these
robberies have put the Royal Palace under a cloud."

Henri Verbier smiled.

"You need not be afraid of my attaching too much importance to that," he
said. "I've been in hotel life for fifteen years now, in one capacity
or another, and, as you may suppose, I've known similar cases before, so
they don't surprise me much. But one thing does surprise me, M. Muller,
and that is that no clue has yet been found. I suppose the Board have
done everything that can be done to trace the culprit? The reputation of
the hotel is at stake."

"I should think they have looked for him!" said M. Louis, with a
pathetic shrug of his shoulders. "Why, they even upbraided me for having
had the door opened for the thief! Luckily I had a good friend in
Muller, who admitted that he had been completely imposed upon and that
he had given the order for the fellow, whom he supposed to be the
second-floor waiter, to be allowed to go out. I knew nothing about it."

"And how was I to guess that the man was an impostor?" Muller protested.

"All the same," Henri Verbier retorted, "it is uncommonly annoying for
everybody when things like that happen."

"So long as one has not committed any breach of orders, and so can't be
made a scapegoat of, one mustn't grumble," M. Muller said. "Louis and I
did exactly what our duty required and no one can say anything to us.
The magistrate acknowledged that a week ago."

"He does not suspect anybody?" Henri Verbier asked.

"No: nobody," Muller answered.

M. Louis smiled.

"Yes, he did suspect somebody, Verbier," he said, "and that was your
charming neighbour Mlle. Jeanne there."

Verbier turned towards the young cashier.

"What? The magistrate tried to make out that you were implicated in it?"

The girl had only spoken a few words during the whole of dinner,
although Henri Verbier had made several gallant attempts to draw her
into the general conversation. Now she laughingly protested.

"M. Louis only says that to tease me."

But M. Louis stuck to his guns.

"Not a bit of it, Mademoiselle Jeanne: I said it because it is the
truth. The magistrate was on to you: I tell you he was! Why, M. Verbier,
he cross-examined her for more than half an hour after the general
confrontation, while he finished with Muller and me in less than ten
minutes."

"Gad, M. Louis, a magistrate is a man, isn't he?" said Henri Verbier
gallantly. "The magistrate may have enjoyed talking to Mlle. Jeanne more
than he did