ding Miss Shand. I saw that you suspected some one--that you were
trying to prove to your own satisfaction that your theory was wrong."

I held my breath, cursing myself for such injudicious action.

"Again, this letter from the woman Petre has corroborated my
apprehensions," he went on. "Miss Shand was a friend of the man who
called himself Sir Digby. She met him clandestinely, unknown, to
you--eh?" he asked.

"Please do not question me, Edwards," I implored. "This is all so
extremely painful to me."

"I regret, but it is my duty, Mr. Royle," he replied in a tone of
sympathy. "Is not my suggestion the true one?"

I admitted that it was.

Then, in quick, brief sentences I told him of my visit to the Prefecture
of Police in Brussels and all that I had discovered regarding the
fugitives, to which he listened most attentively.

"They have not replied to my inquiry concerning the dead girl Marie
Bracq," he remarked presently.

"They know her," I replied. "Van Huffel, the _Chef du Surete_, stood
aghast when I told him that the man Kemsley was wanted by you on a charge
of murdering her. He declared that the allegation utterly astounded him,
and that the press must have no suspicion of the affair, as a great
scandal would result."

"But who is the girl?" he inquired quickly.

"Van Huffel refused to satisfy my curiosity. He declared that her
identity was a secret which he was not permitted to divulge, but he added
when I pressed him, that she was a daughter of one of the princely houses
of Europe!"

Edwards stared at me.

"I wonder what is her real name?" he said, reflectively. "Really, Mr.
Royle, the affair grows more and more interesting and puzzling."

"It does," I said, and then I related in detail my fruitless journey to
Paris, and how the three fugitives had alighted at Munich from the
westbound express from the Near East, and disappeared.

"Fremy, whom I think you know, has gone after them," I added.

"If Fremy once gets on the scent he'll, no doubt, find them," remarked my
companion. "He's one of the most astute and clever detectives in Europe.
So, if the case is in his hands, I'm quite contented that all will be
done to trace them."

For two hours we sat together, while I related what the girl at Melbourne
House had told me, and, in fact, put before him practically all that I
have recorded in the foregoing pages.

Then, at last, I stood before him boldly and asked:

"In face of all this, can you