He took a card out of his pocket and drew near the little escritoire. "Allow me, Princess, to slip my card into this drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while the Princess uttered an exclamation she could not repress, he suited the action to the word. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to retreat before him right to the door of the anteroom opening on to the corridor, "you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your visitor to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep imperious voice that made the Princess quake he ordered her: "And now, not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill you!"
Clenching her fists, and summoning all her strength to prevent herself from swooning, Sonia Danidoff led the man to the anteroom door. Slowly she unlocked the door and held it open, and the man stepped quietly through. The next second he was gone!
Leaping back into her bedroom Sonia Danidoff set every bell a-ringing; with great presence of mind she telephoned down to the hall porter: "Don't let anybody go out! I have been robbed!" and she pressed hard upon the special button that set the great alarm bell clanging. Footsteps and voices resounded in the corridor: the Princess knew that help was coming and ran to open her door. The night watchman, and the manager of the third floor came running up and waiters appeared in numbers at the end of the corridor.
"Stop him! Stop him!" the Princess shouted. "He has only just gone out: a man in a dinner jacket, with a great black beard!"
A lad came hurrying out of the lift.
"Where are you going? What is the matter?" enquired the hall porter, whose lodge was at the far end of the hall, next to the courtyard of the hotel, the door into which he had just closed.
"I don't know," he answered. "There is a thief in the hotel! They are calling from the other side."
"It's not in your set, then? By the way, what floor are you on?"
"The second."
"All right," said the hall porter, "it's the third floor that they are calling from. Go up and see what is wrong."
The lad turned on his heel, and disregarding the notice forbidding servants to use the passenger lift, hurried back into it and upstairs again. He was a stoutly built fellow, with a smooth face and red hair. On the third floor he stopped, immediately opposite Sonia Danidoff's suite. The Princess was standing at her door, taking no notice of the watchman Muller's efforts to soothe her excitement, and mechanically twisting between her fingers the blank visiting card which her strange visitor had left in place of her pocket-book and the hundred and twenty thousand francs. There was no name whatever on the card.
"Well," said Muller, to the red-headed lad, "where do you come from?"
"I'm the new man on the second floor," the fellow answered. "The hall porter sent me up to find out what was the matter."
"Matter!" said Muller. "Somebody has robbed the Princess. Here, send someone for the police at once."
"I'll run, sir," and as the lift, instead of being sent down, had carelessly been sent up to the top floor, the young fellow ran down the staircase at full speed.
Through the telephone, Muller was just ordering the hall porter to send for the police, when the second-floor servant rushed up and caught him by the arm, dragging him away from the instrument.
"Open the door for the Lord's sake! I'm off to the police station," and the hall porter made haste to facilitate his departure.
On the top floor cries of astonishment re-echoed. The servants had been alarmed by the uproar and, surprised to see the lift stop and nobody get out of it, they opened the door and found a heap of clothing, a false beard, and a wig. Two housemaids and a valet gazed in amazement at these extraordinary properties, and never thought of informing the manager, M. Louis. Meantime, however, that gentleman had hurried through the mazes of the hotel, and had just reached the third floor when he was stopped by the Baronne Van den Rosen, one of the hotel's oldest patronesses.
"M. Louis!" she exclaimed, bursting into sobs. "I have just been robbed of my diamond necklace. I left it in a jewel-case on my table before going down to dinner. When I heard the noise just now, I got up and looked through my jewel-case, and the necklace is not there."
M. Louis was too dazed to reply. Muller ran up to him.
"Princess Sonia Danidoff's pocket-book has been stolen," he announced; "but I have had the hotel doors shut and we shall be sure to catch the thief."
The Princess came near to explain matters, but at that moment the servants came down from upstairs, bringing with them the make-up articles which they had found in the lift. They laid these on the ground without a word and M. Louis was staring at them when Muller had a sudden inspiration.
"M. Louis, what is the new man on the second floor like?"
Just at that instant a servant appeared at the end of the corridor, a middle-aged man with white whiskers and a bald head.
"There he is, coming towards us," M. Louis replied. "His name is Arnold."
"Good God!" cried Muller; "and the red-headed fellow: the carroty chap?" M. Louis shook his head, not understanding, and Muller tore himself away and rushed down to the hall porter. "Has he gone out? Has anyone gone out?"
"No one," said the porter, "except, of course, the servant from the second floor, whom you sent for the police."
"The carroty chap?" Muller enquired.
"Yes, the carroty chap."
Princess Sonia Danidoff lay back in an easy chair, receiving the anxious attentions of Nadine, her Circassian maid. M. Louis was holding salts to her nostrils. The Princess still held in her hands the card left by the mysterious stranger who had just robbed her so cleverly of a hundred and twenty thousand francs. As she slowly came to herself the Princess gazed at the card as if fascinated, and this time her haggard eyes grew wide with astonishment. For upon the card, which hitherto had appeared immaculately white, marks and letters were gradually becoming visible, and the Princess read:
"Fan — tô — mas!"
XI
Magistrate and Detective
M. Fuselier was standing in his office in the law courts at Paris, meditatively smoothing the nap of his silk hat. His mind was busy with the enquiries he had been prosecuting during the day, and although he had no reason to be dissatisfied with his day's work he had no clear idea as to what his next steps ought to be.
Three discreet taps on the door broke in upon his thoughts.
"Come in," he said, and then stepped forward with a hearty welcome as he recognised his visitor. "Juve, by all that is wonderful! What good wind has blown you here? I haven't seen you for ages. Busy?"
"Frightfully."
"Well, it's a fact that there's no dearth of sensational crime just now. The calendar is terribly heavy."
Juve had ensconced himself in a huge easy chair in a corner of the room.
"Yes," he said, "you are quite right.
