The two men looked at each other.  There was a brief pause; then Allerdyke slowly produced a small packet, wrapped in tissue-paper, from his waistcoat pocket.  He laid it on the table at his side and looked at his hostess.

“I knew you had been in my cousin’s room,” he said.  “You left or dropped your shoe-buckle there.  I found it when I searched his room.  Then the hotel manager showed me your wire.  Here’s the buckle.”

He was watching her narrowly as he spoke, and his glance deepened in intensity as he handed over the little packet and watched her unwrap the paper.  But there was not a sign of anything but a little surprised satisfaction in the prima donna’s face as she recognized her lost property, and her eyes were ingenuous enough as she turned them on him.

“Why, of course, that’s mine!” she exclaimed.  “I’m ever so much obliged to you, Mr. Allerdyke.  Yes, I wired to the hotel, in my proper name, you know—­Zelie de Longarde is only my professional name.  I didn’t want to lose that buckle—­it was part of a birthday present from my mother.  But you don’t mean to say that you travelled all the way to Edinburgh to hand me that!  Surely not?”

“No!” replied Allerdyke.  He wanted to take a direct share in the talking, and went resolutely ahead now that the chance had come.  “No—­not at all.  I knew you’d come to Edinburgh—­found it out from that chauffeur who was driving you when you and I met at Howden the night before last, and so I came on to find you.  I want to ask you some questions about my cousin, and maybe to get you to come and give evidence at the inquest on him.”

“Inquest!” she exclaimed.  “I know what that means, of course.  Why—­you don’t say there’s been anything wrong?”

“I believe my cousin was murdered that night,” answered Allerdyke.  “So, too, does Fullaway there.  And you were probably the last person who ever spoke to him alive.  Now, you see, I’m a plain, blunt-spoken sort of chap—­I ask people straight questions.  What did you go into his room to talk to him about?”

“Business!” she replied, with a directness which impressed both men.  “Mere business.  He and I had several conversations on board the Perisco—­I made out he was a clever business man.  I want to invest some money—­he advised me to put it into a development company in Norway, which is doing big things in fir and pine.  I went into his room to look at some plans and papers—­he gave me some prospectuses which are in that bag there just now—–­I was reading them over again only this evening.  That’s all.  I wasn’t there many minutes—­and, as I told you, he was very well, very brisk and lively then.”

“Did he show you any valuables that he had with him—­jewels?” asked Allerdyke brusquely.

“Jewels!  Valuables!” she answered.  “No—­certainly not.”

“Nor when you were on the steamer?”

“No—­nor at any time,” she said.  “Jewels?—­why—­what makes you ask such a question?”