"We believe so; though as yet we have been able to prove absolutely nothing. But we are guarding the cabinet very closely. I should not object to your client seeing it, but I could not permit her to touch it—not, at least, without knowing why she wished to do so. You will remember that you have told me nothing of why she is interested in it."
"I am quite ready to tell you the story, Mr. Lester," he said. "It is only fair that I should do so. After you have heard it, if you agree, we will take Madame X. to see the cabinet."
"Very well," I assented.
He settled back in his chair, and his face became more grave.
"My client," he began, "is a member of a prominent American family—a most prominent family. Three years ago, she married a French nobleman. You can, perhaps, guess her name, but I should prefer that neither of us utter it."
I nodded my agreement.
"This nobleman has been both prodigal and unfaithful. He has scattered my client's fortune with both hands. He has flaunted his mistresses in her face. He has even tried to compel her to receive one of them. I am free to confess that I consider her a fool not to have left him long ago. At last her trustees interfered, for her father had been wise enough to place a portion of her fortune in trust. They paid her husband's debts, placed him on an allowance, and notified his creditors that his debts would not be paid again."
I had by this time, of course, guessed the name of his client, since these details had long been a matter of public notoriety, and, I need hardly say, listened to the story with a heightened interest.
"The allowance is a princely one," Mr. Hornblower continued, "but it does not suffice Monsieur X. No allowance would suffice him—the more money he had, the more ways he would find of spending it. So he has become a thief. He has taken to selling the objects of art with which his residences are filled, and which are really the property of my client, since they were purchased with her money. About two weeks ago, my client returned to Paris from a stay at her château in Normandy to find that he had almost denuded the town house. Tapestries, pictures, sculptures—everything had been sold. Among other things which he had taken was a Boule cabinet, which had been used by my client as her private writing-desk. The cabinet was a most valuable one; but it is not its monetary value which makes my client so anxious to recover it."
He paused an instant and cleared his throat, and I realised that he was coming to the really delicate part of the story.