"Naughty Nella!" said the contessa. "Oh, no," said Quarles. "Natural Nella. May I wash my hands?" Well, we had tea with the contessa, and I saw the smile which rewarded Christopher Quarles. I suppose he had earned it. "When did you first think of the child?" I asked him afterwards. "From the first," he answered; "but I was too interested in the mother to work out the theory." How exactly in accordance with the truth this answer was I will not venture to say. That he was interested in the woman was obvious, and continued to be obvious while she remained in London. Zena and I were rather relieved when her professional engagements took her to Berlin. CHAPTER IX THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MADAME VATROTSKI I firmly believe the contessa had succeeded in fluttering the professor's heart, and I think it was fortunate that he was soon engaged upon another case. The fact that it was also connected with theatrical people may have made him go into it with more zest. The contessa had given him a taste for the theater. The three of us were in the empty room, and after a lot of talk which had led nowhere, had been silent for some time. "I never believe in any one's death until I have seen the body, or until some one I can thoroughly trust has seen it," said Quarles, suddenly breaking the silence. "You have said something like that before," I answered. "It still remains true, Wigan." "Then you think she is alive?" Is it the advertisement theory you cling to, or do you suppose she is a Nihilist?" "I suppose nothing, and I never cling; all I know is that I have no proof of death," said the professor, and he launched into a discourse concerning the difficulties of concealing a body, chiefly, I thought, to hide the fact that he had no ideas at all about the strange case of Madame Vatrotski. The rage for the tango, the sensational revue, for the Russian ballet, was at its height when Madame Vatrotski's name first appeared on the hoardings in foot-long letters. The management of the Olympic billed her extensively as a very paragon of marvels, but most of the critics refused to endorse this opinion. Perhaps they were anxious to do a good turn to the home artistes who had been rather thrust aside by the foreign invasion of the boards of the variety theaters; at any rate, they declared her dancing was a mere pose, not always in the best of taste, and that her beauty was nothing to rave about. I had not seen this much-advertised dancer, but the Olympic management could have had no reason to regret the expense they had gone to. Whether her dancing was good or bad, whether her beauty was real or imaginary, the great theater was full to overflowing night after night; her picture, in various postures, was in all the illustrated papers, and paragraphs concerning her were plentiful. From beginning to end actual facts about her were difficult to get; but allowing for all journalistic exaggeration, the following statement is near the truth.