“Who is offending against the laws of a friendly country,” he capped my words.  “You can complain afterwards, Monsieur.  But now—­”

“Why don’t you empty your pockets, Mr. Dundas,” suggested Maxine, lightly, yet contemptuously, “and show them that you’ve nothing in which the police can have any interest?  I suppose the next thing they propose, will be to search me.”

“I deeply regret to say that will be the next thing, Mademoiselle, unless satisfaction is given to me,” returned the Commissary of Police.

Maxine threw back her thick veil; and if this were the first time these men had ever seen the celebrated actress off the stage, it seemed to me that her beauty must almost have dazzled them, thus suddenly displayed.  For Maxine is a gloriously handsome woman, and never had she been most striking, more wonderful, than at that moment, when her dark eyes laughed out of her white face, and her red lips smiled as if neither they, nor the great eyes, had any secret to hide.

“Look at me,” she said, throwing back her arms in such a way as to bring forward her slender body, in the tight black sheath of the dress which was of the fashion which, I think, women call “Princess.”  It fitted her as smoothly as the gloves that covered her arms to the elbows.

“Do you think there is much chance for concealment in this dress?” she asked.  “I haven’t a pocket, you see.  No self-respecting woman could have, in a gown like this.  I don’t know in the least what sort of ‘gift’ my old friend is supposed to have brought me.  Is it large or small?  I’ll take off my gloves and let you see my rings, if you like, Monsieur le Commisaire, for I’ve been taught, as a servant of the public, to be civil to my fellow servants, even if they should be unreasonable.  No?  You don’t want to see my rings?  Let me oblige you by taking off my hat, then.  I might have put the thing—­whatever it is—­in my hair.”

As she spoke, she drew out her hatpins, still laughing in a half scornful, half good-natured way.  She was bewitching as she stood smiling, with her black hat and veil in her hand, the ruffled waves of her dark red hair shadowing her forehead.

Meanwhile, fired by her example, I turned out the contents of my pockets:  a letter or two; a flat gold cigarette case; a match box; my watch, and a handkerchief:  also in an outer pocket of my coat, a small bit of crumpled paper of which I had no recollection:  but as one of the gendarmes politely picked it up from the floor, where it had fallen, and handed it to me without examining it, mechanically I slipped it back into the pocket, and thought no more of it at the time.  There were too many other things to think of, and I was wondering what on earth Maxine could have done with the letter-case.  She had had no more than two seconds in which to dispose of it, hardly enough, it seemed to me, to pass it from one hand to another, yet apparently it was well hidden.