“When last I saw you,” I said, “you were trotting home with your sister, like a good little girl. By the way, how is your sister?”
A flash of white teeth rewarded me.
“How kind of you to ask! My sister is well, I thank you.”
“She is here with you?”
“She remained in town,” said the minx with dignity.
“I don’t believe you’ve got a sister,” I laughed. “If you have, her name is Harris!”
“Do you remember mine?” she asked, with a smile.
“Cinderella. But you’re going to tell me the real one now, aren’t you?”
She shook her head with a wicked look.
“Not even why you’re here?”
“Oh, that! I suppose you’ve heard of members of my profession ‘resting.’ ”
“At expensive French watering-places?”
“Dirt cheap if you know where to go.”
I eyed her keenly.
“Still, you’d no intention of coming here when I met you two days ago?”
“We all have our disappointments,” said Miss Cinderella sententiously. “There now, I’ve told you quite as much as is good for you. Little boys should not be inquisitive. You’ve not yet told me what you’re doing here? Got the M.P. in tow, I suppose, doing the gay boy on the beach.”
I shook my head. “Guess again. You remember my telling you that my great friend was a detective?”
“Yes?”
“And perhaps you’ve heard about this crime—at the Villa Geneviève—?”
She stared at me. Her breast heaved, and her eyes grew wide and round.
“You don’t mean—that you’re in on that?”
I nodded. There was no doubt that I had scored heavily. Her emotion, as she regarded me, was only too
