"Very little. It is about a robbery here. Now it is positively absurd that Miss Galloway could be the thief as you suggested. You smile, you fancy that perhaps Miss Galloway has a double. Now it all rests on you to say whether that double is the proper person or not. If she was produced by the police and you said it was not the lady who surprised you last night, why, there would be an end of the matter—for you and Robert."
A look of quiet cunning intelligence flashed across Annette's face.
"It is plain what you mean," she said. "I quite understand. I am brought face to face with the young lady and I stare at her again and again. I study her with a puzzled frown on my face—like this—and then I say that it is not the person. I am absolutely certain of my facts. She is different, the eyes are not the same colour. I know not what the eyes and hair of your friend the young lady are like, but whether they are like the missing thief's are different. See, M'sieu?"
"I see perfectly well, Annette," Lechmere smiled. "You see that man loitering on the other side of the road? Fetch him up here and say that Mr. Lechmere is waiting. He is a leading official at Scotland Yard, and I am to meet him here by appointment. Oh, by the way, where is your Robert to be found?"
"Guards Buildings," Annette whispered. "He waits on the second floor gentleman there. But you will not——"
"No, I will not," said Lechmere, passing his hand over his face to hide a smile, for he had made a further discovery. "Play your part properly and I will play mine. And now go and fetch Inspector Taske here and say that I am waiting for him."
Inspector Taske came up and Lechmere conducted him into the small drawing-room. At a sign from him Jessie raised her veil. She began to understand what was coming.
"This is Miss Jessie Harcourt," said Lechmere, "daughter of my old friend Colonel Harcourt. It has been suggested that Miss Harcourt came here last night and stole certain papers. She only found it out this morning when she—er—came out of the hospital. All this absurd bother has arisen because Miss Harcourt is exceedingly like Miss Galloway whom the maid Annette here stupidly picked out as the thief, picked her out at Merehaven House, mind you, when she was in full evening dress at a party! Then suspicions were directed to my young lady friend here, forsooth because of the likeness, and she is being tracked by your fellows, Taske. There is a strong light here, and I am going to settle the matter once and for all. Now, Annette, look very carefully at this lady and say if you have ever seen her before."
Jessie bore the scrutiny more or less firmly and haughtily because she herself had never seen Annette's face before. Everything depended upon the girl's reply. Her examination was long and careful, as if she did not want to outrage her conscience in the smallest degree. Then she shook her head.
"The likeness is great," she said. "Positively there are three young ladies almost the same. And we make mistakes—and did not you police bring a man all the way here from Australia the other day on a charge of murder only to find he was the wrong person? And he had been sworn to, ma foi. Therefore it behoves me to be careful. All the same, I can speak with confidence. If it were dark I could say that here was the thief. But in the daylight, non. Her eyes were dark, the hair very rich brown. And here the eyes are grey and the hair a lovely shade of gold. This is not the lady."