"Then you are wrong," she was assured. "I saw them once, a week
ago, in Sir Terence's room."
"Why, how would you know them if you saw them?" quoth Sylvia,
seeking to cover what might be an indiscretion.
"Because they bore the name: 'Lines of Torres Vedras.' I remember."
"And this unsympathetic Sir Terence did not explain them to you?"
laughed Samoval.
"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.
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