s of the affair are unique."

"Yes," I agreed. "It is curious--very curious."

"I have a copy of your statement regarding your visit to the house during
the night," said the official, who was one of the Council of Seven at the
Yard, looking up at me suddenly from the cigarette he was about to light.
"Have you any suspicion who killed the young lady?"

"How can I have--except that my friend----"

"Is missing--eh?"

"Exactly."

"But now, tell me all about this friend whom you knew as Sir Digby
Kemsley. How did you first become acquainted with him?"

"I met him on a steamer on the Lake of Garda this last summer," was my
reply. "I was staying at Riva, the little town at the north end of the
lake, over the Austrian frontier, and one day took the steamer down to
Gardone, in Italy. We sat next each other at lunch on board, and, owing
to a chance conversation, became friends."

"What did he tell you?"

"Well, only that he was travelling for his health. He mentioned that he
had been a great deal in South America, and was then over in Europe for
a holiday. Indeed, on the first day we met, he did not even mention his
name, and I quite forgot to ask for it. In travelling one meets so many
people who are only of brief passing interest. It was not until a week
later, when I found him staying in the same hotel as myself, the Cavour,
in Milan, I learnt from the hall-porter that he was Sir Digby Kemsley,
the great engineer. We travelled to Florence together, and stayed at the
Baglioni, but one morning when I came down I found a hurried note
awaiting me. From the hall-porter I learned that a gentleman had arrived
in the middle of the night, and Sir Digby, after an excited controversy,
left with him for London. In the note he gave me his address in
Harrington Gardens, and asked me not to fail to call on my return to
town."

"Curious to have a visitor in the middle of the night," remarked the
detective reflectively.

"I thought so at the time, but, knowing him to be a man of wide business
interests, concluded that it was someone who had brought him an urgent
message," I replied. "Well, the rest is quickly told. On my return home I
sought him out, with the result that we became great friends."

"You had no suspicion that he was an impostor?"

"None whatever. He seemed well known in London," I replied. "Besides, if
he was not the real Sir Digby, how is it possible that he could have so
completely deceived his friends! Why, he