“Come in without fear,” he said to the trembling widow. “It must have been someone with more appetite than a ghost that you saw. Perhaps an Arab.”
She came in, femininely trusting to him; and between them they ascertained that she had lost a watch, sixteen rings, an opal necklace, and some money. Mrs. Macalister would not say how much money. “My resources are slight,” she remarked. “I was expecting remittances.”
Cecil thought: “This is not merely in the grand manner. If it fulfils its promise, it will prove to be one of the greatest things of the age.”
He asked her to keep cool, not to be afraid, and to dress herself. Then he returned to his room and dressed as quickly as he could. The hotel was absolutely quiet, but out of the depths below came the sound of a clock striking four. When, adequately but not æsthetically attired, he opened his door again, another door near by also opened, and Cecil saw a man’s head.
“I say,” drawled the man’s head, “excuse me, but have you noticed anything?”
“Why? What?”
“Well, I’ve been robbed!”
The Englishman laughed awkwardly, apologetically, as though ashamed to have to confess that he had been victimised.
“Much?” Cecil inquired.
“Two hundred or so. No joke, you know.”