The detective hurried across the street to the Cosmopolitan Hotel and asked to see Mr. Wright, the former proprietor of the Red Dragon Inn.
Mr. Wright was a portly old gentleman with a large, florid, jovial face, and he received the detective instantly. He listened attentively to what Carter had to say, and he complied with his request to accompany him over to the inn and view the remains of the victim.
“If that man spoke the truth,” Mr. Wright remarked, as he and the detective left the hotel, “I may be able to identify the body.”
CHAPTER III.
THE IDENTIFICATION.
Carter conducted Peter Wright upstairs to the attic room in which the body of the victim lay.
The coroner was making an examination, but he stepped aside, so as to allow Mr. Wright to see the face of the murdered man.
The former proprietor of the Red Dragon Inn looked at the ghastly white countenance long and intently.
All of the persons in the room watched him in silence.
Several times the old man shook his head back and forth and his brow became contracted.
Finally he looked at Carter and shook his head dolefully.