elentless fate which, if you do not help me, will
leave me broken-hearted."

"Command me, Madame," I riposted quietly.

From out the daintiest of reticules the fair lady now extracted a very
greasy and very dirty bit of paper, and handed it to me with the brief
request: "Read this, I pray you, my good M. Ratichon." I took the
paper. It was a clumsily worded, ill-written, ill-spelt demand for
five thousand francs, failing which sum the thing which Madame had
lost would forthwith be destroyed.

I looked up, puzzled, at my fair client.

"My darling Carissimo, my dear M. Ratichon," she said in reply to my
mute query.

"Carissimo?" I stammered, yet further intrigued.

"My darling pet, a valuable creature, the companion of my lonely
hours," she rejoined, once more bursting into tears. "If I lose him,
my heart will inevitably break."

I understood at last.

"Madame has lost her dog?" I asked.

She nodded.

"It has been stolen by one of those expert dog thieves, who then levy
blackmail on the unfortunate owner?"

Again she nodded in assent.

I read the dirty, almost illegible scrawl through more carefully this
time. It was a clumsy notification addressed to Mme. la Comtesse de
Nole de St. Pris to the effect that her tou-tou was for the moment
safe, and would be restored to the arms of his fond mistress provided
the sum of five thousand francs was deposited in the hands of the
bearer of the missive.

Minute directions were then given as to where and how the money was to
be deposited. Mme. la Comtesse de Nole was, on the third day from this
at six o'clock in the evening precisely, to go in person and alone to
the angle of the Rue Guenegaud and the Rue Mazarine, at the rear of
the Institut.

There two men would meet her, one of whom would have Carissimo in his
arms; to the other she must hand over the money, whereupon the pet
would at once be handed back to her. But if she failed to keep this
appointment, or if in the meanwhile she made the slightest attempt to
trace the writer of the missive or to lay a trap for his capture by
the police, Carissimo would at once meet with a summary death.

These were the usual tactics of experienced dog thieves, only that in
this case the demand was certainly exorbitant. Five thousand francs!
But even so . . . I cast a rapid and comprehensive glance on the
brilliant apparition before me--the jewelled rings, the diamonds in
the shell-like ears, the priceless fur coat--and with