Once her attention had been caught she had been all sympathy. Her blue eyes had a curious and attractive trick—a full lower lid that shut them into glimmering slits.
"Mademoiselle, I implore you, try to remember what was in his letter."
"But, mon pauvre ami, how can I? I did not read it. It was very long, very tedious, full of histoires. The thing was finished—I never bother about what cannot be helped, do you?"
But his real agony at this failure had touched her.
"Listen, then; all is perhaps not lost. It is possible the letter is still somewhere about. Or we will ask Adèle. She is my maid. She collects letters to blackmail people—oh, yes, I know! But she is habile comme tout pour la toilette. Wait—we will look first."
Tossing out letters, trinkets, endless perfumed rubbish from the little gimcrack secretaire, from drawers full of lingerie ("I am so untidy—I am Adèle's despair") from bags—hundreds of bags—and at last Adèle, thin-lipped and wary-eyed, denying everything till her mistress suddenly slapped her face in a fury, and called her ugly little names in French and German.
"It is useless, then," said Lord Peter. "What a pity that Mademoiselle Adèle cannot find a thing so valuable to me."
The word "valuable" suggested an idea to Adèle. There was Mademoiselle's jewel-case which had not been searched. She would fetch it.
"C'est cela que cherche monsieur?"
After that the sudden arrival of Mr. Cornelius van Humperdinck, very rich and stout and suspicious, and the rewarding of Adèle in a tactful, unobtrusive fashion by the elevator shaft.