A BRACELET AT BRUGES.
The bracelet had fallen into the canal.
And the fact that the canal was the most picturesque canal in the old
Flemish city of Bruges, and that the ripples caused by the splash of
the bracelet had disturbed reflections of wondrous belfries, towers,
steeples, and other unique examples of Gothic architecture, did nothing
whatever to assuage the sudden agony of that disappearance. For the
bracelet had been given to Kitty Sartorius by her grateful and lordly
manager, Lionel Belmont (U.S.A.), upon the completion of the unexampled
run of “The Delmonico Doll,” at the Regency Theatre, London. And its
diamonds were worth five hundred pounds, to say nothing of the gold.
The beautiful Kitty, and her friend Eve Fincastle, the journalist,
having exhausted Ostend, had duly arrived at Bruges in the course of
their holiday tour. The question of Kitty’s jewellery had arisen at the
start. Kitty had insisted that she must travel with all her jewels,
according to the custom of the theatrical stars of great magnitude. Eve
had equally insisted that Kitty must travel without jewels, and had
exhorted her to remember the days of her simplicity. They compromised.
Kitty was allowed to bring the bracelet, but nothing else save the
usual half-dozen rings. The ravishing creature could not have persuaded
herself to leave the bracelet behind, because it was so recent a gift
and still new and strange and heavenly to her. But, since prudence
forbade even Kitty to let the trifle lie about in hotel bedrooms, she
was obliged always to wear it. And she had been wearing it this bright
afternoon in early October, when the girls, during a stroll, had met
one of their new friends, Madame Lawrence, on the world-famous Quai du
Rosaire, just at the back of the Hôtel de Ville and the Halles.
Madame Lawrence resided permanently in Bruges. She was between
twenty-five and forty-five, dark, with the air of continually
subduing a natural instinct to dash, and well dressed in black.
Equally interested in the peerage and in the poor, she had made the
acquaintance of Eve and Kitty at the Hôtel de la Grande Place, where
she called from time to time to induce English travellers to buy
genuine Bruges lace, wrought under her own supervision by her own
paupers. She was Belgian by birth, and when complimented on her fluent
and correct English, she gave all the praise to her deceased husband,
an English barrister. She had settled in Bruges like many people settle
there, because Bruges is inexpensive, picturesque, and inordinately
respectable. Besides an English church and chaplain, it has two
cathedrals and an episcopal palace, with a real bishop in it.
“What an exquisite bracelet! May I look at it?”
It was these simple but ecstatic words, spoken with Madame Lawrence’s
charming foreign accent, which had begun the tragedy. The three women
had stopped to admire the always admirable view from the little quay,
and they were leaning over the rails when Kitty unclasped the bracelet
for the inspection of the widow. The next instant there was a _plop_,
an affrighted exclamation from Madame Lawrence in her native tongue,
and the bracelet was engulfed before the very eyes of all three.
The three looked at each other non-plussed. Then they looked around,
but not a single person was in sight. Then, for some reason which,
doubtless, psychology can explain, they stared hard at the water,
though the water there was just as black and foul as it is everywhere
else in the canal system of Bruges.
“Surely you’ve not dropped it!” Eve Fincastle exclaimed in a voice of
horror. Yet she knew positively that Madame Lawrence had.
The delinquent took a handkerchief from her muff and sobbed into it.
And between her sobs she murmured: “We must inform the police.”
“Yes, of course,” said Kitty, with the lightness of one to whom a
five-hundred-pound bracelet is a bagatelle. “They’ll fish it up in no
time.”
“Well,” Eve decided, “you go to the police at once, Kitty; and Madame
Lawrence will go with you, because she speaks French, and I’ll stay
here to mark the exact spot.”
The other two started, but Madame Lawrence, after a few steps, put
her hand to her side. “I can’t,” she sighed, pale. “I am too upset. I
cannot walk. You go with Miss Sartorius,” she said to Eve, “and I will
stay,” and she leaned heavily against the railings.
