The contessa fetched them, and for some minutes Quarles examined them closely. I did not think he had started a theory. I thought the contessa's words had merely stung him into doing something. He had probably come to the conclusion that he had been making rather a fool of himself. However, he was theoretical enough that night in the empty room at Chelsea. "I think the arrest was a mistake, Wigan," he began. "Surely you are not influenced by the contessa's opinion?" "Well, she probably knows more about French maids than you do. I am inclined to trust a woman's intuition sometimes. The contessa is delightfully vague. It is part of her great charm, and it is in everything she does and says. She tells you something, but her real meaning you can only guess at. She dances, but the steps she ought to do and doesn't are the ones which really contain the meaning." "Can she possibly be more vague, dear, than you are at the present moment?" laughed Zena. "I think this is a case in which one must try to get into the contessa's atmosphere before any result is possible. You will agree, Wigan, that her point of view is peculiar." "I should call it idiotic," I answered. "Your opinion is all cut and dried, I presume?" "Absolutely," I answered. "I believe the maid took the jewels and handed them to her confederates who were waiting in the corridor." "It is possible," said Quarles, "but it seems curious that the contessa should return just in time to see, not only the men in the corridor, but also the maid leaving her room. Have you considered why only the earrings were stolen?" "There was nothing else to steal," I answered. "Why, everybody has talked of her jewels!" Zena exclaimed. "All sham." "Who told you so?" asked Quarles. "The maid." "She didn't suggest the pearls were sham?" "No." "That was thoughtless of her, since suspicion rests upon her. I am not much surprised to hear that the much-talked-of jewelry is sham. There is a vein of wisdom in the contessa, and we shall probably find she has put her jewelry into safe keeping, and wears paste because it has just as good an effect across the footlights. I should judge her wise enough not to take risks, and to have an eye for the future. It was only her superstition, and the fact that she wore the earrings fairly constantly, which prevented her depositing them in a safe place too. Zena asked me yesterday whether I should consider her a careless person. What do you think, Wigan?" "It occurred to me that she might have put the case away when it was empty and carelessly put the pearls somewhere else," said Zena. "Such, a vague kind of person is capable of anything," I returned. "But there is no doubt that a search in her room was made, and it is significant that things were not tossed about anyhow, as one would expect had a stranger made that search."