At Harwich he ingeniously gave us the slip, but in a letter to Lanning, received from Paris a week later, he said that he alone was responsible for the theft, and that neither Mademoiselle Duplaix nor any one else had any hand in it, nor any knowledge of it.
From some remarks Lanning had let fall he concluded that some important development had occurred in the stabilizing of flying machines—a matter his employers were interested in—and he had watched his friend's movements. He guessed that secret experiments had been tried that day when he saw Lanning take the wooden case to his flat, and during the evening he had slipped away from Lady Chilcot's dance, returning when he had deposited the model and the plans in a safe place.
He did not say where this safe place was, and since he had persistently suggested that either France or Germany had pulled the strings of the robbery, he was probably working for neither of these countries.
Shortly afterwards Richard Lanning's engagement to Miss Chilcot was announced, and I imagine he is still working to perfect a stabilizer, for, although the model appears to have done all that was required of it, the actual machine proved defective, I understand.
CHAPTER VIII
THE AFFAIR OF THE CONTESSA'S PEARLS
I think it was when talking about the stolen model that Quarles made the paradoxical statement that facts are not always the best evidence. I argued the point, and remained entirely of an opposite opinion until I had to investigate the case of a pair of pearl earrings, and then I was driven into thinking there was something in Quarles's statement. It was altogether a curious a if air, and showed the professor in a new light which caused Zena and myself some trouble.
The Contessa di Castalani occupied rooms at one of the big West End hotels, a self-contained suite, consisting of a sitting-room, two bedrooms, and vestibule. She had her child with her, a little girl of about three years old, and a French maid named Angélique.
Returning to the hotel one afternoon unexpectedly, she met, but took no particular notice of, two men in the corridor which led to her suite. Hotel servants she supposed them to be, and, as she entered the little vestibule Angélique came from the contessa's bedroom. There was no reason why she should not go in there; in fact, she carried a reason in her hand. She had been to get a clean frock for the child. The one she had worn on the previous day was too soiled to put on.
That evening the contessa wished to wear a special pair of pearl earrings, but when she went to get the little leather case which contained the pearls, it was missing.