“Blank, madame, quite blank, you see,” said Cleek serenely.  “For one so clever in other things, you should have been more careful.  A little pinch of powder in the punch at dinner-time—­just that—­and on the first night, too!  It was so easy afterward to get into your room, remove the real paper, and wrap the candle in a blank piece while you slept.”

“You—­you dog!” she snapped out viciously.  “You drugged me?”

“Yes, madame; you and the one-eyed man as well!  Oh, don’t excite yourself—­don’t pull at the poor wretch like that.  The glass eye will come out quite easily, but—­I assure you there is only a small lump of beeswax in the socket now.  I removed the Rainbow Pearl from poor Monsieur Clopin’s blind eye ten minutes after I burnt the letter, madame, and—­it passed out of this house to-night!  A clever idea to pick up a one-eyed pauper, madame, and hide the pearl in the empty socket of the lost eye, but—­it was too bad, you had to supply a glass eye to keep it in, after the lid and the socket had withered and shrunk from so many years of emptiness.  It worried the poor man, madame; he was always feeling it, always afraid that the lump behind would force it out; and, what is an added misfortune for your plans, the glass shell did not allow you to see the change when the pearl vanished and the bit of beeswax took its place.  Madame Tcharnovetski, your passport.  I know enough of the King of Mauravania to be sure that your life will not be safe if you are not past the frontier before daybreak!”

* * * * *

“Monsieur le comte—­no!  I thank you, but I cannot wait to be presented to his Majesty, for I, too, leave Mauravania to-night, and, like Madame yonder, return to other and more promising fields,” said Cleek, an hour later, as he stood on the terrace of the Villa Irma and watched the slow progress down the moonlit avenue of the carriage which was bearing Madame Tcharnovetski and her effects to the railway station.  “Give me the cheque, please; I have earned that, and—­there is good use for it.  I thank you, Count.  Now do an act of charity, my friend:  give the little dog in the stable a good meal, and then have a surgeon chloroform him into a peaceful and merciful death.  They will find the Rainbow Pearl in his intestines when they come to dissect the body.  I starved him, Count—­starved him purposely, poor little wretch, so that he could be hungry enough to snap at anything in the way of food and bolt it instantly.  To-night, when I went up to take him out to the stable, a thick smearing of beef extract over the surface of the pearl was sufficient; he swallowed it in a gulp!  For a double reason, Count, there should be a cur quartered on the royal arms of this country after to-night.”

His voice dropped off into silence.  The carriage containing madame had swung out through the gateway, and its shadow no longer blotted the broad, unbroken space of moonlit avenue.  He turned and looked far out, over the square of the Aquisola, along the light-lined esplanade, to the palace gates and the fluttering flag that streamed against the sky above and beyond them.