Page:The Revolt of the Angels v2.djvu/244

 books, and china. In her mansion in the Avenue d’Jéna she possesses collections of works of art which bear witness to the diversity of her knowledge and the excellence of her taste. During the month of July, while the Comtesse de Gorce was away at her château at Sarville in Normandy, the house in the Avenue d’Jéna, being unoccupied, was visited one night by a thief said to belong to a gang known as “The Collectors,” who made works of art the special objects of their raids.

The police enquiry elicited the fact that the marauder had reached the first floor by means of the that he had then climbed over the balcony, forced a shutter with a jemmy, broken a pane of glass, turned the  and made his way into the long gallery. There he broke open several cupboards and possessed himself of whatever took his fancy. His booty consisted for the most part of small but valuable articles, such as gold caskets, a few ivory carvings of the fourteenth century, two splendid manuscripts, and a volume which the Countess’s secretary briefly described as “a  book with a coat of arms on it,” and which was none other than the Lucretius from the d’Esparvieu library.

The malefactor, who was supposed to be an English cook, was never discovered. But, two months or so after the theft, a cleanshaven young man passed down the rue de Cour-