dismissed the girl. "I shall need you _a la grande vitesse_."

Madame slipped the seductive paper and something else under her
pillow, saw that the electric and the light switch were close to her
hand upon the bedside table, and snuggled down contentedly. "The trap
is set and baited," she murmured; "I hope that the bird will not keep
me waiting."

An hour passed slowly. Rust has told me little of his feelings, but
admitted that he was in the "devil of a funk." He had determined to
make a daring shot at the paper and the solution of Madame's identity,
but he shivered at the prospect of her wrath should she awake and
catch him in the act. "She would have thought the worst of me, and,
like you, Copplestone, I cherish her beautiful friendship as the most
precious of privileges. On my honour I was only after the paper."
Madame found the waiting time very tedious, but I am sure that her
pulse did not quicken by a beat. She has a wonderful nerve.

At one o'clock, when the hotel was very quiet, and the boot-cleaner
had made his round of collection, Madame heard the handle of her door
move and the door itself push slowly open. Through her partly closed
eyes she saw the momentary flash of an electric torch with which Rust
took his bearings, and then she felt, rather than saw or heard, a
figure draw gently towards her bed. Her right hand was under the
pillow grasping that something, not the paper, which she had laid
there in readiness. Rust approached, bent over her, and his fingers
felt for the pillow. They touched her hair, and she knew that the
moment for action had come. Out stretched her arm, holding the pistol
well clear of his body, for she was loath to hurt him, and a sharp
report within a couple of feet of his side frightened Rust more
thoroughly than had the hottest of "crumps" in Flanders. He sprang
away, and darted for the door; but in an instant the lights went up,
and a loud, commanding voice--utterly unlike Madame's soft musical
social tones--called to him to halt. "Halt!" cried Madame in English.
"Right about turn! 'Shun!" The familiar words of command brought him
round in prompt obedience, and there before him he saw Madame Gilbert
sitting up in her bed, pointing a most business-like automatic pistol
straight for his heart. Her hand held it true, without a quiver, and
along the sights glittered an eye remorseless as blue steel. This was
a woman wholly different from that kindly yielding creature whom he
had em