Eve and Kitty ran off, just as if it was an affair of seconds, and the
bracelet had to be saved from drowning. But they had scarcely turned
the corner, thirty yards away, when they reappeared in company with a
high official of police, whom, by the most lucky chance in the world,
they had encountered in the covered passage leading to the Place du
Bourg. This official, instantly enslaved by Kitty’s beauty, proved to
be the very mirror of politeness and optimism. He took their names
and addresses, and a full description of the bracelet, and informed
them that at that place the canal was nine feet deep. He said that the
bracelet should undoubtedly be recovered on the morrow, but that, as
dusk was imminent, it would be futile to commence angling that night.
In the meantime the loss should be kept secret; and to make all sure, a
succession of gendarmes should guard the spot during the night.
Kitty grew radiant, and rewarded the gallant officer with smiles; Eve
was satisfied, and the face of Madame Lawrence wore a less mournful hue.
“And now,” said Kitty to Madame, when everything had been arranged, and
the first of the gendarmes was duly installed at the exact spot against
the railings, “you must come and take tea with us in our winter garden;
and be gay! Smile: I insist. And I insist that you don’t worry.”
Madame Lawrence tried feebly to smile.
“You are very good-natured,” she stammered.
Which was decidedly true.
II.
The winter-garden of the Hôtel de la Grande Place, referred to in all
the hotel’s advertisements, was merely the inner court of the hotel,
roofed in by glass at the height of the first storey. Cane flourished
there, in the shape of lounge-chairs, but no other plant. One of the
lounge-chairs was occupied when, just as the carillon in the belfry
at the other end of the Place began to play Gounod’s “Nazareth,”
indicating the hour of five o’clock, the three ladies entered the
winter-garden. Apparently the toilettes of two of them had been
adjusted and embellished as for a somewhat ceremonious occasion.
“Lo!” cried Kitty Sartorius, when she perceived the occupant of the
chair, “the millionaire! Mr. Thorold, how charming of you to reappear
like this! I invite you to tea.”
Cecil Thorold rose with appropriate eagerness.
“Delighted!” he said, smiling, and then explained that he had arrived
from Ostend about two hours before and had taken rooms in the hotel.
“You knew we were staying here?” Eve asked as he shook hands with her.
“No,” he replied; “but I am very glad to find you again.”
“Are you?” She spoke languidly, but her colour heightened and those
eyes of hers sparkled.
“Madame Lawrence,” Kitty chirruped, “let me present Mr. Cecil Thorold.
He is appallingly rich, but we mustn’t let that frighten us.”
From a mouth less adorable than the mouth of Miss Sartorius such an
introduction might have been judged lacking in the elements of good
form, but for more than two years now Kitty had known that whatever
she did or said was perfectly correct because she did or said it. The
new acquaintances laughed amiably, and a certain intimacy was at once
established.
“Shall I order tea, dear?” Eve suggested.
“No, dear,” said Kitty quietly. “We will wait for the Count.”
“The Count?” demanded Cecil Thorold.
“The Comte d’Avrec,” Kitty explained. “He is staying here.”
“A French nobleman, doubtless?”
“Yes,” said Kitty; and she added, “you will like him. He is an
archæologist, and a musician--oh, and lots of things!”
“If I am one minute late, I entreat pardon,” said a fine tenor voice at
the door.
It was the Count. After he had been introduced to Madame Lawrence, and
Cecil Thorold had been introduced to him, tea was served.
