pert as a French maid out for the day.
She drove in hansoms, and she had a five-pound note in her pocket.

Albert had been granted two weeks' vacation for his honeymoon, and he
ought to have resumed his duties of detection that morning. The
honeymoon, however, had lasted only nine days, and the remaining five
days of the period had been spent by him in some secret affair of his
own, an affair which had ended in an accident to his left foot, so that
he could not walk. The consequence was that, on this day of all days,
Hugo's was deprived of his services. Lily was, perhaps, not altogether
sorry for the catastrophe which kept him a prisoner in the nest-like
home in Radipole Road, for it had resulted in this excursion of hers to
the sale. Albert had bidden her to go to buy a stole and other things,
to keep her eyes open, and to report to Hugo in person if she observed
anything queer. He had even given her a pass which would ensure her
immediate admittance to any of Hugo's private lairs. Therefore, Lily
felt extremely important, extremely like a detective's wife. She knew
that Albert trusted her, and she was very proud that she had not asked
him any questions concerning a matter exasperatingly mysterious. Albert
had taught her that a detective's wife should crucify curiosity.

She fought her way to a counter in the fur department.

'The guinea stoles?' she inquired from a shopwalker.

'I--I beg pardon, miss,' said the shopwalker.

'Madam,' Lily corrected him. 'I want one of those silvered fox-stoles
advertised at a guinea.'

'You'll probably find them over there, madam,' said the shopwalker,
pointing.

'Aren't you sure?' she asked tartly. 'I don't want to struggle across
there and then find they're somewhere else.'

The shopwalker turned his back on her.

'Well, I never!' she exclaimed to herself, and decided that Albert
should avenge her.

Then, behind the counter, she saw a girl whom she used to serve with a
glass of milk every morning.

'Oh, Miss Lawton,' she cried, as an equal to an equal, 'can you tell me
where the stoles are to be found?'

'Probably over there, Mrs. Shawn,' said Miss Lawton kindly, nodding the
greeting she had no time to utter.

So Lily got away from the counter, plunged into a chartless sea of
customers, and eventually emerged in the quarter which had been
indicated.

'All sold out, miss!'

Such was the blunt answer to her demand for a silvered fox-stole.

'Don't talk to me like