you can, sir. I ask it as a favor. Pardon the request
from a perfect stranger."

I nodded acquiescence, and, waving a farewell to the poor girl, sank
back into my seat. "This is a nice commission!" I thought.

Mr. Watts was no longer in his corner. Also my jewel-case was gone.

"A deliberate plant!" I exclaimed; and I could not help admiring the
cleverness with which it had been carried out.

I rushed into the corridor, and looked through every compartment; but
Mr. Watts, whom I was to keep from drunkenness, had utterly departed.
Then I made for the handle of the communication cord. It had been
neatly cut off. The train was now travelling at a good speed, and the
first stop would be Amiens. I was too ashamed of my simplicity to give
the news of my loss to the other passengers in the carriage.

"Very smart indeed!" I murmured, sitting down, and I smiled--for,
after all, I could afford to smile.

CHAPTER XI

A CHAT WITH ROSA

"And when I sat down it was gone, and the precious Mr. Watts had also
vanished."

"Oh!" exclaimed Rosa. That was all she said. It is impossible to deny
that she was startled, that she was aghast. I, however, maintained a
splendid equanimity.

We were sitting in the salon of her flat at the Place de la Concorde
end of the Rue de Rivoli. We had finished lunch, and she had offered
me a cigarette. I had had a bath, and changed my attire, and eaten a
meal cooked by a Frenchman, and I felt renewed. I had sunned myself in
the society of Rosetta Rosa for an hour, and I felt soothed. I forgot
all the discomforts and misgivings of the voyage. It was nothing to
me, as I looked at this beautiful girl, that within the last
twenty-four hours I had twice been in danger of losing my life. What
to me was the mysterious man with the haunting face of implacable
hate? What to me were the words of the woman who had stopped me on the
pier at Dover? Nothing! A thousand times less than nothing! I loved,
and I was in the sympathetic presence of her whom I loved.

I had waited till lunch was over to tell Rosa of the sad climax of my
adventures.

"Yes," I repeated, "I was never more completely done in my life. The
woman conspirator took me in absolutely."

"What did you do then?"

"Well, I wired to Calais immediately we got to Amiens, and told the
police, and did all the things one usually does do when one has been
robbed. Also, since arriving in Paris, I have been to the police
here."

"Do they h