"Another glass," the maid was saying. "It is a brand of the best. Nothing comes into this house but the best, ma foi! And no questions asked where things go to. So help yourself, mon Robert! There is no chance of being interrupted."
The man sat there grinning uneasily. There was no conspirator here, Peretori decided. The man was no more than a shrewd cockney servant—none too honest over trifles, perhaps, but he was not the class of man that political conspirators are made of. It was a romance of the kitchen on Robert's side.
"Bit risky, ain't it?" he said as he pulled at his champagne. "If your mistress catches us——"
"There is no fear of that, Robert. She is in bed sound asleep long ago. Nothing wakes or disturbs her. She undressed herself to-night; she dispensed with my services. Oh, a good thing!"
"But risky sometimes, eh?" Robert said. "Lor, the trouble that some of 'em give!"
"Oh, they have no heart, no feeling. It is slave, slave, slave! But we make them pay for it. I make her pay for it. And when I am ready to go back to Switzerland, I know that I have not worked in vain. And she called me a liar and a thief to-night."
Robert muttered something sympathetic. He had no wish for Annette to go back to Switzerland, he said. He had saved a little also. Did not Annette think that a respectable boarding house or something select in the licensed victualling line might do? The girl smiled coquettishly.
"And perhaps something better," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. "I am not dishonest, I do no more than other ladies in my position. Not that the perquisites are not handsome. But sometimes one has great good luck. She call me thief and liar to-night; she say I not tell the truth when I say she was robbed to-night. I show her the real thief, and still she is doubtful. The real thief took those papers. Mind you, they were papers of great value. That is certain. Suppose those papers came into my possession! Suppose I read them, and find them immense importance! Suppose that they don't belong to the countess at all, that she has got them by a trick!"
Peretori listened eagerly. Now that he was au fait of the situation, he knew exactly what Annette was talking about. He blessed his stars that he had come here to-night. Without doubt Annette was talking of the papers missing from the Foreign Office.
"Sounds good," Robert said. "Worth fifty or sixty pounds to somebody else perhaps."