own.

"Give me some of that _pate_ and open a bottle of champagne," she said.
"What with this doubling about and covering up one's tracks, I've had no
time to think of food. The same remark applies to poor Reggie here.
Haven't we succeeded well enough for you?"

"Well, yes, you managed the big thing all right, but that's not
everything. You managed the big thing so well that the police are
utterly baffled and don't know which way to look. But the stones,
_carissima_, the sparkling stones. What of them?"

The woman gave a shrug of her ivory shoulders. She could be plainly seen
by the watchers lost in the darkness of the drawing-room.

"The deplorable luck was against us," she said. "I actually had my hands
upon the stones and nearly snatched them away under the very eyes of the
adorable Richford. I said to myself we are not going to do his work for
nothing. He followed me to the room where the stones were and we
talked. You see I had business in the room as you know. And Reggie here
was downstairs, making himself agreeable to the fair owner of the
stones, so that I had a free hand in the matter. If Reggie had not been
so indiscreet as to leave the poor child----"

"But what could I do?" the man called Reggie protested. "Never was so
cruel a piece of bad luck in the history of war. Who should come down
but Langford?"

"But you were so carefully disguised that Langford could not possibly
have known you," the woman said.

"I admit it. I positively had forgotten the fact for the moment. The
sight of Langford was such a shock to me. On the spur of the moment I
made my excuses and departed."

"Leaving the little girl uneasy and suspicious," said the woman, "so
that she came up to her room where I was and walked off with the gems. I
was very near to taking her by the throat and half strangling her. But
there were greater issues at stake and I had to restrain my feelings. I
had to smile and nod and play my part whilst the little lady was sending
the jewels off to the safe custody of the hotel clerk. I could have
danced with fury, I could have wept with rage. But what was the good?"

The Rajah swore roundly and passionately. He could be seen from the
drawing-room, striding about the place and muttering as he went.

"It is more than unfortunate," he said. "If we could have got hold of
those jewels we should have had a fortune in our grasp. We were quite
justified in robbing Richford, who only serves me for his own ends.