ddle like most French windows, was
tightly closed, with the catch securely fastened; and as I began slowly
and with infinite caution to turn the handle, I felt that the window was
going to stick. Perhaps the wood had been freshly painted: perhaps it
had swelled; in any case I knew that when the two sashes consented to
part they would make a loud protest.

After the first warning squeak I stopped. In the next room Maxine raised
her voice--to cover the sound, I was sure. Then it had been worse even
than I fancied! I dared not begin again. I would grope about once more,
and see if I could hit upon some other way out, which possibly I had
missed.

No, there was nothing. No other window, except a small one which
apparently communicated with a pantry, and even if that had not seemed
too small for me to climb through, it was fastened on the pantry side.

What to do I did not know. It would be a calamity for Maxine if du
Laurier should hear a sound, and insist on having the door opened, after
she had given him the impression (if she had not said it in so many
words) that there was no stranger in the house.

Probably she hoped that by this time I was gone; but how could I go? I
felt like a rat in a trap: and if I had been a nervous woman I should
have imagined myself stifling in the small, hot room with its closed
doors and windows. As it was, I was uncomfortable enough. My forehead
grew damp, as in the first moments of a Turkish bath, and absent
mindedly I felt in pocket after pocket for my handkerchief. It was not
to be found. I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in
the automobile I had hired. In an outside pocket of my coat, however, I
chanced upon something for the existence of which I couldn't account. It
was a very small something: only a bit of paper, but a very neatly
folded bit of paper, and I remembered how it had fallen from my pocket
onto the floor, and a gendarme had picked it up.

At ordinary times I should most likely not have given it a second
thought; but to-night nothing unexpected could be dismissed as
insignificant until it had been thoroughly examined. I put the paper
back, and as I did so I heard Maxine give an exclamation, apparently of
distress. I could not distinguish all she said, but I thought that I
caught the word "diamonds." For a moment or two she and du Laurier
talked together so excitedly that I might have made another attack on
the window without great risk; and I was me