"If you accept, my friend, you repay."

"No," said Michael Lanyard--"that's not enough. Your jewels must come
back to you, if I go to the ends of the earth to find them. And"--man's
undying vanity would out--"if there's anyone living who can find them
for you, it is I."




XI

AU REVOIR


Early in the afternoon Eve de Montalais made it possible for Lanyard to
examine the safe in her boudoir without exciting comment in the
household. He was nearly an hour thus engaged, but brought back to the
drawing-room, in addition to the heavy magnifying glass which he had
requisitioned to eke out his eyesight, only a face of disappointment.

"Nothing," he retorted to Eve. "Evidently a gentleman of rigidly formal
habits, our friend of last night--wouldn't dream of calling at any hour
without his gloves on.... I've been over every inch of the safe,
outside and in, and the frame of the screen too, but--nothing. However,
I've been thinking a bit as well, I hope to some purpose."

The woman nodded intently as he drew up his chair and sat down.

"You have made a plan," she stated rather than enquired.