Now, the Comte d’Avrec was everything that a French count ought to
be. As dark as Cecil Thorold, and even handsomer, he was a little
older and a little taller than the millionaire, and a short, pointed,
black beard, exquisitely trimmed, gave him an appearance of staid
reliability which Cecil lacked. His bow was a vertebrate poem, his
smile a consolation for all misfortunes, and he managed his hat, stick,
gloves, and cup with the dazzling assurance of a conjurer. To observe
him at afternoon tea was to be convinced that he had been specially
created to shine gloriously in drawing-rooms, winter-gardens, and
_tables d’hôte_. He was one of those men who always do the right thing
at the right moment, who are capable of speaking an indefinite number
of languages with absolute purity of accent (he spoke English much
better than Madame Lawrence), and who can and do discourse with _verve_
and accuracy on all sciences, arts, sports, and religions. In short,
he was a phœnix of a count; and this was certainly the opinion of Miss
Kitty Sartorius and of Miss Eve Fincastle, both of whom reckoned that
what they did not know about men might be ignored. Kitty and the Count,
it soon became evident, were mutually attracted; their souls were
approaching each other with a velocity which increased inversely as the
square of the lessening distance between them. And Eve was watching
this approximation with undisguised interest and relish.
Nothing of the least importance occurred, save the Count’s marvellous
exhibition of how to behave at afternoon tea, until the refection was
nearly over; and then, during a brief pause in the talk, Cecil, who was
sitting to the left of Madame Lawrence, looked sharply round at the
right shoulder of his tweed coat; he repeated the gesture a second and
yet a third time.
“What is the matter with the man?” asked Eve Fincastle. Both she and
Kitty were extremely bright, animated, and even excited.
“Nothing. I thought I saw something on my shoulder, that’s all,”
said Cecil. “Ah! It’s only a bit of thread.” And he picked off the
thread with his left hand and held it before Madame Lawrence. “See!
It’s a piece of thin black silk, knotted. At first I took it for an
insect--you know how queer things look out of the corner of your eye.
Pardon!” He had dropped the fragment on to Madame Lawrence’s black silk
dress. “Now it’s lost.”
“If you will excuse me, kind friends,” said Madame Lawrence, “I will
go.” She spoke hurriedly, and as though in mental distress.
“Poor thing!” Kitty Sartorius exclaimed when the widow had gone. “She’s
still dreadfully upset”; and Kitty and Eve proceeded jointly to relate
the story of the diamond bracelet, upon which hitherto they had kept
silence (though with difficulty), out of regard for Madame Lawrence’s
feelings.
Cecil made almost no comment.
The Count, with the sympathetic excitability of his race, walked up and
down the winter-garden, asseverating earnestly that such clumsiness
amounted to a crime; then he grew calm and confessed that he shared the
optimism of the police as to the recovery of the bracelet; lastly he
complimented Kitty on her equable demeanour under this affliction.
“Do you know, Count,” said Cecil Thorold, later, after they had all
four ascended to the drawing-room overlooking the Grande Place, “I was
quite surprised when I saw at tea that you had to be introduced to
Madame Lawrence.”
“Why so, my dear Mr. Thorold?” the Count inquired suavely.
“I thought I had seen you together in Ostend a few days ago.”
The Count shook his wonderful head.
“Perhaps you have a brother----?” Cecil paused.
“No,” said the Count. “But it is a favourite theory of mine that
everyone has his double somewhere in the world.” Previously the Count
had been discussing Planchette--he was a great authority on the
supernatural, the sub-conscious, and the subliminal. He now deviated
gracefully to the discussion of the theory of doubles.
“I suppose you aren’t going out for a walk, dear, before dinner?” said
Eve to Kitty.
“No, dear,” said Kitty, positively.
“I think I shall,” said Eve.
And her glance at Cecil Thorold intimated in the plainest possible
manner that she wished not only to have a companion for a stroll, but
to leave Kitty and the Count in dual solitude.
“I shouldn’t, if I were you, Miss Fincastle,” Cecil remarked, with calm
and studied blindness. “It’s risky here in the evenings--with these
canals exhaling miasma and mosquitoes and bracelets and all sorts of
things.”
“I will take the risk, thank you,” said Eve, in an icy tone, and she
haughtily departed; she would not cower before Cecil’s millions. As for
Cecil, he joined in the discussion of the theory of doubles.
