Then, Sir, I brought upon the perilous situation that presence of mind for which the name of Hector Ratichon will for ever remain famous.  Without a single flurried movement, I slipped one of the velvet-covered cases which I still had in my hand into the breast pocket of my coat, I closed down the lid of the iron chest and locked it with the duplicate key, and I went out of the room, closing the door behind me.

The passage was dark.  The damsel was running up the stairs with a couple of stage hands behind her.  She was explaining to them volubly, and to the accompaniment of sundry half-hysterical little cries, the infamous hoax to which she had fallen a victim.  You might think, Sir, that here was I caught like a rat in a trap, and with that velvet-covered case in my breast pocket by way of damning evidence against me!

Not at all, Sir!  Not at all!  Not so is Hector Ratichon, the keenest secret agent France has ever known, the confidant of kings, brought to earth by an untoward move of fate.  Even before the damsel and the stage hands had reached the top of the stairs and turned into the corridor, which was on my left, I had slipped round noiselessly to my right and found shelter in a narrow doorway, where I was screened by the surrounding darkness and by a projection of the frame.  While the three of them made straight for Mademoiselle’s dressing-room, and spent some considerable time there in uttering varied ejaculations when they found the place and the chest to all appearances untouched, I slipped out of my hiding-place, sped rapidly along the corridor, and was soon half-way down the stairs.

Here my habitual composure in the face of danger stood me in good stead.  It enabled me to walk composedly and not too hurriedly through the crowd behind the scenes—­supers, scene-shifters, principals, none of whom seemed to be aware as yet of the hoax practised on Mademoiselle Mars’ maid; and I reckon that I was out of the stage door exactly five minutes after Theodore had called the damsel away.

But I was minus the bracelet, and in my mind there was the firm conviction that that traitor Theodore had played me one of his abominable tricks.  As I said, the whole thing had occurred as quickly as a flash of lightning, but even so my keen, experienced eyes had retained the impression of a peaked cap and the corner of a blue blouse as they disappeared through the dressing-room door.

3.

Tact, wariness and strength were all required, you must admit, in order to deal with the present delicate situation.  I was speeding along the Rue de Richelieu on my way to my office.  My intention was to spend the night there, where I had a chair-bedstead on which I had oft before slept soundly after a day’s hard work, and anyhow it was too late to go to my lodgings at Passy at this hour.

Moreover, Theodore slept in the antechamber of the office, and I was more firmly convinced than ever that it was he who had stolen the bracelet.  “Blackleg!  Thief!  Traitor!” I mused.  “But thou hast not done with Hector Ratichon yet.”