?"

"Yes, Phrida."

"But it's astounding! It really seems so utterly impossible," declared my
well-beloved, amazed at what I had just related.

"I've simply stated hard facts."

"But there's been nothing about this affair in the papers."

"For certain reasons the authorities are not exactly anxious for any
publicity. It is a very puzzling problem, and they do not care to own
themselves baffled," I replied.

"Really, it's the most extraordinary story of London life that I've ever
heard," Phrida Shand declared, leaning forward in her chair, clasping her
small white hands as, with her elbows upon the _table-a-deux_, she looked
at me with her wondrous dark eyes across the bowl of red tulips between
us.

We were lunching together at the Berkeley, in Piccadilly, one January day
last year, and had just arrived at the dessert.

"The whole thing is quite bewildering, Teddy--an utter enigma," she
exclaimed in a low, rather strained voice, her pretty, pointed chin
resting upon the back of her hand as she gazed upon me from beneath those
long, curved lashes.

"I quite agree," was my answer. "The police are mystified, and so am I.
Sir Digby Kemsley is my friend, you know."

"I remember," she said. "You once introduced me--at the opening of the
Motor Show at Olympia, I believe. A very brilliant and famous man, isn't
he?"

"Rather! A famous engineer. He made the new railway across the Andes, and
possesses huge rubber interests in Peru. His name, both in Seina and
Valparaiso, is one to conjure with," was my reply; "but----"

"But what?" queried my well-beloved.

"Well, there's one fact which greatly increases the mystery--a fact which
is yet to be told."

"What's that?" she asked eagerly.

I hesitated.

"Well, I've been making inquiries this morning," I replied with some
reluctance, "and I learn to my blank amazement that there is no such
person as my friend."

"No such person!" she echoed, staring at me, her lips parted. Being
seated in a corner, no one could overhear our conversation. "I don't
follow you!"

"Well, Sir Digby died somewhere in South America about a year ago," was
my quiet response.

"What? Was your friend a fraud, eh?"

"Apparently so. And yet, if he was, he must have been a man of marvellous
cunning and subterfuge," I said. "He was most popular at the club, known
at the Ritz and the Savoy, and other places about town."

"He struck me as a man of great refinement--a gentleman, in fact," Phr