“Simple highway robbery, if you like, monsieur le comte.  But even had it proved successful, I had very few jewels with me.  All that mattered, all that I would have minded losing, were here, in a safe place.”

“Nevertheless,” said Monk—­“if you will permit me to offer a word of advice—­I think you are very unwise.”

“It may be, monsieur.”

“Nonsense!” Madame de Sevenie declared.  “Who would dare attempt to burglarise the Chateau de Montalais?  Such a thing was never heard of.”

“There is always the first time for everything, Madame,” Monk suggested gently.  “I fancy it was your first experience of the sort, at Montpellier.”

“A rascally chauffeur from Paris, a few low characters of the department.  Since the war things are not as they were.”

“That is the very reason why I suggest, madame—­”

“But, monsieur, I assure you all my life I have lived at Montalais.  Monsieur le cure will tell you I know every face hereabouts.  And I know that these poor country-folk, these good-natured dolts of peasants have not the imagination, much less the courage—­”

“But what of criminals from outside, from the great cities, from London and Paris and Berlin?  They have the imagination, the courage, the skill; and if they ever get wind of the fortune Madame de Montalais keeps locked up here...”

“What of the Lone Wolf?” the Comtesse de Lorgnes added.  “I have heard that one is once more in France.”

Duchemin blinked incredulously at the speaker.  “But when did you hear that, madame la comtesse?”

“Quite recently, monsieur.”

“I had understood that the monsieur in question had long since retired.”

“Only for the duration of the war, monsieur, I am afraid.”

“It is true, according to all reports,” the Comte de Lorgnes said:  “Monsieur Lanyard—­that was the name, was it not?”

“If memory serves, monsieur le comte,” Duchemin agreed.

“Yes.”  The count screwed his chubby features into a laughable mask of gravity.  “Now one remembers quite well.  He passed as a collector of objets d’art, especially of fine paintings, in Paris, for years before the War—­this Monsieur Michael Lanyard.  Then he disappeared.  It was rumoured that he was of good service to the Allies as a spy, acting independently; and after the Armistice, I have heard, he did well for England in the matter of a Bolshevist conspiracy over there.  But not long ago, according to my information, Monsieur the Lone Wolf resigned from the British Secret Service and returned to France—­doubtless to resume his old practices.”

“Perhaps not,” Duchemin suggested.  “Possibly his reformation was genuine and lasting.”

The Comtesse de Lorgnes laughed that laugh of light derision which is almost exclusively the laugh of the Parisienne of a certain class.  Remarking this, Duchemin eyed her mildly.

“Madame la Comtesse does not believe that.  Well—­who knows?—­perhaps she is right.  Possibly she knows more of the nature and habits of the criminal classes than we, sharing as she does, no doubt, the apparently accurate and precise sources of information of monsieur le comte.”