III.
On the next afternoon but one, policemen were still fishing, without
success, for the bracelet, and raising from the ancient duct
long-buried odours which threatened to destroy the inhabitants of the
quay. (When Kitty Sartorius had hinted that perhaps the authorities
might see their way to drawing off the water from the canal, the
authorities had intimated that the death-rate of Bruges was already as
high as convenient.) Nevertheless, though nothing had happened, the
situation had somehow developed, and in such a manner that the bracelet
itself was in danger of being partially forgotten; and of all places
in Bruges, the situation had developed on the top of the renowned
Belfry which dominates the Grande Place in particular and the city in
general.
The summit of the Belfry is three hundred and fifty feet high, and it
is reached by four hundred and two winding stone steps, each a separate
menace to life and limb. Eve Fincastle had climbed those steps alone,
perhaps in quest of the view at the top, perhaps in quest of spiritual
calm. She had not been leaning over the parapet more than a minute
before Cecil Thorold had appeared, his field-glasses slung over his
shoulder. They had begun to talk a little, but nervously and only in
snatches. The wind blew free up there among the forty-eight bells, but
the social atmosphere was oppressive.
“The Count is a most charming man,” Eve was saying, as if in defence of
the Count.
“He is,” said Cecil; “I agree with you.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. Thorold! Oh, no, you don’t!”
Then there was a pause, and the twain looked down upon Bruges, with
its venerable streets, its grass-grown squares, its waterways, and
its innumerable monuments, spread out maplike beneath them in the
mellow October sunshine. Citizens passed along the thoroughfare in the
semblance of tiny dwarfs.
“If you didn’t hate him,” said Eve, “you wouldn’t behave as you do.”
“How do I behave, then?”
Eve schooled her voice to an imitation of jocularity--
“All Tuesday evening, and all day yesterday, you couldn’t leave them
alone. You know you couldn’t.”
Five minutes later the conversation had shifted.
“You actually saw the bracelet fall into the canal?” said Cecil.
“I actually saw the bracelet fall into the canal. And no one could have
got it out while Kitty and I were away, because we weren’t away half a
minute.”
But they could not dismiss the subject of the Count, and presently he
was again the topic.
“Naturally it would be a good match for the Count--for _any_ man,” said
Eve; “but then it would also be a good match for Kitty. Of course, he
is not so rich as some people, but he is rich.”
Cecil examined the horizon with his glasses, and then the streets near
the Grande Place.
“Rich, is he? I’m glad of it. By the by, he’s gone to Ghent for the
day, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he went by the 9.27, and returns by the 4.38.”
Another pause.
“Well,” said Cecil at length, handing the glasses to Eve Fincastle,
“kindly glance down there. Follow the line of the Rue St. Nicolas. You
see the cream-coloured house with the enclosed courtyard? Now, do you
see two figures standing together near a door--a man and a woman, the
woman on the steps? Who are they?”
“I can’t see very well,” said Eve.
“Oh, yes, my dear lady, you can,” said Cecil. “These glasses are the
very best. Try again.”
“They look like the Comte d’Avrec and Madame Lawrence,” Eve murmured.
“But the Count is on his way from Ghent! I see the steam of the 4.38
over there. The curious thing is that the Count entered the house of
Madame Lawrence, to whom he was introduced for the first time the day
before yesterday, at ten o’clock this morning. Yes, it would be a very
good match for the Count. When one comes to think of it, it usually is
that sort of man that contrives to marry a brilliant and successful
actress. There! He’s just leaving, isn’t he? Now let us descend and
listen to the recital of his day’s doings in Ghent--shall we?”
“You mean to insinuate,” Eve burst out in sudden wrath, “that the Count
is an--an _adventurer_, and that Madame Lawrence---- Oh! Mr. Thorold!”
