“No ... or rather, yes....  Yes, I remember the face showed brown patches which I did not see on the occasion of my first visit.”

“Brown patches?  That confirms my supposition Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.”

“But how?” exclaimed the Prefect.

“By some substance introduced into one of the phials of glycero-phosphate, or into the syringe which the sick man employed.”

“But the doctor?” M. Desmalions objected.

“Maitre Lepertuis,” Perenna continued, “did you call the doctor’s attention to those brown patches?”

“Yes, but he attached no importance to them.”

“Was it his ordinary medical adviser?”

“No, his ordinary medical adviser, Doctor Pujol, who happens to be a friend of mine and who had recommended me to him as a solicitor, was ill.  The doctor whom I saw at his death-bed must have been a local practitioner.”

“I have his name and address here,” said the Prefect of Police, who had turned up the certificate.  “Doctor Bellavoine, 14 Rue d’Astorg.”

“Have you a medical directory, Monsieur le Prefet?”

M. Desmalions opened a directory and turned over the pages.  Presently he declared: 

“There is no Doctor Bellavoine; and there is no doctor living at 14 Rue d’Astorg.”

CHAPTER TWO

A MAN DEAD

The declaration was followed by a silence of some length.  The Secretary of the American Embassy and the Peruvian attache had followed the conversation with eager interest.  Major d’Astrignac nodded his head with an air of approval.  To his mind, Perenna could not be mistaken.

The Prefect of Police confessed: 

“Certainly, certainly ... we have a number of circumstances here ... that are fairly ambiguous....  Those brown patches; that doctor....  It’s a case that wants looking into.”  And, questioning Don Luis Perenna as though in spite of himself, he asked, “No doubt, in your opinion, there is a possible connection between the murder ... and Mr. Mornington’s will?”

“That, Monsieur le Prefet, I cannot tell.  If there is, we should have to suppose that the contents of the will were known.  Do you think they can have leaked out, Maitre Lepertuis?”

“I don’t think so, for Mr. Mornington seemed to behave with great caution.”

“And there’s no question, is there, of any indiscretion committed in your office?”

“By whom?  No one handled the will except myself; and I alone have the key of the safe in which I put away documents of that importance every evening.”

“The safe has not been broken into?  There has been no burglary at your office?”

“No.”

“You saw Cosmo Mornington in the morning?”

“Yes, on a Friday morning.”

“What did you do with the will until the evening, until you locked it away up your safe?”

“I probably put it in the drawer of my desk.”