ed to return at once to Peru, make the acquaintance of Sir Digby
Kemsley, and obtain the concession. You went, you were fortunate,
inasmuch as he was injured and helpless, and you deliberately killed him,
and securing the document, sailed for Europe, assuming the identity of
the actual purchaser of the concession. Oh, yes!" he laughed, "you were
exceedingly cunning and clever, for you did not at once deal with it. No,
you went to Luxemburg. You made certain observations and inquiries. You
stayed at the Hotel Brasseur for a week, and then, you were afraid to
approach the Grand Duke with an offer to sell back the stolen concession,
but--well, by that time you had resolved upon a very pretty and romantic
plan of action," and he paused for a moment and gazed around at us.

"Then robbery was the motive of the crime in Peru!" I exclaimed.

"Certainly," Fremy replied. "But I will now relate how I came into the
inquiry. In the last days of January, I was called in secret to Luxemburg
by the Grand Duke, who, when we sat alone together, informed me that his
only daughter Stephanie, aged twenty-one, who was a rather erratic young
lady, and fond of travelling incognito, had disappeared. The last heard
of her was three weeks before--in Paris--where she had, on her return
from Egypt, been staying a couple of days at the Hotel Maurice with her
aunt, the Grand Duchess of Baden, but she had packed her things and left,
and nothing more had been heard of her. Search in her room, however, had
revealed two letters, signed 'Phrida,' and addressed to a certain Marie
Bracq."

"Why, I never wrote to her in my life!" my love declared, for she had now
regained her senses.

"His Highness further revealed to me the fact that his daughter had,
while in Egypt, made the acquaintance at the Hotel Savoy on the Island of
Elephantine, of the great English railroad engineer, Sir Digby Kemsley,
who had purchased a railway concession he had given, and which he was
exceedingly anxious to re-purchase and thus continue on friendly terms
with France. His daughter, on her return to Luxemburg, and before going
to Paris, had mentioned her acquaintance with Sir Digby, and that he held
the concession. Therefore, through her intermediary, Sir Digby--who was,
of course, none other than this assassin, Cane--went again to Luxemburg
and parted with the important document for a quarter of a million francs.
That was on the eighth of January."

"After the affair at Harri