Everybody turned out to be one more guest than Tracy had anticipated. She had invited the Baroness Howarth, an attractive young heiress, and when Tracy saw the baroness arrive, she walked over to greet her. The greeting died on Tracy's lips. With the baroness was Jeff Stevens.
"Tracy, darling, I don't believe you know Mr. Stevens. Jeff, this is Mrs. Tracy Whitney, your hostess."
Tracy said stiffly, "How do you do, Mr. Stevens?"
Jeff took Tracy's hand, holding it a fraction longer than necessary. "Mrs. Tracy Whitney?" he said. "Of course! I was a friend of your husband's. We were together in India."
"Isn't that exciting!" Baroness Howarth exclaimed.
"Strange, he never mentioned you," Tracy said coolly.
"Didn't he, really? I'm surprised. Interesting old fella. Pity he had to go the way he did."
"Oh, what happened?" Baroness Howarth asked.
Tracy glared at Jeff. "It was nothing, really."
"Nothing!" Jeff said reproachfully. "If I remember correctly, he was hanged in India."
"Pakistan," Tracy said tightly. "And I believe I do remember my husband mentioning you. How is your wife?"
Baroness Howarth looked at Jeff. "You never mentioned that you were married, Jeff."
"Cecily and I are divorced."
Tracy smiled sweetly. "I meant Rose."
"Oh, that wife."
Baroness Howarth was astonished. "You've been married twice?"
"Once," he said easily. "Rose and I got an annulment. We were very young." He started to move away.
Tracy asked, "But weren't there twins?"
Baroness Howarth exclaimed, "Twins?"
"They live with their mother," Jeff told her. He looked at Tracy: "I can't tell you how pleasant it's been talking to you, Mrs. Whitney, but we mustn't monopolize you." And he took the baroness's hand and walked away.
The following morning Tracy ran into Jeff in an elevator at Harrods. The store was crowded with shoppers. Tracy got off at the second floor. As she left the elevator, she turned to Jeff and said in a loud, clear voice, "By the way, how did you ever come out on that morals charge?" The door closed, and Jeff was trapped in an elevator filled with indignant strangers.
Tracy lay in bed that night thinking about Jeff, and she had to laugh. He really was a charmer. A scoundrel, but an engaging one. She wondered what his relationship with Baroness Howarth was: She knew very well what his relationship with Baroness Howarth was. Jeff and I are two of a kind, Tracy thought. Neither of them would ever settle down. The life they led was too exciting and stimulating and rewarding.
She turned her thoughts toward her next job. It was going to take place in the South of France, and it would be a challenge. Gunther had told her that the police were looking for a gang. She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
In his hotel room in Paris, Daniel Cooper was reading the reports Inspector Trignant had given him. It was 4:00 A.M., and Cooper had been poring over the papers for hours, analyzing the imaginative mix of robberies and swindles. Some of the scams Cooper was familiar with, but others were new to him. As Inspector Trignant had mentioned, all the victims had unsavory reputations. This gang apparently thinks they're Robin Hoods, Cooper reflected.
He had nearly finished. There were only three reports left. The one on top was headed BRUSSELS. Cooper opened the cover and glanced at the report. Two million dollars' worth of jewelry had been stolen from the wall safe of a Mr. Van Ruysen, a Belgian stockbroker, who had been involved in some questionable financial dealings.
The owners were away on vacation, and the house was empty, and - Cooper caught something on the page that made his heart quicken. He went back to the first sentence and began rereading the report, focusing on every word. This one varied from the others in one significant respect: The burglar had set off an alarm, and when the police arrived, they were greeted at the door by a woman wearing a filmy negligee. Her hair was tucked into a curler cap, and her face was thickly covered with cold cream. She claimed to be a houseguest of the Van Ruysens'. The police accepted her story, and by the time they were able to check it out with the absent owners, the woman and the jewelry had vanished.
Cooper laid down the report. Logic, logic.
Inspector Trignant was losing his patience. "You're wrong. I tell you it is impossible for one woman to be responsible for all these crimes."
"There's a way to check it out," Daniel Cooper said.
"How?"
"I'd like to see a computer run on the dates and locations of the last few burglaries and swindles that fit into this category."
"That's simple enough, but - "
"Next, I would like to get an immigration report on every female American tourist who was in those same cities at the times the crimes were committed. It's possible that she uses false passports some of the time, but the probabilities are that she also uses her real identity."
Inspector Trignant was thoughtful. "I see your line of reasoning, monsieur." He studied the little man before him and found himself half hoping that Cooper was mistaken. He was much too sure of himself. "Very well. I will set the wheels in motion."
The first burglary in the series had been committed in Stockholm. The report from Interpol Sektionen Rikspolis Styrelsen, the Interpol branch in Sweden, listed the American tourists in Stockholm that week, and the names of the women were fed into a computer. The next city checked was Milan. When the names of American women tourists in Milan at the time of the burglary was cross-checked with the names of women who had been in Stockholm during that burglary, there were fifty-five names on the list. That list was checked against the names of female Americans who had been in Ireland during a swindle, and the list was reduced to fifteen. Inspector Trignant handed the printout to Daniel Cooper.