"No doubt. Did you take his number?"
"No. And didn't you notice it either?"
"No."
They looked at each other, terror-stricken. At last Loisel put on his clothes.
"I shall go back on foot," he said, "over the whole route we came by, to see if I can't find it."
He went out, and she sat waiting in her ball dress, too dazed to go to bed, cold, crushed, lifeless, unable to think.
Her husband came back at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He went to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper office—where he advertised a reward. He went to the cab companies—to every place, in fact, that seemed at all hopeful.
She waited all day in the same awful state of mind at this terrible misfortune.
Loisel returned at night with a wan, white face. He had found nothing.
"Write immediately to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace, and that you have taken it to be mended. That will give us time to turn about."