g that I had not seen her.

Why had she been lurking there?

A black cloud of suspicion fell upon me. She kept up a desultory
conversation as we went along Piccadilly in the dreary gloom of that dull
January afternoon, but I only replied in monosyllables, until at length
she remarked:

"Really, Teddy, you're not thinking of a word I'm saying. I suppose your
mind is centred upon your friend--the man who has turned out to be an
impostor."

The conclusion of that sentence and its tone showed a distinct
antagonism.

It was true that the man whom I had known as Sir Digby Kemsley--the man
who for years past had been so popular among a really good set in
London--was according to the police an impostor.

The detective-inspector had told me so. From the flat in Harrington
Gardens the men of the Criminal Investigation Department had rung up New
Scotland Yard to make their report, and about noon, while I was resting
at home in Albemarle Street, I was told over the telephone that my whilom
friend was not the man I had believed him to be.

As I had listened to the inspector's voice, I heard him say:

"There's another complication of this affair, Mr. Royle. Your friend
could not have been Sir Digby Kemsley, for that gentleman died suddenly a
year ago, at Huacho, in Peru. There was some mystery about his death, it
seems, for it was reported by the British Consul at Lima. Inspector
Edwards, of the C.I. Department, will call upon you this afternoon. What
time could you conveniently be at home?"

I named five o'clock, and that appointment I intended, at all hazards, to
keep.

The big, heavily-furnished drawing-room in Cromwell Road was dark and
sombre as I stood with Phrida, who, bright and happy, pulled off her
gloves and declared to her mother--that charming, sedate, grey-haired,
but wonderfully preserved, woman--that she had had such "a jolly lunch."

"I saw the Redmaynes there, mother," she was saying. "Mr. Redmayne has
asked us to lunch with them at the Carlton next Tuesday. Can we go?"

"I think so, dear," was her mother's reply. "I'll look at my
engagements."

"Oh, do let's go! Ida is coming home from her trip to the West Indies. I
do want to see her so much."

Strange it was that my well-beloved, in face of that amazing mystery,
preserved such an extraordinary, nay, an astounding, calm. I was thinking
of the little side-comb of green horn, for I had seen her wearing a pair
exactly similar!

Standing by I watch