"WE have solved the mystery of Godfrey Pavely's death!"
Such were the words with which Sir Angus Kinross greeted Lord St. Amant, when the latter, arriving at his rooms, found the Commissioner of Police already there.
"D'you mean that you've run Fernando Apra to earth?"
The speaker felt relieved, and at the same time rather discomfited. He had not associated the Commissioner of Police's summons with that now half-forgotten, painful story. Godfrey Pavely had vanished out of his mind, as he had vanished out of every one else's mind in the neighbourhood of Pewsbury, and in the last few months when Sir Angus and Lord St. Amant had met they had seldom alluded to the strange occurrence which had first made them become friends.
But now, seeing that the other looked at him with a singular look of hesitation, there came a slight feeling of apprehension over St. Angus's host.
"Have you actually got the man here, in England? If so, I suppose poor Mrs. Pavely is bound to have a certain amount of fresh trouble in connection with the affair?"
"We have not got the man who called himself Fernando Apra, and we are never likely to have him. In fact, I regard it as certain that we shall not even be able to connect him directly with the murder—for murder it certainly was, St. Amant."
"Murder?"
Lord St. Amant repeated the word reluctantly, doubtfully. He was beginning to feel more and more apprehensive. There was something so strange and so sombre in the glance with which the Commissioner of Police accompanied his words.
During that fortnight when they had so constantly seen one another last year, Sir Angus had never once looked surprised, annoyed—or even put out! There had been about him a certain imperturbability, both of temper and of manner. He now looked infinitely more disturbed than he had done even at the moment when he had first seen Godfrey Pavely's dead body sitting up in Fernando Apra's sinister-looking office.