One of the hotel servants was confident that he had seen the French maid
speak to a man in the street outside the hotel on more than one occasion,
but he was not inclined to swear to anything. However, the French maid
was finally arrested on suspicion.
I knew that Quarles had been to see the contessa once or twice by
himself, and when I went to the Brunswick Hotel on the day after
Angelique's arrest, I found him there.
"Ah, you have taken an innocent woman," the contessa exclaimed.
"I think not."
"What you think does not matter at all, it is what I know. I asked her,
and she said she had not taken the pearls. Voila! She would not tell me
anything that was not true."
"But, contessa--"
"I say there is no evidence against her. You just find two or three of
my stupid things in her room, but that is nothing. French maids always
take things like that--one expects it. But I am not angry. You think what
is quite--quite silly, but you do something which is quite right." And
then, turning to the professor, she went on, "But you--you do nothing at
all. You come to tea. You come and look at me, and think me very
beautiful, which is quite nice and very well, but it does not give me
back my pearls.
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