f came down by the lift," I said. "Louis, Delora is lying in
the corridor outside his rooms with a bullet through his forehead. I
am wondering whether he shot himself, or whether--"

"Or whether what?" Louis asked softly.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"After all," I said, "I suppose the truth will come out. Have you any
idea, I wonder, where those two hundred thousand pounds are?"

"I, monsieur!"--Louis held out his hands. "Delora has had several
hours to dispose of them. If he had taken my advice he would have been
flying to the south coast in his motor by now. As to the money, well,
it may be anywhere"

"It may, Louis!" I admitted.

"Delora was a bungler," Louis said slowly. "The game was in his
hands. Even the reappearance of his brother was not serious. He was
carrying out a perfectly legitimate transaction in which no one could
interfere."

"Excepting," I remarked, "that he proposed to retain the proceeds of
this sale of his."

"That would have been hard to prove if he had chosen to assert the
contrary," Louis remarked. "Vanhallon would have had little enough to
say if the money had passed into his hands."

"And the Chinese ambassador?" I remarked.

"His documents would have been good enough," Louis replied. "He has
the ships. He has value for his money. There was no need for Delora
to have despaired. His behavior during this last hour has been the
behavior of a child. Monsieur will pardon me!"

Louis glided away, and I saw him smilingly escorting a party of late
guests to their places. I stood where I was and watched him. To me,
the man was something amazing! I firmly believed, even at that
moment, that he had, safely hidden, part, if not the whole, of the
proceeds of this gigantic scheme of fraud. I believed, too, that his
had been the hand which had killed Delora. And there he was, within a
few minutes of the time when the tragedy had happened, waiting upon
his guests, consulted about the vintages of wines, suggesting dishes!
Upstairs Delora lay, with a little blue mark upon his temple! It was
the survival of the fittest, this, in crime as well as in the other
things of life!

I retraced my steps upstairs. The Chinese ambassador, Vanhallon, and
Lamartine were deep in conversation in the dead man's sitting-room. I
was admitted to their confidence after a few minutes' hesitation. A
draft for one hundred and sixty thousand pounds had been found upon
the dead man, but notes to the value of forty thousan