She laughed condescendingly. “This jealousy is too absurd. Do you
suppose I haven’t noticed how impressed you were with Kitty at the
Devonshire Mansion that night, and again at Ostend, and again here?
You’re simply carried away by jealousy; and you think because you are a
millionaire you must have all you want. I haven’t the slightest doubt
that the Count----”
“Anyhow,” said Cecil, “let us go down and hear about Ghent.”
His eyes made a number of remarks (indulgent, angry, amused,
protective, admiring, perspicacious, puzzled), too subtle for the
medium of words.
They groped their way down to earth in silence, and it was in silence
that they crossed the Grande Place. The Count was seated on the
_terrasse_ in front of the hotel, with a liqueur glass before him, and
he was making graceful and expressive signs to Kitty Sartorius, who
leaned her marvellous beauty out of a first-storey window. He greeted
Cecil Thorold and Eve with an equal grace.
“And how is Ghent?” Cecil inquired.
“Did you go to Ghent, after all, Count?” Eve put in. The Comte d’Avrec
looked from one to another, and then, instead of replying, he sipped
at his glass. “No,” he said, “I didn’t go. The rather curious fact is
that I happened to meet Madame Lawrence, who offered to show me her
collection of lace. I have been an amateur of lace for some years, and
really Madame Lawrence’s collection is amazing. You have seen it? No?
You should do so. I’m afraid I have spent most of the day there.”
When the Count had gone to join Kitty in the drawing-room, Eve
Fincastle looked victoriously at Cecil, as if to demand of him: “Will
you apologise?”
“My dear journalist,” Cecil remarked simply, “you gave the show away.”
That evening the continued obstinacy of the bracelet, which still
refused to be caught, began at last to disturb the birdlike mind of
Kitty Sartorius. Moreover, the secret was out, and the whole town of
Bruges was discussing the episode and the chances of success.
“Let us consult Planchette,” said the Count. The proposal was received
with enthusiasm by Kitty. Eve had disappeared.
Planchette was produced; and when asked if the bracelet would be
recovered, it wrote, under the hands of Kitty and the Count, a
trembling “Yes.” When asked: “By whom?” it wrote a word which faintly
resembled “Avrec.”
The Count stated that he should personally commence dragging operations
at sunrise. “You will see,” he said, “I shall succeed.”
“Let me try this toy, may I?” Cecil asked blandly, and, upon Kitty
agreeing, he addressed Planchette in a clear voice: “Now, Planchette,
who will restore the bracelet to its owner?”
And Planchette wrote “Thorold,” but in characters as firm and regular
as those of a copy-book.
“Mr. Thorold is laughing at us,” observed the Count, imperturbably
bland.
“How horrid you are, Mr. Thorold!” Kitty exclaimed.
IV.
Of the four persons more or less interested in the affair, three
were secretly active that night, in and out of the hotel. Only Kitty
Sartorius, chief mourner for the bracelet, slept placidly in her bed.
It was towards three o’clock in the morning that a sort of preliminary
crisis was reached.
From the multiplicity of doors which ventilate its rooms, one would
imagine that the average foreign hotel must have been designed
immediately after its architect had been to see a Palais Royal farce,
in which every room opens into every other room in every act. The Hôtel
de la Grande Place was not peculiar in this respect; it abounded in
doors. All the chambers on the second storey, over the public rooms,
fronting the Place, communicated one with the next, but naturally most
of the communicating doors were locked. Cecil Thorold and the Comte
d’Avrec had each a bedroom and a sitting-room on that floor. The
Count’s sitting-room adjoined Cecil’s; and the door between was locked,
and the key in the possession of the landlord.
