“I am pleased to see you, sir, the more so that your friend, Mrs. Bailey, is indisposed.  A moment ago, to our deep concern, she found herself quite faint—­no doubt from the heat.  I will conduct you, gentlemen, into the drawing-room; my wife and Mrs. Bailey will join us there in a minute,” and only then did he move back sufficiently to allow the two men to cross the threshold.

Paul de Virieu opened his lips—­but no sound came from them.  The sudden sense of relief from what had been agonised suspense gripped him by the throat.

He brushed past Wachner, and made straight for the door behind which he felt sure of finding the woman whom some instinct told him he had saved from a terrible fate....

He turned the handle of the dining-room door, and then stopped short, for he was amazed at the sight which met his eyes.

Sylvia was sitting at a round table; behind her was the buffet, still laden with the remains of a simple meal.  Her face was hidden in her hands, and she was trembling—­shaking as though she had the ague.

But what amazed Paul de Virieu was the sight of Sylvia’s hostess.  Madame Wachner was crawling about on her hands and knees on the floor, and she remained in the same odd position when the dining-room door opened.

At last she looked up, and seeing who stood there, staring down at her, she raised herself with some difficulty, looking to the Frenchman’s sharpened consciousness, like some monstrous greedy beast, suddenly baulked of its prey.

“Such a misfortune!” she exclaimed in English.  “Such a very great misfortune!  The necklace of our friend ’as broken, and ’er beautiful pearls are rolling all over the floor!  We ’ave been trying, Fritz and myself, to pick them up for ’er.  Is not that so, Sylvia?  Mrs. Bailey is so distressed!  It ’as made ’er feel very faint, what English people call ‘queer’.  But I tell ’er we shall find them all—­it is only a matter of a little time.  I asked ’er to take some cognac my ’usband keeps for such bad moments, but no, she would not!  Is not that so, Sylvia?”

She stared down anxiously at the bowed head of her guest.

Sylvia looked up.  As if hypnotised by the other woman’s voice, she rose to her feet—­a wan, pitiful little smile came over her white face.

“Yes,” she said dully, “the string of my pearls broke.  I was taken faint.  I felt horribly queer—­perhaps it was the heat.”

Paul de Virieu took a sudden step forward into the room.  He had just become aware of something which had made him also feel what English people call “queer.”

That something had no business in the dining-room, for it belonged to the kitchen—­in fact it was a large wooden mallet of the kind used by French cooks to beat meat tender.  Just now the club end of the mallet was sticking out of the drawer of the walnut-wood buffet.

The drawer had evidently been pulled out askew, and had stuck—­as is the way with drawers forming part of ill-made furniture.