III
Mademoiselle Philippa duly arrived, in the early afternoon, in her barouche drawn by two magnificent English horses. She appeared dressed in the latest Paris fashion and was greeted by M. Cognard with the gallantry due to her beauty and talent.
"You have sent for me, Monsieur le Commissaire?" she asked somewhat tartly, as soon as she had settled herself down in as becoming an attitude as the office chair would allow.
"Oh, Mademoiselle," said the commissary deprecatingly, "I did so with deep regret at having to trouble you."
"Well? And what is it?"
"I only desired to ask you, Mademoiselle, if you have seen the Comte de Romaine recently."
She laughed and shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"The young scamp!" she said lightly. "No, I haven't seen him for two days. Why do you ask?"
"Because the young scamp, as you so pertinently call him, has disappeared, and neither his mother nor his sister knows what has become of him."
"Disappeared?" exclaimed Mademoiselle Philippa. "With my emeralds!"
Her nonchalance and habitual gaiety suddenly left her. She sat bolt upright, her small hands clutching the arms of her chair, her face pale and almost haggard beneath the delicate layer of rouge.
"Your emeralds, Mademoiselle?" queried M. Cognard in dismay.
"My emeralds!" she reiterated with a catch in her voice. "A necklace, tiara and earrings—a gift to me from the Emperor of Russia when I danced before him at St. Petersburg. They are worth the best part of a million francs, Monsieur le Commissaire. Oh! Monsieur de Romaine cannot have disappeared—not like that—and not with my emeralds!"
She burst into tears and M. Cognard had much ado to re-assure her. Everything would be done, he declared, to trace the young scapegrace. He could not dispose of the emeralds, vowed the commissary, without being apprehended and his booty being taken from him.
"He can dispose of them abroad," declared Mademoiselle Philippa, who would not be consoled. "He may be on the high seas by now—the detestable young rogue."
"But how came Mademoiselle Philippa's priceless emeralds in the hands of that detestable young rogue?" here interjected a quiet, even voice.
Mademoiselle turned upon the Man in Grey like a young tiger-cat that has been teased.
"What's that to you?" she queried.
He smiled.
"Are we not all trying to throw light on a mysterious occurrence?" he asked.
"Monsieur de Romaine wanted to show my emeralds to his mother," rejoined Mademoiselle, somewhat mollified and not a little shamefaced. "I had promised to be his wife—Madame la Comtesse had approved—she looked upon me as a daughter—I had been up to her house to see her—she expressed a wish to see my emeralds—and so on Tuesday I entrusted them to Monsieur de Romaine—and—and——"
Once more her voice broke and she burst into tears. It was a pitiably silly story, of course—that of the clumsy trap set by a fascinating rogue—the trap into which hundreds of thousands of women have fallen since the world began, and into which as many will fall again so long as human nature does not undergo a radical change.
"And when you drove Monsieur de Romaine home on that Tuesday night," continued the Man in Grey; "he had your emeralds in his possession?"
"Yes," replied Mademoiselle through her tears. "He had them in the inside pocket of his coat. I took leave of him at the Lodge. He waved his hand to me and I drove off. That is the last I have seen of him—the scamp!"
Mademoiselle Philippa was evidently taking it for granted that Jacques de Romaine had stolen her emeralds, and she laughed derisively when M. Cognard suggested that mayhap the unfortunate young man had been waylaid and robbed and afterwards murdered by some malefactor who knew that he had the jewels in his possession.
"Well!" commented the dancer with a shrug of her shoulders, "'tis for you, my good Commissaire, to find either my emeralds for me or the murdered body of Monsieur le Comte de Romaine."
After which parting shot Mademoiselle took her departure, leaving an atmosphere of cosmetics and the lingering echo of the frou-frou of silken skirts.