She raised her lorgnon again and examined the printing on the door. It was "Abel Klement, achat de bijoux, anciens et modernes." Then, not content with this superficial inspection, she went close to the door and, bending, gazed with frank curiosity into the interior. Lacking her indifference to appearances, Esther made a pretence of looking into the window.
"She's taking something in a small box out of her bag," announced the
Englishwoman after a deliberate scrutiny. "Ah, of course, some bit of
jewellery to be repaired. No, she's not opening the box, after all.
She's following the man out through the door at the back of the shop.
Now she's gone."
Satisfied that she could ascertain no more, Miss Paull turned away from the door.
"Doesn't look at all her sort of shop," she remarked thoughtfully as they pursued their way. "Such a dingy little second-rate place. And why do you suppose she came up in a taxi instead of her own car?"
She appeared to ponder this question so deeply that Esther was amused at what seemed to her a morbid desire to scent a mystery in an affair which, no doubt, had the most ordinary explanation.
"Now I should say," her companion added, confidentially, "that that fashionable lady is up to something she doesn't want known. That is my conviction—you can take it or leave it."
CHAPTER V
"I say, have you got any matches anywhere?"
Esther jumped at the sudden sound of a man's voice close to her ear, and looked up from the accounts she was writing. She had heard someone moving about in the salon, but she had thought it must be Jacques, who a few minutes before had been cleaning the brass on the front door. The voice, which addressed her casually and without any preliminary greeting, stirred something in her memory. She rose from her desk by the window and shot the intruder a glance, at the same time reaching the matches from the sideboard.
"Here you are," she said, holding out the box.