"I shall be back again practically in a quarter of an hour," she said. "I can't stir till then."
So far everything promised well. Jessie hurried back to the place where she had left Varney. He was waiting there with half a sheet of note paper in his hand.
"There is the permit," he said. "You have only to show it to anybody in authority and there will be no more difficulty. Hullo! what is all this about?"
There was a disturbance in the hall—the figure of a French maid talking volubly in two languages at once; behind her a footman, accompanied by a man who was unmistakably a plain-clothes detective, and behind him the figure of a policeman, his helmet towering above the heads of the guests.
"Somebody asking for the Countess Saens," a guest replied to a question of Varney's. "As far as I can gather, there has been a burglary at the house of the countess, and her maid seems to know something about it. But we shall know presently. Here comes the countess."
The Countess Saens came smilingly into the hall, a strikingly handsome figure in yellow satin. Jessie did not fail to notice her dark, piercing eyes.
"Who is she?" she asked Varney in a whisper. "Did you ever see such black eyes?"
"Don't know," the doctor replied. "Sort of comet of a season. Mysterious antecedents, and all that, but possesses plenty of money, gives the most splendid entertainments, and goes everywhere. I understand that she is the morganatic wife of one of the Russian grand dukes."
At any rate, the woman looked a lady to her finger tips, as Jessie was bound to admit. She came with an easy smile into the little group, and immediately her magnetic presence seemed to rivet all attention. The frightened maid ceased to scold in her polyglot way and grew coherent.
"Now let us get to the bottom of this business," the countess said gaily. "There has been a burglary at my house. Where did it take place, and what has been removed from the premises?"