heir booty was I knew not.

Next instant, however, all three were in, the door was closed, and I
drew off into the dark open road straight before me--out into the
driving rain.

The Count, who was at my side, seemed panting and agitated.

"We've brought it off all right, Ewart," he whispered, bending to me a
few minutes later. "In behind, there's over twenty thousand pounds'
worth of jewellery for us to divide later on. We must get into Valence
for breakfast, and thence Henderson will take the stuff away by train
into Holland."

"But how--what have you done?" I asked, puzzled.

"I'll explain in the morning, when we've got rid of it all."

He did explain. Blythe and Henderson both left us at Valence with the
booty, while Bindo and myself, in the morning sunshine, went forward at
an easy pace along the Lyons road.

"The affair wanted just a little bit of delicate manoeuvring," he
explained. "It was an affair of the heart, you see. We knew that the
pretty little Gabrielle had married old Lemaire, the well-known jeweller
in the Cannebiere, in Marseilles, and that she had gone to spend her
honeymoon at Nice. Unknown to either, I took a room next theirs at the
hotel, and, thanks to the communicating doors they have in foreign
hotels, overheard her husband explain that he must go to Genoa on
pressing business. He also left her his safe-keys--the duplicates of
those held by his manager in Marseilles--with injunctions to keep them
locked in her trunk. I allowed him to be absent a couple of days, then,
quite unexpectedly, I met her on the Promenade, pretending, of course,
that I was entirely unaware of her marriage with old Lemaire. In case of
accident, however, it was necessary that the little woman should be
compromised with somebody, and as you were so discreet, I sent you both
yesterday morning to idle along the whole length of the Promenade. In
the meantime, I nipped back to the hotel, entered Gabrielle's room,
obtained the two safe-keys, and took impressions of them in wax. These I
put into a tin matchbox and sent them by you to Blythe at the station.
Blythe, with his usual foresight, had already engaged a locksmith in
Cannes, telling him a little fairy-story of how he had lost his
safe-keys, and how his manager in London, who had duplicates, had sent
him out impressions. The keys were made to time; Blythe took a cab from
the hotel, and got them, rejoined us at Cannes station, and then we went
on to Marseilles. Ther