The Duplicate Death

By the Same Author

THE DANGERVILLE INHERITANCE
THE MAULEVERER MURDERS
THE AVERAGE MAN
THE FINANCES OF SIR JOHN KYNNERSLEY
THE TROUBLES OF COLONEL MARWOOD
THE SEX TRIUMPHANT

“‘One or other of you three, if not all of you, will be accused of the murder’”

THE
DUPLICATE DEATH

BY
A. C. FOX-DAVIES
Author of “The Dangerville Inheritance,”
“The Mauleverer Murders,” etc.

Illustrated by
Hermann Heyer

NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
1910

Copyright, 1910, By
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
THE PREMIER PRESS
NEW YORK

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Duplicate Death

The Duplicate Death

CHAPTER I

Old Lord Madeley had taken unto himself a wife—one of the beautiful Sisters Alvarez of the Pavilion Theatre of Varieties and the other West-end halls. Whereat the world of Society wondered for ten days. His relatives never ceased to wonder.

He was always called “Old Lord Madeley,” but as a matter of fact he had but turned the half-century some four or five years previously. The man and his history were curious. The twenty-fifth holder of the ancient Barony of Madeley, he was a legitimate scion of the Plantagenets and an illegitimate one of the Stuarts; and he had been born the youngest child of his parents’ marriage.

In these later times the ancient and historic houses of Norman England have fallen upon impoverished days, and a younger son succeeds to but a pittance. The land is there for the eldest, but each generation leaves it more burdened than did its predecessor, and there is little if any margin realisable in hard cash.

Such a pittance had been the fortune to which Charles de Bohun Fitz Aylwyn had succeeded at the death of his father. Hoarding his few poor hundreds per annum, he had turned his back upon the society into which he had been born, settled himself in dingy lodgings in Bloomsbury, and lapsed into an eccentric recluse, with not a single thought beyond the study of the science in which his soul delighted.

His eldest brother died childless after a brief but brilliant reign, bequeathing the whole of his personalty to his widow in an attempt to increase the meagre jointure which was her portion. In the realisation of that personalty every stick of furniture and each single spoon in the old Manor House, save the portraits on the walls, were passed under the hammer of the auctioneer. The second brother was an absentee landlord, never going near his property, and draining it to the last penny. Strangers hired his house from him until he died.

At his death the title and estates passed to Charles de Bohun, then and thereafter twenty-fifth Baron Madeley in the peerage of England.

With a mild curiosity his relatives and the world at large wondered what on earth he would do with the inheritance. For months he never went near the place.

Then, without a word or hint of warning, he left London, and travelled down into Shropshire by the evening train. He had never heard of slip coaches, he had forgotten where an obsequious porter had told him he would have to change, and at nine o’clock at night he had been turned out of the train at Shrewsbury, twenty miles beyond his destination.

By the time the lumbering cab he engaged at the railway station deposited him at the Manor House, it was long past midnight. After continuous knocking a sleepy caretaker descended, only to open the door, tell the visitor to be gone, and slam it in his face. It had needed the thunderous assistance of the cabman applied both to bell and knocker and with boots upon the door panels to recall the caretaker. Lord Madeley had discharged him and his wife there and then, and neither knew, cared, nor ever inquired whether the couple left the house in the darkness or waited until the following day. Such had been the home-coming of Lord Madeley.

Instructing his lawyers to refurnish the house, engage servants, and appoint a properly qualified agent to manage the estate, Lord Madeley reorganised and required in his household a reversion and rigid adherence to the studied solemnity of state which he remembered from the dignified days of his father and grandfather. That he regarded as a duty attaching to his rank, his caste, and his family.

Personally he remained wedded to his pursuit of science, and continued his experiments and investigations. A recluse he had been in London—a recluse he remained at Madeley, and for the first five years of his enjoyment of the family heritage he never once set foot outside the doors of the Manor House. Absorbed in science, his mind deep and recondite in those directions, simple, straightforward, and lovable in all the matters of a more worldly nature, the old peer had probably never given a thought to either any woman in particular or to the female sex as a general proposition. It is quite probable that it had never crossed Lord Madeley’s mind that there really were two sexes, save as a scientific proposition, of which scientific proposition he, as a man of science, was naturally cognisant. As a social problem he had never thought of it, knew nothing of it, and cared less.

