Stella! Stella! Do you want to drive me insane?’ Chrissie cried, the expression on her face so wild that Stella stared at her all alarmed. ‘Don’t you understand? If you ask the Rajah for something really valuable and he gives it to you, we’re safe. Francois says those pearls are worth a king’s ransom.’

‘François knows everything!’

‘Ask the Rajah to give the pearls to you as a present. It doesn’t matter, you poor numbskull, if you like pearls or you don’t like them. You won’t wear them, not after we leave here at any rate, but when they’re sold we will be rich, both of us forever.’

‘But supposing he says no?’ Stella suggested.

Is he likely to?’ Chrissie asked scornfully. ‘He’s in love with you and he’ll want to show off. Put him on his mettle, bet him that he won’t have enough money to buy them and if he has, that he won’t be able to get them. That’s the way to make him interested. Once you have got them, it won’t matter to you how quickly he finds someone else.’

Stella gave a little sigh.

‘I see what you mean, Chrissie,’ she said, ‘but it’s awfully difficult – I mean, asking for something as expensive as that. You couldn’t do it for me, could you? Tell him it’s for my birthday or something?’

‘And I suppose, looking into my lovely blue eyes, that he would promise me them at once!’ Chrissie retorted sarcastically. ‘Don’t be a half wit, Stella, you know you’ve got to choose the right moment for a thing like that. Use your brains for once, though Heaven knows you haven’t any, and pick the right moment. It means everything to us. Promise me you will do your best.’

‘I’ll try, Chrissie,’ Stella said meekly. ‘What else did Françoise say about that girl?’

‘He said everyone was talking about her and trying to find out who she was. But the other woman who calls herself her aunt was too clever, and so far they have no idea who they are or where they have come from. Even Alfonse of the Hôtel de Paris knows nothing – and that, François says, has never happened before.’

She looks nice,’ Stella said.

Chrissie glanced at her quickly.

‘Now don’t you start thinking she’s too nice for you to want anything that she has,’ she said. ‘I know the way your mind works. Before we know where we are, we will all feel sorry for her and say that she must keep her pearl necklace because it is the only one she has.’

Stella laughed.

‘You’ve got a poor opinion of me, Chrissie.’

‘That’s about the only sensible thing you have said for some time,’ Chrissie replied, and marching out of the room, she slammed the door behind her.