The baffled detective went back to the house in no enviable mood.
"I'm a little out in my reckoning," he muttered. "That man was certainly Barkswell, and yet he resembled Bordine. Can it be that the two are identical? They certainly look enough alike to be twin brothers."
Once more the detective entered the house. Groping along the hall, he scratched a match, and entering the back room, soon had the lamp burning once more.
The woman was gone.
"I might have arrested her," muttered the detective, "had I not chased her husband into the darkness. I am confident that it's the same couple I saw in the carriage, yet then he was in disguise."
Sile Keene searched the house from top to bottom, but made no important discoveries. He was prone to believe, however, that Barkswell was the assassin of poor Victoria Vane.
"Is this man and Bordine identical? That is the question," mused the detective. "I am inclined to think they are."
Then he left the house and hurried swiftly away.
The city of Grandon was small, and it did not require much time to traverse its entire length.
In a little time the detective stood before an unpretending dwelling which had been pointed out to him as the house of the young engineer.