Nevertheless, at three a.m. this particular door opened noiselessly
from Cecil’s side, and Cecil entered the domain of the Count. The
moon shone, and Cecil could plainly see not only the silhouette of
the Belfry across the Place, but also the principal objects within
the room. He noticed the table in the middle, the large easy-chair
turned towards the hearth, the old-fashioned sofa; but not a single
article did he perceive which might have been the personal property of
the Count. He cautiously passed across the room through the moonlight
to the door of the Count’s bedroom, which apparently, to his immense
surprise, was not only shut, but locked, and the key in the lock on the
sitting-room side. Silently unlocking it, he entered the bedroom and
disappeared....
In less than five minutes he crept back into the Count’s sitting-room,
closed the door and locked it.
“Odd!” he murmured reflectively; but he seemed quite happy.
There was a sudden movement in the region of the hearth, and a form
rose from the armchair. Cecil rushed to the switch and turned on the
electric light. Eve Fincastle stood before him. They faced each other.
“What are you doing here at this time, Miss Fincastle?” he asked,
sternly. “You can talk freely; the Count will not waken.”
“I may ask you the same question,” Eve replied, with cold bitterness.
“Excuse me. You may not. You are a woman. This is the Count’s room----”
“You are in error,” she interrupted him. “It is not the Count’s room.
It is mine. Last night I told the Count I had some important writing
to do, and I asked him as a favour to relinquish this room to me for
twenty-four hours. He very kindly consented. He removed his belongings,
handed me the key of that door, and the transfer was made in the hotel
books. And now,” she added, “may I inquire, Mr. Thorold, what you are
doing in my room?”
“I--I thought it was the Count’s,” Cecil faltered, decidedly at a loss
for a moment. “In offering my humblest apologies, permit me to say that
I admire you, Miss Fincastle.”
“I wish I could return the compliment,” Eve exclaimed, and she repeated
with almost plaintive sincerity: “I do wish I could.”
Cecil raised his arms and let them fall to his side.
“You meant to catch me,” he said. “You suspected something, then? The
‘important writing’ was an invention.” And he added, with a faint
smile: “You really ought not to have fallen asleep. Suppose I had not
wakened you?”
“Please don’t laugh, Mr. Thorold. Yes, I did suspect. There was
something in the demeanour of your servant Lecky that gave me the
idea... I did mean to catch you. Why you, a millionaire, should be a
burglar, I cannot understand. I never understood that incident at the
Devonshire Mansion; it was beyond me. I am by no means sure that you
didn’t have a great deal to do with the Rainshore affair at Ostend.
But that you should have stooped to slander is the worst. I confess
you are a mystery. I confess that I can make no guess at the nature of
your present scheme. And what I shall do, now that I have caught you,
I don’t know. I can’t decide; I must think. If, however, anything is
missing to-morrow morning, I shall be bound in any case to denounce
you. You grasp that?”
“I grasp it perfectly, my dear journalist,” Cecil replied. “And
something will not improbably be missing. But take the advice of a
burglar and a mystery, and go to bed, it is half-past three.”
And Eve went. And Cecil bowed her out and then retired to his own
rooms. And the Count’s apartment was left to the moonlight.
V.
“Planchette is a very safe prophet,” said Cecil to Kitty Sartorius the
next morning, “provided it has firm guidance.”
They were at breakfast.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Planchette prophesied last night that I should restore to
you your bracelet. I do.”
He took the lovely gewgaw from his pocket and handed it to Kitty.
“Ho-ow did you find it, you dear thing?” Kitty stammered, trembling
under the shock of joy.
“I fished it up out--out of the mire by a contrivance of my own.”
“But when?”
“Oh! Very early. At three o’clock a.m. You see, I was determined to be
first.”
“In the dark, then?”
“I had a light. Don’t you think I’m rather clever?”
Kitty’s scene of ecstatic gratitude does not come into the story.
Suffice it to say that not until the moment of its restoration did she
realise how precious the bracelet was to her.
It was ten o’clock before Eve descended. She had breakfasted in her
room, and Kitty had already exhibited to her the prodigal bracelet.
“I particularly want you to go up the Belfry with me, Miss Fincastle,”
Cecil greeted her; and his tone was so serious and so urgent that
she consented. They left Kitty playing waltzes on the piano in the
drawing-room.
