"I'm awfully remiss, I didn't give
you the parcel I brought back from the hospital."

"From the hospital?" said Jean. "What parcel was that?"

"Something you had sent to be sterilized. I'll get it."

She came back in a minute or two with the parcel which she had found in
the car.

"Oh yes," said Jean carelessly, "I remember. It is a rug that I lent to
the gardener's wife when her little boy was taken ill."

She handed the packet to the maid.

"Take it to my room," she said.

She waited just long enough to find an excuse for leaving the party,
and went upstairs. The parcel was on her bed. She tore off the
wrapping--inside, starched white and clean, was the dust coat she had
worn the night she had carried Xavier from the cottage to Lydia's bed.
The rubber cap was there, discoloured from the effects of the
disinfectant, and the gloves and the silk handkerchief, neatly washed
and pressed. She looked at them thoughtfully.

She put the articles away in a drawer, went down the servants' stairs
and through a heavy open door into the cellar. Light was admitted by two
barred windows, through one of which she had thrust her bundle that
night, and she could see every corner of the cellar, which was empty--as
she had expected. The clothing she had thrown down had been gathered by
some mysterious agent, who had forwarded it to the hospital in her name.

She came slowly up the stairs, fastened the open door behind her, and
walked out into the garden to think.

"Jaggs!" she said aloud, and her voice was as soft as silk. "I think,
Mr. Jaggs, you ought to be in heaven."

Chapter XXVII

"Who were the haughty individuals interviewing Jean in the saloon?"
asked Jack Glover, as Lydia's car panted and groaned on the stiff ascent
to La Turbie.

Lydia was concerned, and he had already noted her seriousness.

"Poor Jean is rather worried," she said. "It appears that she had a love
affair with a man three or four years ago, and recently he has been
bombarding her with threatening letters."

"Poor soul," said Jack dryly, "but I should imagine she could have dealt
with that matter without calling in the police. I suppose they were
detectives. Has she had a letter recently?"

"She had one this morning--posted in Monte Carlo last night."

"By the way, Jean went into Monte Carlo last night, didn't she?" asked
Jack.

She looked at him reproachfully.

"We all went into Monte Carlo," she said severely. "Now, please don't b