But peers have obligations thrust upon them, from which lesser mortals are exempt. The exact circumstances which had produced it are immaterial to the story, but a royal command had left Lord Madeley no alternative, and he had in obedience thereto betaken himself to town. That it was the first time he had recrossed the threshold of the Manor House since he had entered it was a thought which probably never presented itself to his mind; and that he was returning to the scenes in which the greater part of his life had been spent quickened his pulse not at all. He was irked by the command, bored by the anticipated absence of his scientific interests, and, in the hope of avoiding ennui, he cast about in his mind for a companion to share with him the suite of apartments he had engaged in the hotel at which his father and grandfather before him had been accustomed to sojourn whilst in town. Probably for the first time in his life his utter loneliness in the world made itself manifest. He had one relative, and one only, a young unmarried cousin, the son of a distant cousin, and from the point of pedigree the future head of the house of Fitz Aylwyn.

Lord Madeley wrote and invited him. The invitation was accepted.

Young Billy Fitz Aylwyn was one of those men—there are such men—whom to see was to like. Lord Madeley liked him wholeheartedly, and, in the courteous attempt to give pleasure to the younger man, the old peer had consented to a tentative suggestion of his relative that they should spend the evening by going to the Pavilion Theatre. It was the first time Lord Madeley had ever been inside a theatre. The meretriciousness of things theatrical was not laid bare to the old peer by reason of experience and knowledge, and he was fascinated by the beauty of the Alvarez girls.

A passing comment on their beauty—for they were beautiful, judged by any standard—had provoked in the younger of the men a confession of a personal acquaintance with the sisters.

Absolutely in ignorance of the manner of man Lord Madeley was, and thinking the pure artistic admiration of classic beauty was an interest of a totally different kind, Fitz Aylwyn had suggested asking the sisters to supper.

Lord Madeley, unsophisticated in the ways of the world, and merely desiring to give pleasure to his relative and guest, whom he supposed was putting himself out to relieve the ennui of an old man, made no objection, and the supper party had taken place.

The Sisters Alvarez—Eulalie was the elder and Dolores the younger—of pure Spanish descent, but of entirely English birth and domicile, were stars of the music-hall world, but stars of no great or exceeding magnitude. Calling themselves comediennes, their turn was the usual song and dance of no particular or more than average merit. On the other hand, it was useless to attempt to deny the fact that the sisters were unquestionably the most beautiful women upon the stage at that time. Descended in a left-handed way from some of the bluest blood of Andalusia, their beauty had nothing in common with the thick-lipped, teeth-displaying, plebeian prettiness, which, by reason of picture postcard advertisement, one is now asked to believe represents a type of the beauty of this country.

Alike in feature, the two sisters were as wide apart as the poles in character and temperament. Eulalie, strong, compelling, masterful, and passionate, controlled the lives of both; Dolores, gentle, trusting, and submissive, intensely admired her sister, worshipped her ability, and did whatsoever she was told.

The girls themselves—the outspoken frankness of their world—the utter novelty of the whole thing—the novelty of young female society—the awe-struck deference of the music-hall singer for a real peer of England, who accorded to them the courtesy and deference to women which he vaguely recollected from the world of his distant youth—interested Lord Madeley.

With charming but unsophisticated hospitality he invited the sisters to visit the Manor House, thinking it an obligation of hospitality owing by him to Fitz Aylwyn. The invitation was accepted.

Eulalie, with a keen eye to opportunity, made up her mind that the position of Lady Madeley, mistress of the rent roll of the great Manor of Madeley and of Madeley Manor House, was within the possibilities. She played for that position for all she was worth, with every atom of knowledge she possessed or could acquire, played her game without the opposition of tangible rivals, played her game as a clever and beautiful woman of the world, knowing every wile and every blandishment that was permissible, played her game against an old man to whom had been given no weapon of defence and from whom had been withheld the worldly knowledge out of which such weapons could have been fashioned and which would have indicated their necessity. The result was never in doubt. Lord Madeley married, or was married, as Eulalie had intended should happen.

