It was recorded here that Mr. Henry Breese, Sr., had arrived by airplane from Miami and was stopping at the Sevilla-Biltmore. I re-read the paragraph to make sure my eyes had not deceived me. I wondered, amazed, what motive could prompt the elderly Breese to come to the city to which his divorced wife had fled. “Interesting!” the Russian exclaimed, and then to the Count: “Read this, my friend.” The young man took the newspaper from him and examined it. “It is now complete!” I looked blank. The Count peered down at him, puzzled. “The last of the circle is here!” the detective continued meditatively. “The absent one has arrived!” CHAPTER VI MURDER A week passed, very pleasantly for me, and during this time I paid but scant attention to the Breese ménage. The Russian seemed to have disappeared, and Ben Smith was busy with a case that involved the extradition of an absconded bank teller. Left to my own resources, I explored the town, sampled the native Morro crabs (as delicious as our own lobsters), sipped gentle Spanish wines and watched the shimmying Rumba dancers in the lower music-halls. It was inevitable that I meet various members of the permanent American colony in my wanderings, and I soon discovered that Mrs. Breese had already made her presence felt. Just what her divorced husband was doing in the city no one seemed to know. Certainly he was not seen at the home he had built, and if, as presumed, he had journeyed down for reconciliation his efforts evidently had been in vain. Mrs. Breese entertained discreetly, and it was common gossip that Guy Thomas was with her constantly. If Mrs. Breese had renounced the actor after her son’s toying with suicide, she had apparently restored him to favor now. It was the general impression that Mr. Thomas was the lady’s fiancé. Just about this time I first heard the words: “The Gilded Cage”. Who it was who so dubbed the Breese palace I do not know. Probably it was some malicious wit. Undoubtedly the name rose from Guy Thomas’ peculiar status in the household, for those of the colony that I met were busy laughing at Mr. Thomas as the bird in the gilded cage, and momentarily expecting formal announcement of the engagement of the wealthy woman to the idler many years her junior. Then, one evening, while I was at dinner, Ben Smith wandered into the dining-room of my hotel and joined me in black coffee and liqueurs. He seemed preoccupied, and I knew that he had sought me out for a purpose. Finally he said: “How well do you know old man Breese?” I said I had seen him frequently during the trial, but had not exchanged a dozen words with him. Outwardly, he struck me as the type of short-tempered executive who would be a terror to his employees and so much wax in the modelling hands of Mrs. Breese. I asked Smith the reason for his inquiry.