actually smiled gratefully at him.

She was reminding herself that there had been a moment when he had been
willing to let her escape. Only once--only when he had grinned at her so
strangely and deplored her refusal of the drugged coffee, had she felt
the sick, agonising fear of him that she had felt of Madame Wachner.

Laying the hat and bag on the table, L'Ami Fritz began sweeping the floor
with long skilful movements.

"This is the best way to find the pearls," he muttered; and three of the
four people present stood and looked on at what he was doing. As for the
one most concerned, Sylvia had again begun to stare dully before her, as
if what was going on did not interest her one whit.

At last Monsieur Wachner took a long spoon off the table; with its help
he put all that he had swept up--pearls, dust, and fluff--into the little
fancy bag.

"There," he said, with a sigh of relief, "I think they are all there."

But even as he spoke he knew well enough that some of the pearls--perhaps
five or six--had found their way up his wife's capacious sleeve.

And then, quite suddenly, Madame Wachner uttered a hoarse exclamation of
terror. One of the gendarmes had climbed up on to the window-sill, and
was now half into the room. She waddled quickly across to the door, only
to find another gendarme in the hall.

Sylvia's eyes glistened, and a sensation which had hitherto been quite