g with jewels like a shrine!"

Big Ernestine uttered a deep sigh of satisfaction: her only reply was to
hustle the old receiver:

"Look alive, Mother Toulouche!... You've got to give me a beggar's
outfit: it's up to you to see I'm disguised properly, and there's not a
minute to lose either!"

Mother Toulouche was an expert at disguises and make-up of every sort:
this was not to be wondered at, considering the queer company she kept,
and the fraudulent business she carried on, and the smuggling she was
mixed up in!

Big Ernestine, disguised as a poverty-stricken creature and rendered
unrecognisable, looked exactly like some unfortunate reduced to
soliciting alms. She walked into the back store, and helped Mother
Toulouche to take from a cupboard some bottles, bandages, and medicated
cotton-wool. By the light of a smoky lamp the two women scrutinised the
labels, sniffing the various phials and flasks. Big Ernestine, with the
aid of Mother Toulouche, prepared compresses of pomade and cotton-wool,
on which she sprinkled a few drops of a yellow liquid, giving out a
sickening odour. Besides this big Ernestine put inside her bodice a long
phial, after making certain that the mixture, with which it was full,
contained chloroform....

Then, under Mother Toulouche's watchful eye, Ernestine prepared what was
called in that world of light-fingered gentry "the mask": a mask of
cotton, which is moulded by force on the face of the victim in order to
plunge him, or her, into a heavy sleep. Whilst making these sinister
preparations the two women talked as they went on with their evil task.
Big Ernestine said, in reply to Mother Toulouche's questionings:

"Oh, it's simple enough! It's like this:... When the motor-car stops I
shall go to the right-hand door and begin to beg ... likely enough, the
Princess won't want to hear what I have to say, but while I attract her
attention, Mimile, who will be on the other side, will open the door,
and will stick the compress on her mug.... She won't struggle--besides,
Mimile will have hold of her--and then I'll have had time to see where
her jewels are, and how they are fastened, and then I'll soon have them
in my pocket--my deep 'un!"

Mother Toulouche nodded:

"It's arranged all right, but how will you arrest the motor?"

"Oh, that's where the others come in; they'll do it all right.... I
expect they're seeing to it now!..."

"But, look here," cried Mother Toulouche, "Mimile isn't in bi