The indiscretions of a lady's maid: Being some strange stories related by Mademoiselle Mariette Le Bas, femme-de-chambre

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"The indiscretions of a lady's maid" by William Le Queux is a collection of mystery stories written in the early 20th century. Told through the confessions of Mariette Le Bas, a savvy French lady’s maid, it peers behind elegant doors to reveal flirtations, swindles, thefts, and scandals in high society. Expect brisk, sensational episodes where a servant’s calm eye unmasks the secrets of the fashionable set.

At the start of this collection, Mariette recounts a run of employers whose glossy lives hide sharp intrigues. With the Englehearts in Bayswater and at Monte Carlo, a flirtation with a supposed American millionaire and a butler’s collusion turn into a failed blackmail scheme that backfires, scattering the household and her job. In Bournemouth, the impeccable Lady Allardyce’s hidden drawer of jewels and tools foreshadows the arrest of her “friend” as a master jewel thief—later revealed to be her son. In Grosvenor Street, a newspaper proprietor’s wife entangles herself with a financier; after Mariette tails a visitor, the man is found shot, and a desperate confession shows the killing sprang from a struggle to retrieve explosive political papers—leaving Mariette to supply an alibi and then be quietly paid off. The next episode opens at the Savoy with the cosmopolitan Ashley-Bonds and their enigmatic friends, hinting at fresh intrigue to come.