e
seated. "Will you please tell Mr. Garfield what you explained to me
yesterday."

"Certainly. I merely tell you what I know," he replied in very fair
English. "It is like this. Before I left Madrid I was very friendly
with a country lawyer named Ruiz Serrano, who lived at Valladolid. For
some reason the late Count de Chamartin took a great fancy to my
friend, and constituted him his legal adviser, an appointment which
brought him in quite a large income. To the lawyer of a great
financier fees are always rolling in. The Count naturally took Serrano
into his confidence and told him how, years ago, he had married the
daughter of an Englishman in rather humble circumstances, living in
Madrid. A daughter was born to them, but later he divorced his wife,
who died soon afterwards, and then he married a lady of the Madrid
aristocracy, the present widow. Apparently he made a will leaving the
whole of his fortune to his daughter by his first wife--save for a
small annuity to his second wife--and according to the will, on the
death of his daughter the fortune was to go to his trusted partner,
your English financier, Mr. Oswald De Gex."

I sat staring at the stranger, but uttered no word, for I was
reflecting deeply.

"Senor Serrano arrived in London a week ago, and came to consult me
regarding the will, because it seems that the Count's daughter--who
came here to learn English, she having lived in Madrid all her
life--is dead."

"Hence De Gex has inherited the Count's fortune?" I gasped. "What was
the girl's name?"

"Her name was, of course, Chamartin, but in obedience to her father's
wish, after the divorce she took her mother's maiden name, and was
known as Gabrielle Engledue."

"Gabrielle Engledue!" I echoed. "_Gabrielle Engledue!_"

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

LOVE THE CONQUEROR

The sudden revelation of the motive of the crime at Stretton Street
staggered me.

An hour later I saw the Count's lawyer, Senor Serrano, at his hotel in
Russell Square, and from him learned much more regarding his late
client's disposition of his property. The Count had apparently not
been on very affectionate terms with his second wife, which accounted
for him leaving the bulk of his fortune to his daughter Gabrielle, and
in case of her death, to his partner De Gex, whom he had, of course,
believed to be an honest man.

The Count had died suddenly several months before his daughter. He had
died from orosin, no doubt adminis