affair." He flung himself into a seat and nodded at the
hotel-manager. "Just tell us exactly what's happened since Mademoiselle
arrived here," he said. "Let's get an accurate notion of all her doings.
She came--when?"

"She got here about the beginning of yesterday afternoon," answered the
manager, who did not appear to be too well pleased about this disturbance
of his usual proceedings. "She has always had this suite of rooms
whenever she has sung in Edinburgh before, and it was understood that
whenever she wrote or wired for them we were to arrange for a grand
piano, properly tuned to concert-pitch, to be put in for her. She wrote
for the suite over a fortnight ago from Russia, and, of course, we had
everything in readiness for her. She turned up, as I say, yesterday,
alone--she explained something about her maid having been obliged to
leave her on arrival in England, and since she came she's had the
services of one of our smartest chambermaids, whom she herself picked out
after carefully inspecting a whole dozen of them. That chambermaid can
tell you that Mademoiselle's scarcely left her rooms since then, and it's
an absolute mystery to me that any person could get in here, open this
box, and abstract its contents. As I say--if anybody wanted to steal her
jewels, why didn't he pick up this box and carry it bodily off instead of
hanging about to pick the lock? I don't believe--"

"Ah, quite so!" interrupted Fullaway. "I quite agree with you. Now, at
what time did Mademoiselle announce the loss of her jewels?"

"Oh, about--say, an hour ago. This chambermaid--she's there in
the bedroom now--was helping her to dress for the concert.
She--Mademoiselle--went to this box to get out what ornaments she wanted.
According to the girl, she let out an awful scream, and, just as she was,
rushed to the head of the main stairs--these rooms, as you see, are on
our first floor--and began to shout for me, for anybody, for everybody.
The hall below was just then full of people--coming in and out of the
dining-room and so on. She set the whole place going with the noise she
made," added the manager, visibly annoyed. "It would have been far better
if she'd shown some reserve--"

"Reserve is certainly an admirable quality," commented Fullaway, "but
it is foreign to young ladies of Mademoiselle's temperament.
Well--and then?"

"Oh, then, of course, I came up to her suite. She showed me this box. It
had stood, she declared, on a table b