“Absurd!” cried Jennie impatiently. “The complexion of a woman at a ball! Of course, she put it on for the occasion.”
“Of course,” agreed the detective. “But that merely shows you how deeply in love he is. Lord Donal is quite a young man. He came up to this room to consult with me, and certainly he doesn’t know the difference between a complexion developed in a Surrey lane and one purchased in New Bond Street.”
“Still, the blushing would seem to indicate that the complexion was genuine,” retorted Jennie, apparently quite unflattered by Mr. Taylor’s agreement with the theory she herself had put forward.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I believe modern science enables an enamelled woman to blush at will; I wouldn’t be sure of it, because it is outside of my own line of investigation, but I have understood such is the case.”
“Very likely,” assented Jennie. “What is that you have at the bottom of your packet?”
“That,” said the detective, drawing it forth and handing it to the girl, “is her glove.”
Jennie picked up the glove—which, alas! she had paid for and only worn on one occasion—and smoothed it out between her fingers. It was docketed “G; made by Gaunt et Cie, Boulevard Hausmann; purchased in Paris by one alleging herself to be the Princess von Steinheimer.”
“You have found out all about it,” said Jennie, as she finished reading the label.
“Yes, it is our business to do so; but the glove has not been of much assistance to us.”
“How did he say he became possessed of the glove?” asked the girl innocently. “Did she give it to him?”