“And now, O man of mystery?” Eve questioned, when they had toiled to
the summit, and saw the city and its dwarfs beneath them.
“We are in no danger of being disturbed here,” Cecil began; “but I
will make my explanation--the explanation which I certainly owe you--as
brief as possible. Your Comte d’Avrec is an adventurer (please don’t
be angry), and your Madame Lawrence is an adventuress. I knew that I
had seen them together. They work in concert, and for the most part
make a living on the gaming-tables of Europe. Madame Lawrence was
expelled from Monte Carlo last year for being too intimate with a
croupier. You may be aware that at a roulette-table one can do a great
deal with the aid of the croupier. Madame Lawrence appropriated the
bracelet ‘on her own,’ as it were. The Count (he may be a real Count,
for anything I know) heard first of that enterprise from the lips of
Miss Sartorius. He was annoyed, angry--because he was really a little
in love with your friend, and he saw golden prospects. It is just this
fact--the Count’s genuine passion for Miss Sartorius--that renders
the case psychologically interesting. To proceed, Madame Lawrence
became jealous. The Count spent six hours yesterday in trying to get
the bracelet from her, and failed. He tried again last night, and
succeeded, but not too easily, for he did not re-enter the hotel till
after one o’clock. At first I thought he had succeeded in the daytime,
and I had arranged accordingly, for I did not see why he should have
the honour and glory of restoring the bracelet to its owner. Lecky and
I fixed up a sleeping-draught for him. The minor details were simple.
When you caught me this morning, the bracelet was in my pocket, and in
its stead I had left a brief note for the perusal of the Count, which
has had the singular effect of inducing him to decamp; probably he has
not gone alone. But isn’t it amusing that, since you so elaborately
took his sitting-room, he will be convinced that you are a party to his
undoing--you, his staunchest defender?”
Eve’s face gradually broke into an embarrassed smile.
“You haven’t explained,” she said, “how Madame Lawrence got the
bracelet.”
“Come over here,” Cecil answered. “Take these glasses and look down at
the Quai du Rosaire. You see everything plainly?” Eve could, in fact,
see on the quay the little mounds of mud which had been extracted
from the canal in the quest of the bracelet. Cecil continued: “On
my arrival in Bruges on Monday, I had a fancy to climb the Belfry
at once. I witnessed the whole scene between you and Miss Sartorius
and Madame Lawrence, through my glasses. Immediately your backs were
turned, Madame Lawrence, her hands behind her, and her back against
the railing, began to make a sort of rapid, drawing up motion with her
forearms. Then I saw a momentary glitter.... Considerably mystified, I
visited the spot after you had left it, chatted with the gendarme on
duty and got round him, and then it dawned on me that a robbery had
been planned, prepared, and executed with extraordinary originality and
ingenuity. A long, thin thread of black silk must have been ready tied
to the railing, with perhaps a hook at the other end. As soon as Madame
Lawrence held the bracelet she attached the hook to it and dropped it.
The silk, especially as it was the last thing in the world you would
look for, would be as good as invisible. When you went for the police,
Madame retrieved the bracelet, hid it in her muff, and broke off the
silk. Only, in her haste, she left a bit of silk tied to the railing.
That fragment I carried to the hotel. All along she must have been a
little uneasy about me.... And that’s all. Except that I wonder you
thought I was jealous of the Count’s attentions to your friend.” He
gazed at her admiringly.
“I’m glad you are not a thief, Mr. Thorold,” said Eve.
“Well,” Cecil smiled, “as for that, I left him a couple of louis for
fares, and I shall pay his hotel bill.”
“Why?”
“There were notes for nearly ten thousand francs with the bracelet.
Ill-gotten gains, I am sure. A trifle, but the only reward I shall have
for my trouble. I shall put them to good use.” He laughed, serenely
gay.