"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.