Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/337

Rh staring down at her, she raised herself with some difficulty, looking to the Frenchman's sharpened consciousness, like some monstrous greedy beast, suddenly baulked of its prey.

"Such a misfortune!" she exclaimed in English. "Such a very great misfortune! The necklace of our friend 'as broken, and 'er beautiful pearls are rolling all over the floor! We 'ave been trying, Fritz and myself, to pick them up for 'er. Is not that so, Sylvia? Mrs. Bailey is so distressed! It 'as made 'er feel very faint, what English people call 'queer'. But I tell 'er we shall find them all—it is only a matter of a little time. I asked 'er to take some cognac my 'usband keeps for such bad moments, but no, she would not! Is not that so, Sylvia?"

She stared down anxiously at the bowed head of her guest.

Sylvia looked up. As if hypnotised by the other woman's voice, she rose to her feet—a wan, pitiful little smile came over her white face.

"Yes," she said dully, "the string of my pearls broke. I was taken faint. I felt horribly queer—perhaps it was the heat."

Paul de Virieu took a sudden step forward into the room. He had just become aware of something which had made him also feel what English people call "queer."

That something had no business in the dining-room, for it belonged to the kitchen—in fact it was a large wooden mallet of the kind used by French cooks to beat meat tender. Just now the club end of the mallet was sticking out of the drawer of the walnut-wood buffet.

The drawer had evidently been pulled out askew, and