"WE have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely\'s death!"

Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant, when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police already there.

"D\'you mean that you\'ve run Fernando Apra to earth?"

The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He had not associated the Commissioner of Police\'s summons with that now half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his mind, as he had vanished out of every one else\'s mind in the neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence which had first made them become friends.

But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus\'s host.

"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in connection with the affair?"

"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall not even [Pg 334] be able to connect him directly with the murder—for murder it certainly was, St. Amant."

"Murder?"

Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of Police accompanied his words.

During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed—or even put out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely\'s dead body sitting up in Fernando Apra\'s sinister-looking office.

"Yes," he went on in a low, incisive voice, "it was murder right enough! And we already hold a warrant, which will be executed the day after to-morrow, this next Friday——"

He waited a moment, then uttered very deliberately the words: "It is a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Oliver Tropenell on the charge of having murdered Mr. Godfrey Pavely on or about the 5th of last January."

"I—I don\'t understand what you mean! Surely Oliver Tropenell was not masquerading as Fernando Apra?" exclaimed Lord St. Amant. "If one can believe a mass of quite disinterested evidence, the two men were utterly unlike!"

"That is so, and there was of course a man who masqueraded, and masqueraded most successfully, [Pg 335] both in Paris and in London, as Fernando Apra. That man, St. Amant, was——"

Lord St. Amant bent forward eagerly while his mind, his still vigorous, intelligent, acute mind, darted this way and that. What name—whose name—was Sir Angus going to utter?

He was not long left in suspense.

"That man," said Sir Angus slowly, impressively, "was Mrs. Pavely\'s brother, a certain Gilbert Baynton, who is, we are informed, the business partner of Mr. Tropenell in Mexico. It was he who masqueraded as Fernando Apra. But it was not he who actually fired the pistol shot which killed Godfrey Pavely——"

When he had heard the name Gilbert Baynton, it was as if a great light had suddenly burst in on Lord St. Amant\'s brain. In spite of everything he felt a sharp thrill of relief.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "There\'s been a terrible mistake—but it\'s one that I can set right in a very few minutes. Believe me, you\'re on the wrong track altogether! If murder there was—murder, and not manslaughter, which I venture to think much more probable—then Gilbert Baynton was Godfrey Pavely\'s murderer. The two men hated one another. It all comes back to me—not only had they a quarrel years ago, but that same quarrel was renewed not long before Godfrey Pavely\'s disappearance. Nothing—nothing—would induce me to believe that Oliver Tropenell is a murderer!"

"I\'m afraid you\'ll soon be brought round to believe it," said Sir Angus ruefully. "I am of course well aware of what you say concerning Gilbert Baynton\'s relations to his brother-in-law. We\'ve already found [Pg 336] all that out, especially as we had a willing witness close to our hand. Unfortunately—I say unfortunately, St. Amant, for of course I know he is a thorough bad hat—we have irrefutable evidence that this man Baynton did not commit the murder. He was certainly in Paris at the time when Godfrey Pavely was killed in London."

Sir Angus took a turn up and down the room—then he came back to where the other man was sitting.

"You can take it from me, St. Amant, that there has never been, in the whole history of criminal jurisprudence, so far as I am acquainted with it, any crime planned out with such infinite care, ingenuity, and—and—well, yes, I must say it, a kind of almost diabolical cunning. So true is that that——" He took another turn up and down the room, and then once more he came and stood before his friend: "Well, I consider the murderer has a very good sporting chance of getting off—scot free! He will be able to command the best legal advice as well as the best intellects at the Criminal Bar—that he himself has no mean intellect he has proved over this business. Yes, I shouldn\'t be in the least surprised if he managed to scrape through! More fortunate than most of his kind, he has a new country to which he will be able to retire with the widow of the man he murdered—if she can be brought to believe in him. And, mind you, women can be brought to believe anything of those they love, or at any rate, they can be brought to seem to believe anything!"

He waited a moment, and then added abruptly, "I formed the opinion that Mrs. Pavely was a very unusual woman, St. Amant."

[Pg 337] "But you don\'t think—surely you don\'t think——"

"No, no——" Sir Angus was very decided. "I certainly don\'t think Mrs. Pavely was in any way concerned in this appalling plot. And mind you—ill as I think of him, I must admit that Oliver Tropenell\'s a brave man. He did the job himself—even if he was helped by his friend."

He waited a moment. Somehow St. Amant was taking the news far more to heart than he had expected.

"I\'ll tell you everything in time, but it\'s a long, complicated story; and of course I\'m trusting entirely to your honour in the matter. What I tell you now must never go beyond these four walls."

Sir Angus sat down, and Lord St. Amant listened, half of his brain acutely, sensitively alive to the story that was being told him—the other half in a kind of stupor of grief, of shame, and of horror. That second half of his brain was dominated by one name, one thought, one heart-beat—Letty, the dear, the beloved woman who had just promised to marry him, to bring him the solace of her care and companionship in the evening of his days....

"Apart from certain most cleverly devised breaks in the story—to which I shall make allusion presently—Oliver Tropenell\'s best chance lies in the absence of adequate motive. Why should this millionaire wish to murder a man who, as he will easily be able to prove, was not only an intimate friend, but also a connection of his own? Our answer to that question will be to put in these two anonymous letters."

Sir Angus took out of his pocke............