Let it here be said, for Lord Madeley soon passes out of the story, that never for one single instant did he ever regret his marriage. Save that his house was better ordered, his wishes more carefully respected, his comfort more scrupulously provided for, Lady Madeley was wise enough to recognise that the ingrained ways and habits of a lonely man of fifty-five are fixed, and are altered only at the cost of much discomfort. She contented herself with the rank and position, the wealth, and the house which the marriage had brought her, and left Lord Madeley to pursue his life as he inclined and much as he had done theretofore. Two years after their marriage their only child—a daughter, Consuelo—was born, and a few years later Lord Madeley died. Inertia, even if productive of a contented mind, is not especially conducive to length of years.

His widow raised a costly marble monument over his grave, mourned for a decently prolonged interval, and re-emerged in the world; whilst Consuelo, in her own right Baroness Madeley, figured in her father’s place in the peerage books.

But there had been an incident shortly after the marriage which for some time had thrown a blight upon the new-found happiness of Lord and Lady Madeley.

Passing through London on their return from a honey-moon spent upon the Continent, Lady Madeley had visited on two occasions her unmarried sister at the small flat in Kensington which had been taken for her and furnished by Lord Madeley.

The second visit was the last time the sisters met. Two hours afterwards the maid found the dead body of her mistress stretched upon the bed in her room, stark nude, and on the table by the bedside an opened half-bottle of champagne and a glass from which some of the wine had been drunk.

At the inquest which was held, however, everything was made plain by the evidence of the maid, who described the arrival of Lady Madeley at the flat. She had prepared and taken in tea, and had then been sent to Bond Street to change the library books and to purchase stalls at one of the theatres, Lady Madeley having come to invite her sister to spend the evening with her husband and herself in that manner, and having postponed the purchase of the stalls until she had ascertained to which theatre her sister would prefer to go.

“The maid found the dead body of her mistress”

On her return from Bond Street, the maid had found her mistress alone—Lady Madeley having already left—and she described how her mistress had at once sent her out again to order a carriage from the livery stables, and to purchase flowers and gloves for that evening. When she returned a second time she had found the drawing-room empty, and the dead body of her mistress lying naked upon the bed.

In cross-examination the maid had denied having heard the least quarrelling between the sisters, and could not suggest any reason for her mistress having taken her own life.

Lady Madeley, obviously deeply affected by the tragic death of her sister, had corroborated the evidence given by the maid; and distinguished surgeons and analysts had deposed the death to have been due to prussic acid, and that the same poison could be traced in the wine remaining in the glass.

The coroner summed up, emphasising the evidence which had been given, and which, he remarked, pointed conclusively to suicide. Alluding to the fact that the body was unclothed, the coroner added that he thought the jury would find therein ample justification for coming to the conclusion that the mind of the deceased had become unhinged. With such plain evidence of fact before them he assumed the jury would have no difficulty in arriving at a verdict. If the evidence of the maid had stood alone, they might well have had reason for some hesitation and might have wished to probe further into the matter for a motive to account sufficiently for self-destruction. But the maid had been for some years in the employment of a family, members of which had testified to the exemplary character she bore, and her evidence was in every way corroborated not only by Lady Madeley, but also by witnesses from the library in Bond Street, the livery stables, and the other places to which she had been sent by her mistress. There could be, therefore, not the smallest suspicion attaching to the maid. As far as they were aware, the only other visitor Miss Alvarez had had that afternoon had been her sister, Lady Madeley. Now, the evidence of the maid had clearly established the fact that when she returned on the first occasion Lady Madeley had already gone, and the maid then saw her mistress alive and spoke to her. The only other alternative which remained was that during the second absence of the maid some unknown person had entered the flat and had administered the poison. That alternative could not be dismissed as an impossibility. Miss Alvarez was certainly alone in the flat at the time when this might have occurred, but there was much evidence which all tended to negative the likelihood of such an explanation being the correct one. For murder by an unknown person to be the explanation, motive, and a strong motive, became essential. Robbery was disproved by the fact that nothing whatever had been removed from the flat, not even the purse which was found lying on the table by the bedside; nor the money, some six or seven pounds, which still remained in the purse. That disposed of any hypothetical stranger calling, demanding money, being refused, and committing a murder. Besides this, there were no signs of any struggle. “Lady Madeley,” the coroner continued, “has told us of the intimate terms of affection upon which she and her sister had always lived; and Lady Madeley, out of her resulting knowledge, has assured us that there was nothing in her sister’s life, and no one amongst her sister’s acquaintances, that could provide or account for any sufficient motive for such a crime. Of course, it is common knowledge that Lady Madeley and Miss Alvarez were, until very recently, members of the theatrical profession; but the many letters to Miss Alvarez, which remained undestroyed in the flat, and which have all been carefully examined, the tone of those letters, and the evidence we have had from so many artistes of the high moral character both the sisters were known in the profession to have, altogether negative, and it gives me sincere pleasure even on this sad and melancholy occasion to say it, they emphatically negative any supposition that there was an illicit side to the life of Miss Alvarez to which we can turn in the hope of an explanation. There was no such side. Therefore, I think any idea of murder may be dismissed. Motive, of course, must always equally precede self-destruction, but there motive need not be that outside motive which must be looked for, and for which logical explanation must be found, where another person is concerned to compass the death of a victim. As I have already indicated, we have some actual evidence of a disordered mind, and such a mind would imagine and accept as real quite non-existent facts and weave those into a self-compelling motive. Every fact that has been given in evidence is perfectly compatible with suicide. There is no fact within our knowledge which conflicts with that supposition, there is no single detail that raises any suspicion to the contrary.”

