Mademoiselle Zélie de Longarde, utterly careless of the fact that her toilette was but half complete, that she wore no gown, and that the kimono which she had hastily assumed on discovering her loss had slipped away from her graceful figure to fall in folds about her feet, interrupted the torrent of her eloquence to stare at the three men whom a startled waiter ushered into her sitting-room. Her first glance fell on the concert-director, and she shook her fist at him.
"Go away, Weiss!" she commanded, accompanying the vigorous action of her hand with an equally emphatic stamp of a shapely foot. "Go away at once—go and play on the French horn; go and do anything you like to satisfy your audience! Not one note do I sing until somebody finds me my jewels! Edinburgh's stole them, and Edinburgh'll have to give them back. It's no use your waiting here—I won't budge an inch. I—"
She paused abruptly, suddenly catching sight of Fullaway, who at once moved towards her with a confidential and reassuring smile.
"You!" she exclaimed. "What brings you here? And who's that with you—surely the gentleman of whom I asked my way in some wild place the other night! What—"
"Mademoiselle," said Fullaway, with a deep bow, "let me suggest to you that the finest thing in this mundane state of ours is—reason. Suppose, now, that you complete your toilet, tell us what it is you have lost; leave us—your devoted servants—to begin the task of finding it, and while we are so engaged, hasten with Mr. Weiss to the hall to fulfil your engagement? A packed audience awaits you—palpitating with sympathy and—"
"And curiosity," interjected the aggrieved prima donna, as she threw a hasty glance at her deshabille and snatched up the kimono. "Pretty talk, Fullaway—very, and all intended to benefit Weiss there. Lost, indeed!—I've lost all my jewels, and up to now nobody"—here she flashed a wrathful glance at the hotel manager and the two detectives—"nobody has made a single suggestion about finding them!"
Fullaway exchanged looks with the other men. Once more he assumed the office of spokesman.
"Perhaps you have not told them precisely what it is they're to find," he suggested. "What is it now, Mademoiselle? The Pinkie Pell necklace for instance!"
The prima donna, who was already retreating through the door of the bedroom on whose threshold she had been standing, flashed a scornful look at her questioner over the point of her white shoulder.
"Pinkie Pell necklace!" she exclaimed. "Everything's gone! The whole lot!
Look at that—not so much as a ring left in it!"