through his papers once more and, in the end, said:

"We have met again, gentlemen, as we did two months ago, to come to a
definite conclusion about the Mornington inheritance. Senor Caceres, the
attache of the Peruvian legation, will not be here. I have received a
telegram from Italy to tell me that Senor Caceres is seriously ill.
However, his presence was not indispensable. There is no one lacking,
therefore--except those, alas, whose claims this meeting would gladly
have sanctioned, that is to say, Cosmo Mornington's heirs."

"There is one other person absent, Monsieur le Prefet." M. Desmalions
looked up. The speaker was Don Luis. The Prefect hesitated and then
decided to ask him to explain.

"Whom do you mean? What person?"

"The murderer of the Mornington heirs."

This time again Don Luis compelled attention and, in spite of the
resistance which he encountered, obliged the others to take notice of
his presence and to yield to his ascendancy. Whatever happened, they had
to listen to him. Whatever happened, they had to discuss with him things
which seemed incredible, but which were possible because he put them
into words.

"Monsieur le Prefet," he asked, "will you allow me to set forth the facts
of the matter as it now stands? They will form a natural sequel and
conclusion of the interview which we had after the explosion on the
Boulevard Suchet."

M. Desmalions's silence gave Don Luis leave to speak. He at once
continued:

"It will not take long, Monsieur le Prefet. It will not take long for two
reasons: first, because M. Fauville's confessions remain at our disposal
and we know definitely the monstrous part which he played; and, secondly,
because, after all, the truth, however complicated it may seem, is really
very simple.

"It all lies in the objection which you, Monsieur le Prefet, made to me
on leaving the wrecked house on the Boulevard Suchet: 'How is it,' you
asked, 'that the Mornington inheritance is not once mentioned in
Hippolyte Fauville's confession?' It all lies in that, Monsieur le
Prefet. Hippolyte Fauville did not say a word about the inheritance; and
the reason evidently is that he did not know of it.

"And the reason why Gaston Sauverand was able to tell me his whole
sensational story without making the least allusion to the inheritance
was that the inheritance played no sort of part in Gaston Sauverand's
story. He, too, knew nothing of it before those events, any more than
Marie Fauvi