Without hesitation the jury returned a verdict of “Suicide during temporary insanity,” a verdict with which the coroner remarked that he entirely concurred.

Ashley Tempest, then a romantic but rising young barrister, had been present at the inquest, holding a watching brief which had been sent him by the solicitors of Lord Madeley. He had been fascinated by the beauty of the dead woman whom several times he happened to have seen and greatly admired upon the stage. The little smile which still seemed to play upon the lips, the long dark eyelashes resting upon her cheeks, the profusion of long black hair, the delicately chiselled features bit themselves in upon his brain, and for days afterwards the face with its haunting beauty formed and reformed itself before his eyes, no matter upon what he might be engaged. The face threatened to become an obsession. The dead mask was eliminating his remembrance of the living woman, whereas he would have had it otherwise; and partly for that reason, but chiefly because it was the first cause célèbre in which he had been engaged, he purchased all the photographs he could obtain of the dead actress, and, sending them to a miniaturist, ordered a miniature to be painted from them, and hung it in his chambers.

As time passed slowly on, Tempest’s fascination decreased; but through all his busy life, amongst his multitudinous cases, weird and mysterious as so many of them were, he never forgot the strange story he had heard unfolded at the inquest upon the body of Dolores Alvarez. Many a night when, pushing books and papers on one side, he had lighted his final cigarette before turning into bed, the miniature would catch his eye, and, gazing again at the beautiful face, his thoughts would revert to the familiar story, and once again he would puzzle over the facts he knew, in a vain attempt to find a solution of the mystery. Why had she poisoned herself? As the succeeding years brought him fuller knowledge of men and of women, and of their motives, as case after case widened his experience, so time after time would he again place together the pieces of his puzzle, arranging and rearranging them as crime after crime passing through his hands revealed to him new motives, new characters, any one of which might prove to be analogous and afford him the clue he wanted. Suicide it seemed plain enough to him it must have been. He always remembered how closely he had followed at the time the reasoning of the coroner. He always felt convinced it was logical and conclusive, save in one little detail. Tempest had started his legal career with a certain fixed opinion concerning suicide which he never altered—never had reason to alter—an opinion that grew into conviction. Suicide of itself he held never was and never could be evidence of insanity. He maintained his conviction in argument on many occasions—at the Hardwicke—at the Union—in the courts. He carried his theory further, though not with equal certainty. But he laid it down as a proposition, yet to be disproved, that save in exceptional cases an insane person never commits suicide; and he confined those exceptional cases to cases of previously provable delusions of fact, which facts, if true, would have created a logical and sane motive sufficient to have resulted in the suicide of a sane individual. He maintained that the act of suicide was in itself a sane act, for which cause was required to be shown, and could always be shown if the facts in full were available.

Such was the theory upon which he always relied whenever in the course of his profession he was brought face to face with a necessity for the elucidation of a death. He never found his theory at fault. Tempted he often was at first sight to depart from it, but always in the end the case would prove but a renewed confirmation of its accuracy.

Yet what was the motive which had caused Dolores Alvarez to destroy herself? Why did she do it? Why? And ever would come that eternal Why? to which he could suggest no answer.

CHAPTER II

“Understand me once and for all, Evangeline, I absolutely forbid it.”

