Loisel detained her: "Wait a little; you will catch cold outside; I will go and call a cab."
But she would not listen to him, and hurried downstairs. When they reached the street they could not find a carriage, and they began to look for one, shouting to the cabmen who were passing by. They went down toward the river in desperation, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quays one of those antiquated, all-night broughams, which, in Paris, wait till after dark before venturing to display their dilapidation. It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and once more, wearily, they climbed the stairs.
Now all was over for her; as for him, he remembered that he must be at the office at ten o'clock. She threw off her cloak before the glass, that she might behold herself once more in all her magnificence. Suddenly she uttered a cry of dismay—the necklace was gone!
Her husband, already half-undressed, called out, "Anything wrong?"
She turned wildly toward him: "I have—I have—I've lost Mme. Forestier's necklace!"
He stood aghast: "Where? When? You haven't!"
They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her pocket, everywhere. They could not find it.
"Are you sure," he said, "that you had it on when you left the ball?"
"Yes; I felt it in the corridor of the palace."
"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab."