England the whole of the output of the rich oil field
recently discovered in Ecuador."

So Oswald De Gex was still in London! I held my breath. With his wall
of wealth before him he seemed invulnerable. I recollected those crisp
Bank of England notes which still reposed in a drawer at Rivermead
Mansions--the bribe I had so foolishly accepted to become his
accomplice in that mysterious crime.

Gabrielle Engledue! Who was the girl whose body, because of my false
certificate, had been reduced to ashes in order to destroy all
evidence of foul play? Who was she--and what was the motive?

If I could only ascertain the latter, then I might be able to
reconstruct the crime slowly, piece by piece. But as far as I could
see there was an utter absence of motive.

Long ago I had arrived at the conclusion that by the death of the
unknown girl named Engledue, the unscrupulous financier had added some
considerable sum to his bank balance. But how? His crafty
unscrupulousness was shown by the manner in which his partner, to whom
he owed a big sum, had been cleverly secretly killed by a hireling--a
friend of the dead Despujol. Oswald De Gex posed to the world as an
honest and upright man of business whose financial aid was welcomed
cordially by all the hard-up States in Europe. He posed as a
philanthropist, and as such earned a big reputation in those countries
in which the operations of the all-powerful group he controlled were
carried on.

But I knew his methods, and I sat staggered at the fact that the
Corporation of the City of London were about to entertain him. Yet
money counts always. Did not the Lord Mayor and Corporation once
entertain the man who gave a service of gold communion-plate to St.
Paul's Cathedral, and who afterwards spent many years in one of His
Majesty's gaols?

My blood boiled within me when I read that announcement. Yet on calmer
consideration, I resolved to still wait and watch.

I returned to London on the following Friday, and in the train I read
of the splendid luncheon given on the previous day to the
arch-criminal and the eulogistic speeches made by two English
politicians and the two foreign Premiers.

Oswald De Gex was declared to be one of the greatest financiers of the
age, and there was a hint that a certain Allied Government was about
to enlist his efforts with a view to extricate it from national
bankruptcy.

De Gex was a man who thought and spoke in millions. Accompanying the
art