Head in the air the girl walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Lady Stableford, thoroughly upset by the discussion which had taken place, sank into a low easy-chair and put her handkerchief to her eyes. She had married her husband at an early age, and had passed up the social ladder with him, as a rapidly developing business had increasingly provided him with the wealth which had opened the doors of Parliament to the successful merchant, and finally brought him the baronetcy which he had been permitted to pay for, so that his political and party services might be rewarded therewith. No child had blessed their marriage; and as time drew on, and unlikelihood dissolved itself into impossibility, the old lady yearned the more for the child to mother and take care of which was denied to her. As parliamentary duties appropriated an increasing portion of her husband’s time, Lady Stableford, after much opposition, at length obtained Sir James’ consent to her adoption of a child. Finally she advertised under an assumed name, stipulating that the child must be a girl, must be completely and irrevocably transferred, and thereafter remain in ignorance of her real parentage: and she required that the child must be of gentle birth.

The advertisement was answered by a solicitor on behalf of a client. Lady Stableford attempted to insist on a substantiated disclosure of the parentage, and in consequence the negotiations terminated with the refusal of the information and the consequent withdrawal of Lady Stableford’s offer of adoption. Within a week Lady Stableford, returning to the drawing-room after a solitary dinner, found that during her absence from the room, a child, plainly only a few days old, had been left upon the sofa. The flapping of the blind drew her attention to the still open French window, the obvious means by which access to the room had been obtained. At once summoning assistance, Lady Stableford had her park and gardens carefully searched, but without results. For some time the child slept, and Lady Stableford was puzzled what course to adopt. She objected to an unknown child being thrust upon her in that way and without her consent; but the tiny atom of humanity woke with a plaintive cry, and Lady Stableford’s decision was made at once. All the motherliness of her nature welled up, and from that moment she regarded the child as her own and treated it precisely as if it had been.

Assuming, rightly or wrongly, she never could determine, that this must be the child concerning which she had been in communication, she again wrote to the solicitor. After an interval the letter was returned to her from the Dead Letter Office, marked “gone; address unknown.” An appeal to her own solicitors to help her at once revealed the fact that there was no solicitor of the name upon the roll.

Carefully Lady Stableford had examined the clothing the child had worn and the shawl in which it had been wrapped. Everything was new and of good quality, and every article was scrupulously clean; but there was no tell-tale coronet upon the clothing to suggest romance, nothing by which identity could be traced. Even the clever brains of her solicitors could suggest no steps she might take to put an end to her doubts. Of birth-marks the child had none.

The identity, as Lady Stableford, of the lady who had advertised the offer of adoption she knew of course had been disclosed only to the supposititious solicitor with whom her own advisers had been in correspondence. There could be little if any doubt the child was the same; but that gave her no further knowledge than the bare fact, if her supposition were correct, that the baby girl for whom she had now accepted the responsibility was born on the 18th of August, 1881. From what her doctor could tell her there could be no doubt that if that were not actually the child’s birthday, her birth must have occurred within the margin of a day or two on either side of it.

The child, as she grew up, was not a lovable child; and long before the fair-haired baby had reached that stage of lankiness, when, a few days after they were new, her frocks always seemed to shrink above her knees, emphasising the spindle legs which needed so little of that emphasis, the girl was a dark-haired little fury, with a perfectly ungovernable temper.

Increasing years, and the chronic irritability of a constant invalid, had all helped to diminish the patience of Lady Stableford; and a child of the temper and temperament of the wayward Evangeline needs an endless patience in her bringing up, which patience Lady Stableford had ceased to possess. The result was that as time went on the child was left more and more under the care and control of servants, none too wisely chosen, and such affection as Lady Stableford had originally had for the lonesome little baby had degenerated into the loveless duty to the child whose future she had taken into her own hands.

Her schooldays over, Evangeline came back to her home—a tall, aristocratic-looking beauty; and, in the hope of companionship, Lady Stableford turned again to the girl. But it was then too late. Of duty the girl knew nothing, and the keen memory of her youthful mind matched against any present show of affection which was made to her, the vivid recollections of the scoldings and punishments of her nursery days. The two women were out of sympathy. The old lady ceased her efforts, the girl never attempted to make any.

The pair lived together in the same house. The girl’s life was one constant rebellion against the irritable, irritated, and irritating attempts at her own control made by the elder woman.

Bored to extinction by the life she was apparently expected to lead, exasperated by the querulous exactions of the irritable old lady, driven inexorably by the exuberance of youth and the nervous restlessness of her own excitable temperament, Evangeline had made up her mind that it was a necessity to her that she should find occupation in a working career. The girl was probably right, but it by no means followed that her choice had been made in the right direction. That choice had fallen upon the stage—had been expressed to Lady Stableford—and the interview had terminated with an emphatic refusal of consent and an emphatic forbidding of further thoughts in that direction.

Sir James, now long since deceased, had been a stalwart among Nonconformists. Lady Stableford, always despising in her heart the social position of Nonconformity, had nevertheless lacked the moral courage to adopt a change of religious persuasion, and, until increasing years relieved her from the necessity of the great mental effort involved in the framing of plausible excuses for absence, continued, Sunday by Sunday, to “sit under” the long succession of electro-plated divines who held forth in the building which her husband had built, endowed, and opened. To say that Lady Stableford was religious would not be accurate, because all that a lifetime of Nonconformity had endowed her with was a restriction of her mental aspect to the intolerant narrowness of the bigoted orthodoxy of her own particular brand. Hatred of the theatre, which she regarded as a forcing house of sin, was one of those fixed ideas she had absorbed and accepted. Degradation in this world and damnation in the next she believed to be the foreordained and inevitably resulting consequence of any association with things theatrical.

To the inherent inclination of Evangeline towards a theatrical career was now added not only the attraction of the forbidden thing, but also the fascination of that which has been declared to be wicked. To this composite and powerful temptation the girl succumbed. The thing was inevitable—probably would have happened in any case; the happening was in all likelihood no more than precipitated by Lady Stableford’s attitude and prohibition. But these affected the relations of the two when the separation came, and caused the elder woman many a long month of pain and unhappiness, of stubborn anger, which step by step had mellowed into regret, forgiveness, and then into comprehension and keen remorse. Drilled by her loneliness the old lady at last swallowed her pride and wrote asking the girl to come back to her.

Lady Stableford had waited too long. There had been occasions, many and oft indeed, when Evangeline, cowed by the pitiful hardships in the poverty-stricken existence of the provincial travelling company in which she was striving to master her profession, would have jumped at the invitation. There had even once or twice come times when, heartbroken by illness, by lack of employment, and utter weariness of spirit, the girl’s pride had been broken, and she had penned piteous appeals to be allowed to return home; but the letters had never been sent, and at last had come success. The girl’s reviving spirit soaked up like a sponge the adulation that success brought in its train, and her parched soul again expanded into the proud, high-spirited temperament which had been her inheritance. But hardship bravely borne had chastened her, taught her forbearance and charity of thought and had given her some control of her hot temper.

The invitation when it reached her was not refused, but was accepted only for a visit. A tentative suggestion to settle a suitable income, and in return that Evangeline should leave the stage, was gently but firmly put on one side, and Lady Stableford perforce had to content herself with the consent of the girl to make her old home her headquarters, living there whenever her profession did not require her presence elsewhere, and with the acceptance of a liberal allowance. Once again the old lady altered her will, and once more the name of Evangeline Stableford stood as chief beneficiary and residuary legatee.

CHAPTER III

From time to time in the ever-recurring sequence of murders of which the details are given to the world by a vigilant and busy Press, one will be found which stands out and grips the public attention. Sometimes it is the gruesome detail of the crime which awakens the interest of the world at large. More often it is the mystery which envelopes its circumstance and stands between the general curiosity and the satisfaction thereof by a full explanation of the motive. But the greatest excitement always occurs when the victim of the crime happens to be an individual already, on other grounds, well known to the public and more or less a celebrity. Such a murder occurred a few days before Easter, in the year 1902. Sir John Rellingham, a well-known solicitor—one of the most prominent men in his profession—stayed on late at his offices one afternoon, busily engaged in writing. One by one his junior partners and managing clerks had drifted away, and, after the office clock had indicated the hour of six, Sir John and his confidential secretary were the only ones who remained in the building. The solicitor rang his bell, and his secretary presented himself.

“There’s no need for you to stay any longer, Smith. Don’t wait for me. I shall be busy for some time.”

“I’ve just been working on those Trentbeck leases, and I may as well finish them. I’m really in no hurry to go, sir.”

“Oh, those can wait, Smith. I’d rather you went. Just lock up everything before you go.”

