She got up from her chair, seized with a sudden, eager desire to slip away before they came back.  For a moment she even thought of leaving the house without waiting for her hat and little fancy bag; and then, with a strange sinking of the heart she remembered that the white gate was locked, and that L’Ami Fritz had now the key of it in his pocket.

But in no case would Sylvia have had time to do what she had thought of doing, for a moment later her host and hostess were back in the room.

Madame Wachner sat down again at the dining-table,

“One moment!” she exclaimed, rather breathlessly.  “Just wait till I ’ave finished my coffee, Sylvia dear, and then L’Ami Fritz will escort you ’ome.”

Rather unwillingly, Sylvia again sat down.

Monsieur Wachner was paying no attention either to his guest or to his wife.  He took up the chair on which he had been sitting, and placed it out of the way near the door.  Then he lifted the lighted lamp off the table and put it on the buffet.

As he did so, Sylvia, looking up, saw the shadow of his tall, lank figure thrown grotesquely, hugely, against the opposite wall of the room.

“Now take the cloth off the table,” he said curtly.  And his wife, gulping down the last drops of her coffee, got up and obeyed him.

Sylvia suddenly realised that they were getting ready for something—­that they wanted the room cleared.

As with quick, deft fingers she folded up the cloth, Madame Wachner exclaimed, “As you are not taking any coffee, Sylvia, perhaps it is time for you now to get up and go away.”

Sylvia Bailey looked across at the speaker, and reddened deeply.  She felt very angry.  Never in the course of her pleasant, easy, prosperous life had anyone ventured to dismiss her in this fashion from their house.

She rose, for the second time during the course of her short meal, to her feet—­

And then, in a flash, there occurred that which transformed her anger into agonised fear—­fear and terror.

The back of her neck had been grazed by something sharp and cold, and as she gave a smothered cry she saw that her string of pearls had parted in two.  The pearls were now falling quickly one by one, and rolling all over the floor.

Instinctively she bent down, but as she did so she heard the man behind her make a quick movement.

She straightened herself and looked sharply round.

L’Ami Fritz was still holding in his hand the small pair of nail scissors with which he had snipped asunder her necklace; with the other he was in the act of taking out something from the drawer of the buffet.

She suddenly saw what that something was.

Sylvia Bailey’s nerves steadied; her mind became curiously collected and clear.  There had leapt on her the knowledge that this man and woman meant to kill her—­to kill her for the sake of the pearls which were still bounding about the floor, and for the comparatively small sum of money which she carried slung in the leather bag below her waist.