The Rajah was pacing up and down the dining-room talking to himself. A moment later there was a rattle of a latchkey and two people came in. The first was a young man with the unmistakable stamp of the actor on him, smart, well groomed, clean shaven, the society actor of to-day. He was followed by an exceedingly pretty, fair-haired woman, who might have belonged to the same profession. Just for the moment it occurred to Field that these were ordinary guests who knew nothing of the mystery of the house. There was nothing about either of them to connect them with crime or mystery. They pitched their wraps carelessly on the hall table as if they had been there before, and made their way to the dining-room. The Rajah's face grew eager. "Well, my children," he said in excellent English, "have you had any luck? Cora, dear, tell me that you have succeeded in our little counterplot." The woman's pretty face grew hard. She pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. "Give me some of that _pate_ and open a bottle of champagne," she said. "What with this doubling about and covering up one's tracks, I've had no time to think of food. The same remark applies to poor Reggie here. Haven't we succeeded well enough for you?" "Well, yes, you managed the big thing all right, but that's not everything. You managed the big thing so well that the police are utterly baffled and don't know which way to look. But the stones, _carissima_, the sparkling stones. What of them?" The woman gave a shrug of her ivory shoulders. She could be plainly seen by the watchers lost in the darkness of the drawing-room. "The deplorable luck was against us," she said. "I actually had my hands upon the stones and nearly snatched them away under the very eyes of the adorable Richford. I said to myself we are not going to do his work for nothing. He followed me to the room where the stones were and we talked. You see I had business in the room as you know. And Reggie here was downstairs, making himself agreeable to the fair owner of the stones, so that I had a free hand in the matter. If Reggie had not been so indiscreet as to leave the poor child----" "But what could I do?" the man called Reggie protested. "Never was so cruel a piece of bad luck in the history of war. Who should come down but Langford?" "But you were so carefully disguised that Langford could not possibly have known you," the woman said. "I admit it. I positively had forgotten the fact for the moment. The sight of Langford was such a shock to me. On the spur of the moment I made my excuses and departed."