The Complete Gay Triangle Series. William Le Queux

and cognac for two,” Yvette ordered.

      A few minutes later the girl reappeared. She crossed the room with a tray and set it on the table in front of Yvette.

      As the maid turned Dick’s arm was slipped round her, and a chloroformed pad was pressed swiftly over her face. Taken utterly by surprise, the girl was too firmly held to do more than struggle convulsively, and in a few moments, as the drug took effect, she lay a limp heap in Dick’s arms.

      Snatching from a valise a chambermaid’s costume and cap, Yvette swiftly transformed herself into a replica of the unconscious girl. Then picking up the tray and its contents she silently left the room, having poured a few drops of colourless liquid into each of the glasses of brandy.

      Kranzler was evidently in a bad temper.

      “I tell you,” he said to his companion, “there must be a way out. That infernal — ”

      There was a knock at the door, and a chambermaid entered with coffee and liqueurs. It was Yvette!

      “Would the messieurs require anything further?” she asked as she set down the tray.

      “No, that’s all for to-night,” said Kranzler in a surly tone, as he picked up the brandy and drained it with obvious relish. His companion followed suit.

      Dick was sitting beside the unconscious girl as Yvette re-entered the room.

      “She’s quite all right,” he said, as he watched her narrowly for signs of returning consciousness, “but I must give her a little more just as we are leaving. How did you get on?”

      “Splendidly,” said Yvette; “they noticed nothing, and I saw them both drink the brandy as I left the room.”

      Ten minutes later Yvette re-entered Kranzler’s room. The two men had collapsed into chairs. Both were sleeping heavily.

      Without losing a second Yvette tore open Kranzler’s waistcoat and passed her hand rapidly over his body. A moment later she had slit open the unconscious man’s shirt, and from a belt of webbing which ran round his shoulders cut away a flat leather pouch.

      From her pocket she took a reel of strong black thread. To one end of this she fastened the pouch, and, crouching by the open window, pushed the pouch over the sill and swiftly lowered it into the darkness.

      A moment later came a sort of tug at the line, the thread snapped, and Yvette let the end fall. Then, with a glance at her drugged victims, she snatched up the tray and returned with it to her own room.

      Lying on the sofa, the chambermaid stirred uneasily. She was evidently recovering. While Yvette swiftly discarded her disguise Dick again pressed the chloroform to the girl’s face.

      A few moments later “Mr and Mrs Wilson, of London,” were being escorted by the hotel porter to a waiting taxi-cab.

      They never returned.

      In the semi-darkness of the courtyard the drunken coachman had stiffened and leant back against the wall as a small, dark object lightly touched his shoulder. His arm, twisted behind him, felt for and found a slender thread. Held against the wall behind him was the flat leather pouch which Yvette had lowered. A moment later it was transferred to a capacious pocket, and the coachman, staggering uncertainly to his horse, mounted the carriage and drove noisily out of the yard. No one paid the slightest attention to him; no one realised that that uncouth exterior concealed the slim form of Jules Pasquet, his nerves quivering with excitement at the success of the Gay Triangle’s first daring coup.

      An hour later the Paris police took charge of an old horse found aimlessly dragging an empty carriage along one of the boulevards. About the same time, from a forest clearing fifteen miles away from Paris, a tiny monoplane rose silently into the air and sped away in the direction of the French coast.

      Kranzler left Paris the following day and returned to Germany. He was strictly searched at the frontier, of course without result, and the puzzled French police never solved the problem of how, as they thought, he had beaten them. He had not dared to complain. “Mr and Mrs Wilson” were never even suspected, for by a strange coincidence some articles of jewellery were stolen from another room that same night, and when the drugged chambermaid told her story it was assumed that the Wilsons were hotel thieves of the ordinary type.

      A month later the Petit Parisien announced in black type with a flaring headline:

      “An anonymous gift of one million francs has been received by the French Government, to be devoted to the relief of the devastated regions of France.”