this a time for idiocy?” cried Germaine, in a tone of acute exasperation.
“It was the dim light which made your father see him in those colours. In a bright light, I think he would have been an Alsatian blue,” said the Duke suavely.
“You’ll have to break yourself of this silly habit of trifling, my dear Duke, if ever you expect to be a member of the Academie Francaise,” said the millionaire with some acrimony. “I tell you I did see a burglar.”
“Yes, yes. I admitted it frankly. It was his colour I was talking about,” said the Duke, with an ironical smile.
“Oh, stop your idiotic jokes! We’re all sick to death of them!” said Germaine, with something of the fine fury which so often distinguished her father.
“There are times for all things,” said the millionaire solemnly. “And I must say that, with the fate of my collection and of the coronet trembling in the balance, this does not seem to me a season for idle jests.”
“I stand reproved,” said the Duke; and he smiled at Sonia.
“My keys, Sonia—the keys of the Paris house,” said the millionaire.
Sonia took her own keys from her pocket and went to the bureau. She slipped a key into the lock and tried to turn it. It would not turn; and she bent down to look at it.
“Why—why, some one’s been tampering with the lock! It’s broken!” she cried.
“I told you I’d seen a burglar!” cried the millionaire triumphantly. “He was after the keys.”
Sonia drew back the flap of the bureau and hastily pulled open the drawer in which the keys had been.
“They’re here!” she cried, taking them out of the drawer and holding them up.
“Then I was just in time,” said the millionaire. “I startled him in the very act of stealing the keys.”
“I withdraw! I withdraw!” said the Duke. “You did see a burglar, evidently. But still I believe he was greenish-pink. They often are. However, you’d better give me those keys, Mademoiselle Sonia, since I’m to get to Paris first. I should look rather silly if, when I got there, I had to break into the house to catch the burglars.”
Sonia handed the keys to the Duke. He contrived to take her little hand, keys and all, into his own, as he received them, and squeezed it. The light was too dim for the others to see the flush which flamed in her face. She went back and stood beside the bureau.
“Now, papa, are you going to motor to Paris in a thin coat and linen waistcoat? If we’re going, we’d better go. You always do keep us waiting half an hour whenever we start to go anywhere,” said Germaine firmly.
The millionaire bustled out of the room. With a gesture of impatience Germaine dropped into a chair. Irma stood waiting by the drawing-room door. Sonia sat down by the bureau.
There came a sharp patter of rain against the windows.
“Rain! It only wanted that! It’s going to be perfectly beastly!” cried Germaine.
“Oh, well, you must make the best of it. At any rate you’re well wrapped up, and the night is warm enough, though it is raining,” said the Duke. “Still, I could have wished that Lupin confined his operations to fine weather.” He paused, and added cheerfully, “But, after all, it will lay the dust.”
They sat for three or four minutes in a dull silence, listening to the pattering of the rain against the panes. The Duke took his cigarette-case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette.
Suddenly he lost his bored air; his face lighted up; and he said joyfully: “Of course, why didn’t I think of it? Why should we start from a pit of gloom like this? Let us have the proper illumination which our enterprise deserves.”
With that he set about lighting all the lamps in the hall. There were lamps on stands, lamps on brackets, lamps on tables, and lamps which hung from the roof—old-fashioned lamps with new reservoirs, new lamps of what is called chaste design, brass lamps, silver lamps, and lamps in porcelain. The Duke lighted them one after another, patiently, missing none, with a cold perseverance. The operation was punctuated by exclamations from Germaine. They were all to the effect that she could not understand how he could be such a fool. The Duke paid no attention whatever to her. His face illumined with boyish glee, he lighted lamp after lamp.
Sonia watched him with a smiling admiration of the childlike enthusiasm with which he performed the task. Even the stolid face of the ox-eyed Irma relaxed into grins, which she smoothed quickly out with a respectful hand.
The Duke had just lighted the twenty-second lamp when in bustled the millionaire.
“What’s this? What’s this?” he cried, stopping short, blinking.
“Just some more of Jacques’ foolery!” cried Germaine in tones of the last exasperation.
“But, my dear Duke!—my dear Duke! The oil!—the oil!” cried the millionaire, in a tone of bitter distress. “Do you think it’s my object in life to swell the Rockefeller millions? We never have more than six lamps burning unless we are holding a reception.”
“I think it looks so cheerful,” said the Duke, looking round on his handiwork with a beaming smile of satisfaction. “But where are the cars? Jean seems a deuce of a time bringing them round. Does he expect us to go to the garage through this rain? We’d better hurry him up. Come on; you’ve got a good carrying voice.”
He caught the millionaire by the arm, hurried him through the outer hall, opened the big door of the chateau, and said: “Now shout!”
The millionaire looked at him, shrugged his shoulders, and said: “You don’t beat about the bush when you want anything.”
“Why should I?” said the Duke simply. “Shout, my good chap—shout!”
The millionaire raised his voice in a terrific bellow of “Jean! Jean! Firmin! Firmin!”
There was no answer.
CHAPTER VII
THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS
The night was very black; the rain pattered in their faces.
Again the millionaire bellowed: “Jean! Firmin! Firmin! Jean!”
No answer came out of the darkness, though his bellow echoed and re-echoed among the out-buildings and stables away on the left.
He turned and looked at the Duke and said uneasily, “What on earth can they be doing?”
“I can’t conceive,” said the Duke. “I suppose we must go and hunt them out.”
“What! in this darkness, with these burglars about?” said the millionaire, starting back.
“If we don’t, nobody else will,” said the Duke. “And all the time that rascal Lupin is stealing nearer and nearer your pictures. So buck up, and come along!”
He seized the reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the steps. They took their way to the stables.
