Saunders seemed to Haasberg to be nervous and ill-at-ease; in response to the latter's inquiry after Mary, he explained that she had remained in her room as he had a man to see on business. Haasberg made some casual remark about this visitor, and then Mary Saunders came in. She, too, appeared troubled and agitated, and as soon as she had greeted her brother, she turned to her husband and asked very eagerly:
"Well, has he gone?"
Saunders, giving a significant glance in Haasberg's direction, replied with an obvious effort at indifference:
"Yes, yes, he's gone. But he said he would be back to-morrow."
At which Mary seemed to give a sigh of relief.
Scenting some uncomfortable mystery, Haasberg questioned her, and also Saunders, about their visitor, but could not elicit any satisfactory explanation.
"Oh, there is nothing mysterious about old Pasquier," was all that either of them would say.
"He is an old pal of Arthur's," Mary added lightly, "but he is such an awful bore that I got Arthur to say that I was out, so that he might get rid of him more quickly."
Somehow Haasberg felt that these explanations were very lame. He could not get it out of his head, that there was something mysterious about the visitor, and knowing the purpose of the Saunderses' journey, he thought it as well to give them a very serious word of warning about Continental hotels generally, and to suggest that they should, after this stay in Paris, go straight through in the train de luxe and never halt again until the fifteen thousand pound necklace was safely in the hands of the august lady for whom it was intended. But both Arthur and Mary laughed at these words of warning.
"My dear fellow," Arthur said, seemingly rather in a huff, "we are not such mugs as you think us. Mary and I have travelled on the Continent at least as much as you have, and are fully alive to the dangers attendant upon our mission. As a matter of fact, the moment we arrived, I gave the necklace in its own padlocked tin box, just as I brought it over from England, in charge of the hotel management, who immediately locked it up in their strong-room, so even if good old Pasquier had designs on it—which I can assure you he has not—he would stand no chance of getting hold of it. And now, sit down, there's a good chap, and talk of something else."