fright had sobered him. But it had him still in its grip, for when he opened the despatch-box his hand so shook that he could hardly insert the key in the lock.
At last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-box, and glanced up and down it musingly. "I fancy he won the battle," he said slowly, "for they have news of him much farther down the river. But from this letter I take it he is not yet within the zone of safety so Nahoum Pasha says." He flicked the document upwards with his thumb.
There was a vague contention in his face. Once he put out his hand toward the open despatch-box, but immediately he sighed and pushed, it farther from him. Presently he propped his chin upon both hands and stayed in the attitude for a long while, staring past the balustrade at the clear, pale sky of April. Thus Marian's father, the Earl of Brudenel, found Ormskirk.
On his way home he took a box of King's despatches to convey to England, and when the despatch-box was opened it was found to be empty. King, writing of this matter, said: Before the vessel he went in left the colony, it was told me that such an event would happen, and the master's conduct prior to his leaving this fully justified the report.
When the notary's housekeeper came home, she found him standing at his door motionless, with the key still in his hand, and the door unopened. The scene shifts again to the foot of the Simplon, on the Swiss side. In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little inn at Brieg, Mr. Bintrey and Maitre Voigt sat together at a professional council of two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in his despatch-box.
No step of that kind was taken, and the Government, while repudiating in the House of Commons the action for which Seely was allowed to take the sole responsibility, permitted Gough to retain in his despatch-box the document signed by the Army Council. For it was not only the Secretary of State for War who was involved.
She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly. Not a word about Egypt. She thought for a moment, then left the drawing- room. Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband's study, she knocked and entered. It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a red despatch-box lay open on his table.
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