"You also are acquainted with these?" he asked politely.
"It is said that I am," I answered.
"Sometimes you need to be?" he said, smiling. There smote upon me, even as he spoke, the feeling that his remark was strangely true. My eye fell on the commode's top, casually. I saw that it now was bare. I recalled the strange warning of the baroness the evening previous. I was watched! My apartment had been entered in my absence. Property of mine had been taken.
My perturbation must have been discoverable in my face. "What iss it?" asked the old man. "You forget someting?"
"No," said I, stammering. "It is nothing."
He looked at me dubiously. "Well, then," I admitted; "I miss something from my commode here. Some one has taken it."
"It iss of value, perhaps?" he inquired politely.
"Well, no; not of intrinsic value. 'Twas only a slipper—of white satin, made by Braun, of Paris."
"One slipper? Of what use?—"
"It belonged to a lady—I was about to return it," I said; but I fear my face showed me none too calm. He broke out in a gentle laugh.