fortune until it attained a colossal
figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred
million francs."

The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect's hearers. He saw
the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:

"You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Prefet," replied Comte d'Astrignac. "He was in Morocco
when Perenna and I were fighting there."

"Just so," said M. Desmalions. "Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel
about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear,
and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of
course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and
Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago
as the result of a most stupid accident."

"A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le
Prefet?" asked the secretary of the American Embassy. "It was mentioned
in the papers and reported to us at the embassy."

"Yes," said Desmalions. "To assist his recovery from a long attack of
influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by
his doctor's orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate
of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last
occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in
with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours."

The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:

"Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maitre Lepertuis?"

"Absolutely, Monsieur le Prefet."

M. Desmalions continued:

"The next morning, Maitre Lepertuis called here and, for reasons which
you will understand when you have heard the document read, showed me
Cosmo Mornington's will, which had been placed in his hands."

While the Prefect was looking through the papers, Maitre Lepertuis added:

"I may be allowed to say that I saw my client only once before I was
summoned to his death-bed; and that was on the day when he sent for me to
come to his room in the hotel to hand me the will which he had just made.
This was at the beginning of his influenza. In the course of conversation
he told me that he had been making some inquiries with a view to tracing
his mother's family, and that he intended to pursue these inquiries
seriously after his recovery. Circumstances, as it turned out, prevented
his fulfilling his purpose."

Meanwhile,