“Yes, it’s funny. I’ve no doubt whatever he is right, and that it’s a case of murder. Why didn’t you and I think of that? Honour bright, I’d have cheerfully taken the jury’s verdict if it hadn’t been for what he said.”
“So should I,” answered Yardley. “Parkyns,” he continued, “if the girl were murdered, somebody did it. Who was it?”
“Yes, that’s just the little detail you and I have got to try to find out.”
Tempest left town to pay his postponed visit. With the verdict of suicide the public rested content; and after the natural publicity of the funeral, the public interest in the case quickly died down. This was what Yardley and Parkyns desired, and quietly and unostentatiously they then began to prosecute their inquiries. The stage history of Miss Stableford was general knowledge in the profession, and it was a simple matter to get into touch with Lady Stableford and learn all she knew of the girl’s life. She could tell them, too, of the stopped teeth, and with that all doubt as to the identification ended. Putting the accounts together it was evident that they had the complete story, and that with an accuracy of full detail amply sufficient to demonstrate that ostensibly there was nothing in the life of Evangeline Stableford which they could legitimately regard as a starting point for an investigation with any hope of this resulting in an explanation of the mystery. The thing was an absolute blank. Their inquiries showed beyond doubt that Miss Stableford was a young provincial actress of some talent and of great promise, leading an exemplary life, and possessed of such means that inducement to the contrary on that score was in her case wholly lacking. Lady Stableford, bitterly distressed at the fate which had overtaken one who to all intents and purposes was her own daughter, had placed ample funds at Yardley’s disposal, in the hope of finding a clue to the mystery, and Yardley and Parkyns prosecuted their research with zeal and vigor. But all to no purpose.
With the end of the vacation, Tempest returned to town, and Yardley lost no time in making him aware of the result of their investigations.
Tempest, sitting in his chambers, listened attentively to what the other men told him, and frankly confessed that he was absolutely puzzled. But in his own mind he felt that the explanation lay in the mystery surrounding the girl’s birth and in the great likeness which existed between Evangeline Stableford and Dolores Alvarez. He went to Somerset House, and, knowing the date of the birth of Miss Stableford, he hunted for the certificate. No child named Alvarez had been born in that year. That did not surprise him. He even went to the trouble of getting copies of every certificate of the births of an illegitimate child within a month on either side of the day on which a child apparently evidently less than ten days old had been found by Lady Stableford on the couch in her drawing-room. Tempest knew that from the child’s clothes it was evident that the mother must have been financially in comfortable circumstances at the time, and so was able to eliminate the bulk of the children of whose births he had certificates, by reason of the places of birth. The remainder Yardley investigated one by one. It was a long and unpleasant task, but in the end it had been possible in every case to trace each child—for a period sufficiently prolonged to establish it as quite impossible that Miss Stableford could be one of these children. But the likeness between the two women haunted Tempest, and he wondered whether the real explanation was that Evangeline Stableford was the child of Dolores Alvarez. But an interview with the surgeon who had made the post-mortem examination, and a reference by the latter to his case book, left no doubt of the fact that Miss Alvarez had never had a child. Utterly puzzled, Tempest turned to the only remaining possibility that Miss Stableford might be the daughter of Lady Madeley; but a few careful inquiries showed that Lord and Lady Madeley had been married some days before Lady Stableford had found the child. By the fashionable intelligence in different papers, and by the succession of hotel registers, Tempest was able to trace the movements of the married pair as day by day in easy stages they journeyed overland to Southern Italy. The last supposition, therefore, was an absolute impossibility, and Tempest finally could see no other conclusion than that the amazing likeness was after all only coincidence.
So that they had nothing to go upon save the details of the tragedy. These were strangely destitute of any enlightening clue.
Late one evening, Yardley and Parkyns called at Tempest’s chambers in order to keep an appointment for which Parkyns had asked.
“Well, what is it?” asked the barrister.
“Mr. Tempest, I’m at my wits’ end about the murder of Miss Stableford. I’ve done everything I can think of, so has Yardley. We haven’t found out a thing, and the mystery is at the precise point it was when we started. I’ve come to say that unless you can suggest anything, I’m afraid I must give it up. You see, sir, this isn’t the only thing I have to attend to. Have you thought of anything, sir?”