Meanwhile, mademoiselle ran upstairs with the watch in her hand, first to her own room, where she remained five minutes or so, and then took it to the schoolroom, where she delighted her little pupil by making the watch strike.
“Make it go again, mademoiselle,” exclaimed little Bertha, delighted at being allowed to hold it in her hand. And again and again the governess pressed the ring and caused it to chime, until at last she was compelled to take it forcibly from the child’s hand and carry it back again to the grey-whiskered man in the drawing-room, returning a word of thanks as she handed it back to him.
That same evening, after her charge had been put to bed, and during Mrs Fitzroy’s absence at Lady Claridge’s dance, she went out and dropped into the pillar-box at the corner of Grosvenor Square a small packet in a strong linen-lined envelope addressed to “Giuseppe Gallo, Esq., care of H. Bird, Newsagent, 386 Westminster Bridge Road, S.E.”
And then she returned to the little sitting-room set apart for her, and smiled confidently to herself as she settled to read the Tribuna, which her mother sent her regularly each day.
A week later the household at Brook Street was thrown into a state of agitation and surprise when the vulgarian dashed round in a cab and informed his sister of a most audacious entry made by thieves into his splendid flat at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and how they had turned it topsy-turvy. He had, it appeared, been absent, speaking for a parliamentary candidate up at Leicester, and his valet had slept in the flat alone, the other servants being on holiday, when during the night burglars had entered by a window from some leads adjoining, and had opened everything, even to his safe, and had apparently made a minute examination of every private paper he possessed.
He had missed nothing, except a few cigars; but what puzzled the detectives most was the manner in which safe, writing-table, and two chests of drawers, which he always kept locked, had been opened. Either the thieves possessed all the keys—and this did not appear possible, as they were all in the trusted valet’s room—or else they possessed a master-key to everything, the same as that which the Member of Parliament wore upon his watch-chain.
The millionaire was furious. He even spoke to the Home Secretary about it when he met him in the lobby of the House. But the manner in which the safe had been opened was a complete mystery—a mystery to all except to mademoiselle.
The vulgarian little suspected, when he so innocently lent his watch to his niece, that the handsome governess had taken an impression in wax of the small master-key upon the other end of his chain, or that she had that very same evening posted the wax impression in the tin matchbox to the clever secret agent of the Italian War Office—the man who with two colleagues had come over from Paris specially, who had met Mademoiselle in Kensington Gardens, and who was known at the newsagent’s in the Westminster Bridge Road as Giuseppe Gallo, a civil engineer, seeking employment.