“If you do not mind,” observed Madame Wachner, “I will remain out here, in the car.  They have already seen me this morning at the Pension Malfait.  They must be quite tired of seeing me.”

Sylvia felt rather disappointed.  She would have liked the support of Madame Wachner’s cheerful presence when making her inquiries, for she was aware that the proprietors of Anna’s pension—­M. and Madame Malfait—­had been very much annoyed that she, Sylvia, had not joined her friend there.

Madame Malfait was sitting in her usual place—­that is, in a little glass cage in the hall—­and when she saw Mrs. Bailey coming towards her, a look of impatience, almost of dislike, crossed her thin, shrewd face.

“Bon jour, Madame!” she said curtly.  “I suppose you also have come to ask me about Madame Wolsky?  But I think you must have heard all there is to hear from the lady whom I see out there in the car.  I can tell you nothing more than I have already told her.  Madame Wolsky has treated us with great want of consideration.  She did not come home last evening.  Poor Malfait waited up all night, wondering what could be the matter.  And then, this morning, we found a letter in her room saying she had gone away!”

“A letter in her room?” exclaimed Sylvia.  “Madame Wachner did not tell me that my friend had left a letter—­”

But Madame Malfait went on angrily: 

“Madame Wolsky need not have troubled to write!  A word of explanation would have been better, and would have prevented my husband sitting up till five o’clock this morning.  We quite feared something must have happened to her.  But we have a great dislike to any affair with the police, and so we thought we would wait before telling them of her disappearance, and it is indeed fortunate that we did so!”

“Will you kindly show me the letter she left for you?” said Sylvia.

Without speaking, Madame Malfait bent down over her table, and then held out a piece of notepaper on which were written the words: 

  Madame Malfait,—­

Being unexpectedly obliged to leave Lacville, I enclose herewith 200 francs.  Please pay what is owing to you out of it, and distribute the rest among the servants.  I will send you word where to forward my luggage in a day or two.

Sylvia stared reflectively at the open letter.

Anna had not even signed her name.  The few lines were very clear, written in a large, decided handwriting, considerably larger, or so it seemed to Sylvia, than what she had thought Anna’s ordinary hand to be.  But then the Englishwoman had not had the opportunity of seeing much of her Polish friend’s caligraphy.

Before she had quite finished reading the mysterious letter over a second time, Madame Malfait took it out of her hand.

But Sylvia Bailey was entirely unused to being snubbed—­pretty young women provided with plenty of money seldom are snubbed—­and so she did not turn away and leave the hall, as Madame Malfait hoped she would do.