"Madame has now been at Lacville three weeks?"--and he quickly made a note of the fact on a little tablet he held in his hand. "And her friend, a Polish lady named Wolsky, has left Lacville rather suddenly? Madame has, however, received a letter from her friend explaining that she had to leave unexpectedly?" "No," said Sylvia, quickly, "the letter was not sent to me; it was left by my friend in her bed-room at the Pension Malfait. You see, the strange thing, Monsieur, is that Madame Wolsky left all her luggage. She took absolutely nothing with her, excepting, of course, her money. And as yet nothing has come from her, although she promised to telegraph where her luggage was to be sent on to her! I come to you because I am afraid that she had met with some accident in the Paris streets, and I thought you would be able to telephone for us to the Paris Police." She looked very piteously at the French official, and his face softened, a kindly look came over it. "Well, Madame," he said, "I will certainly do everything I can. But I must ask you to provide me first with a few more particulars about your friend." "I will tell you everything I know. But I really do not know very much." "Her age?" said the Commissioner. "I do not know her age, but I suppose she is about thirty." "The place of her birth?" Sylvia shook her head. "What is her permanent address? Surely you know with whom you could communicate the news of an accident having happened to her?" "I am afraid I don't even know that." Sylvia began to feel rather foolish. But--but was it so strange after all? Who among the people she was now living with knew anything of her far-away English home? If anything happened to herself, for instance? Even Count Paul would not know to whom to write. It was an odd, rather an uncomfortable thought. The Commissioner went to a drawer and pulled out from it a portfolio filled with loose pieces of paper. "Malfait? Malfait? Malfait?" he muttered interrogatively to himself. And at last he found what he was looking for. It was a large sheet, on which was inscribed in large round letters "Pension Malfait." There were many close lines of writing under the words. He looked down and read through all that was there. "The Pension Malfait has a good reputation!" he exclaimed, in a relieved tone. "I gather from what you say, Monsieur,"--he gave a quick shrewd look at the Count--"that Madame and her friend did not play in a serious sense at the Casino--I mean, there was no large sum of money in question?" Count Paul hesitated--but Sylvia thought that surely it were better to tell the truth. "Yes," she said, "my friend did play, and she played rather high. She must have had a large sum of money in her possession when she left Lacville, unless she lost it all on the last day. But I was in Paris, and so I don't know what she did." The Commissioner looked grave.