“Not at all. I have not even opened that door.”

He appeared at the door, disconcerted, and stammered, in a scarcely intelligible voice:

“You haven’t.⁠ ⁠… It wasn’t you?⁠ ⁠… Then.⁠ ⁠…”

She hastened to his assistance, and, together, they made a thorough search, throwing the boxes to the floor and overturning the piles of linen. Then the count said, quite discouraged:

“It is useless to look any more. I put it here, on this shelf.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“No, no, it was on this shelf⁠—nowhere else.”