"Mademoiselle is most devoted to Bertha. So very different to Miss
Gardener. She humours her in every way, and at the same time is a very
good teacher. It is really wonderful how the child is improving."
"I quite agree, Maud. She's an excellent girl--and I hope you pay her
well. She deserves it."
And then they fell to discussing plans for a big dinner-party at the
Carlton on the following Friday.
Meanwhile, mademoiselle ran upstairs with the watch in her hand, first
to her own room, where she remained five minutes or so, and then took it
to the schoolroom, where she delighted her little pupil by making the
watch strike.
"Make it go again, mademoiselle," exclaimed little Bertha, delighted at
being allowed to hold it in her hand. And again and again the governess
pressed the ring and caused it to chime, until at last she was compelled
to take it forcibly from the child's hand and carry it back again to the
grey-whiskered man in the drawing-room, returning a word of thanks as
she handed it back to him.
That same evening, after her charge had been put to bed, and during Mrs
Fitzroy's absence at Lady Claridge's dance, she went out and dropped
into the pillar-box at the corner of Grosvenor Square a small packet in
a strong linen-lined envelope addressed to "Giuseppe Gallo, Esq., care
of H. Bird, Newsagent, 386 Westminster Bridge Road, S.E."
And then she returned to the little sitting-room set apart for her, and
smiled confidently to herself as she settled to read the _Tribuna_,
which her mother sent her regularly each day.
A week later the household at Brook Street was thrown into a state of
agitation and surprise when the vulgarian dashed round in a cab and
informed his sister of a most audacious entry made by thieves into his
splendid flat at Queen Anne's Mansions, and how they had turned it
topsy-turvy. He had, it appeared, been absent, speaking for a
parliamentary candidate up at Leicester, and his valet had slept in the
flat alone, the other servants being on holiday, when during the night
burglars had entered by a window from some leads adjoining, and had
opened everything, even to his safe, and had apparently made a minute
examination of every private paper he possessed.
He had missed nothing, except a few cigars; but what puzzled the
detectives most was the manner in which safe, writing-table, and two
chests of drawers, which he always kept locked, had been opened. Either
the thieves possessed all the keys--and this did not appear possible, as
they were all in the trusted valet's room--or else they possessed a
master-key to everything, the same as that which the Member of
Parliament wore upon his watch-chain.
The millionaire was furious. He even spoke to the Home Secretary about
it when he met him in the lobby of the House. But the manner in which
the safe had been opened was a complete mystery--a mystery to all except
to mademoiselle.
The vulgarian little suspected, when he so innocently lent his watch to
his niece, that the handsome governess had taken an impression in wax of
the small master-key upon the other end of his chain, or that she had
that very same evening posted the wax impression in the tin matchbox to
the clever secret agent of the Italian War Office--the man who with two
colleagues had come over from Paris specially, who had met Mademoiselle
in Kensington Gardens, and who was known at the newsagent's in the
Westminster Bridge Road as Giuseppe Gallo, a civil engineer, seeking
employment.