“Yes—­yes, the same!” she answered.

“A Frenchwoman?” said Fullaway.

“Yes—­Lisette.  Of course she went with me to your office—­that was eight or nine months ago, and I’ve had her a year.  And I had excellent testimonials with her, too.  Oh, I can’t think that—­”

“Can’t you make an effort to remember her address?” urged Fullaway.  “What can we do until we know that?”

Celia drew her fine eyebrows together in a palpable effort to think.

“I’ve got it somewhere,” she said at last.  “I must have it somewhere—­most likely in an address-book at my flat—­I should be sure to put it down at the time.”

“Who is there at your flat?” asked Fullaway.

“My housekeeper and a maid,” answered Celia.  “They’re always there, whether I’m at home or not.  But they couldn’t get at what you want—­all my papers and things are locked up—­and in a hopeless state of confusion, too.”

Fullaway pushed aside his plate.

“Then there’s only one thing to be done,” he said, with an accent of finality.  “We must go up to town at once.”

Allerdyke, still quietly eating his supper, looked up.

“That’s just what I was going to suggest,” he said.  “There’s no good to be done hanging about here.  Let’s get on to the scene of operations.  If Miss Lennard’s maid has stolen her jewels, she’s probably had some hand in the theft from my cousin.  We must find her.  Now, then, let me come in.  I’ll look up the train, settle up with these hotel folk, and we’ll be off.  You give your attention to your packing, Miss Lennard, and leave the rest to me—­you won’t mind travelling the night?”

Celia shook her head.

“I don’t mind travelling all night for half a dozen nights if I can track my lost property,” she said lugubriously.  “You’re dead sure it’s no use stopping here?—­that the robbery didn’t take place here?”

“Sure!” answered Fullaway.  “We must get off.  That French damsel’s got to be found—­somehow.”

The supper-party came to an end—­the prima donna and her temporary maid began to bustle with garments and trunks, the two men attended to all other necessary matters, and at two o’clock in the morning the three sped out of Edinburgh for the South, each secretly wondering what was going to come of their journey.  Allerdyke, preparing to go to sleep in the compartment which he and Fullaway occupied by themselves, dropped one grim remark to his companion as he settled himself.

“Seems like a wild-goose chase this, my lad, but it’s one we’ve got to go through with!  What’ll the next stage be?”

The next stage was an arrival in London in the middle of a lovely May morning, a swift drive to Celia Lennard’s flat in Bedford Court Mansions, the hurried rummaging of its owner amongst an extraordinary mass of papers, books, and documents, and the ultimate discovery of the French maid’s address.  Celia held it up with a sigh of vast relief, which changed into a groan of despairing doubt.