No further statements being forthcoming, the jury, after a long deliberation, returned the same verdict as had been recorded upon the other mysterious deaths, that of “Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.”
Thus ended the seventh murder, with all its journalistic embellishments; and the public, who looked for “startling revelations,” were disappointed.
“Who will be the next victim?” was the question all the capitals of the world were asking.
The detectives were by no means idle, and from occupants of neighbouring houses they found that Mrs Inglewood, during her residence, had received but few visitors, the most conspicuous being an elderly lady, accompanied apparently by her daughter. They came several times a week in a victoria, and remained an hour.
This was all the information they were able to glean, for it seemed that the unfortunate woman was an enigma herself, making the mystery even more abstruse.
On the evening the jury delivered their verdict, I went down to the Club.
In the spacious smoking-room, with its fine portraits of Garrick and his contemporaries (which, alas, have now fallen under the hammer), a few Bohemians were taking their ease in the well-padded lounge chairs, discussing the details of the inquiry as reported in the evening journals.
“It’s all very well to talk,” exclaimed Hugh Latimer, a young artist of renown, as he cast aside his newspaper, “there must be something radically wrong with our detective force if the man Burgoyne has seen cannot be traced.”
“But how’s it to be done? Perhaps he could not be recognised,” suggested one.
“Or he may be in America by this time,” said another.