"Madame sent me with these stones. They came off a piece of jewelry which she bought here."
Shears had hit the nail on the head. The jeweler replied:
"That's right.... The lady telephoned to me. She will call here herself presently."
It was five o'clock before Shears, standing on the pavement, saw a lady arrive, wrapped in a thick veil, whose appearance struck him as suspicious. Through the shop-window he saw her place on the counter an old-fashioned brooch set with garnets.
She went away almost at once, did a few errands on foot, walked up toward Clichy and turned down streets which the Englishman did not know. At nightfall, he followed her, unperceived by the concierge, into a five-storeyed house built on either side of the doorway and therefore containing numberless flats. She stopped at a door on the second floor and went in.
Two minutes later, the Englishman put his luck to the test and, one after the other, carefully tried the keys on the bunch of which he had obtained possession. The fourth key fitted the lock.
Through the darkness that filled them, he saw rooms which were absolutely empty, like those of an unoccupied flat, with all the doors standing open. But the light of a lamp filtered through from the end of a passage; and, approaching on tip-toe, through the glass door that separated the drawing-room from an adjoining bedroom he saw the veiled lady take off her dress and hat, lay them on the one chair which the room contained and slip on a velvet tea-gown.
And he also saw her walk up to the chimney-piece and push an electric bell. And one-half of the panel to the right of the chimney moved from its position and slipped along the wall into the thickness of the next panel. As soon as the gap was wide enough, the lady passed through ... and disappeared, taking the lamp with her.
The system was a simple one. Shears employed it. He found himself walking in the dark, groping his way; but suddenly his face came upon something soft. By the light of a match, he saw that he was in a little closet filled with dresses and clothes hanging from metal bars. He thrust his way through and stopped before the embrasure of a door closed by a tapestry hanging or, at least, by the back of a hanging. And, his match being now burnt out, he saw light piercing through the loose and worn woof of the old stuff.