“Sir John was found still seated at his writing-table, but dead”

“Very well, Sir John,” had been the answer; and the man, in obedience to the directions given him, had put books and papers away, locked up the safe, and gone. Of what took place afterwards no one had any knowledge. On the following day Sir John was found still seated at his writing-table, but dead: shot through the temple.

No weapon of any kind was found in the room, and the appearance of the wound left no doubt that the shot must have been fired from only a short distance. That it was murder there could be no doubt. Suicide was perfectly impossible.

Before the coroner’s jury had brought in their verdict of “Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown,” the whole of the public Press was seething with excitement. The firm of Rellingham, Baxter, Marston & Moorhouse stood at the head of the profession. It had behind it more than a century of untarnished and honourable repute; half the peerage employed the firm in those parts of their legal necessities which were of a reputable character, and the name of one or other of the partners in the firm was to be found as a trustee in a very large proportion of the great family settlements which were in operation. The capital for which the firm somehow or other stood in the relation of trustee ran into many millions. But the public had become suspicious of solicitor trustees, and every one waited for the impending crash to which the mysterious death of Sir John appeared to be the usual prelude. Men whispered, “How much will they break for?” But the crash never came. An immediate and searching audit, required at once by the surviving partners, disclosed the facts that there was not a penny missing, not a single suspicious circumstance in the affairs of the firm. Its repute was as untarnished, its integrity as unchallengable as had been the case throughout the long history of the firm; and the public really began to believe in the truth of the verdict at the inquest. The murder, of course, engaged the keenest attention of the police; but as the weeks flew by without producing any explanation of the mystery, the partners of Sir John commenced to take steps of their own. Sir John, they knew, was a widower, without children, and with few relatives, but many friends. Carefully and methodically his partners, who were his executors, examined and scrutinised every paper left by Sir John both at his house and at his office. Everything was perfectly open, straightforward, and free from any trace of suspicion upon which a clue could be founded. Everything was ordinary, humdrum, and usual, with one exception.

This one exception was a clause in Sir John’s will, and this clause ran as follows:—

“I give and bequeath, free of all charges and legacy duty, the sum of £20,000 to my partners, Arthur Baxter, Charles Marston, and Edward Moorhouse, upon trust, to be applied by them to and for the purposes which I have taken steps to sufficiently indicate to them, such trust to be executed according to their honour and integrity, of which I am well satisfied, and without the interference, check, or control of any person or persons whomsoever; and I direct that if at any time, in the absolute exercise of their unfettered discretion, they or the survivors or survivor of them shall at any time decide that the further existence of the trust which I have hereby constituted and created has become impossible, then and forthwith the said trust shall immediately cease and determine, and my said partners or the then survivors or survivor of them shall stand possessed in their or his own right and for their or his own use and benefit of the capital moneys of the said trust, and shall not be required by anybody to render accounts or explanations of their or his dealings with the trust or of their or his action or actions in regard to it. And I further direct that if at any time this trust or the capital moneys of this trust shall be or shall become the subject matter of litigation through the interference or intervention of any party or parties other than my said partners, or the survivors or survivor of them, then and forthwith and from the commencement of such litigation the said trust shall cease and determine, and the capital sums of the said trust shall be distributed and applied in the form and manner above provided.”

In due course of time the will of Sir John Rellingham was proved, and, as was only to be expected, this curious clause was reprinted in the Press pretty widely. The mystery of Sir John’s murder had remained unsolved, and was passing into the oblivion of public forgetfulness, when curiosity was again aroused by the strange wording of the clause in Sir John’s will. All other clues had failed. Here was the chance of a clue. The sensational Press thundered for a full revelation of this secret trust, arguing speciously that the mystery of Sir John’s death was a matter of public concern, and private interests must bow to public necessities. The partners met the demand by a point-blank refusal to disclose any information whatever. As one of them—Arthur Baxter—said to an inquisitive reporter: “The public know of the clause in the will—the law has compelled us to disclose it; but if we could have avoided doing so, we should not have made even that much public. It would have been possible, by making other arrangements for Sir John, to have obviated even that disclosure; but you can take it from me that a secret trust in a will is not an uncommon occurrence. If Sir John had not been murdered, the clause would never have attracted any attention. But Sir John was a clever lawyer, and he knew perfectly well, when he drew that clause, that public curiosity as to its meaning need not be satisfied, and no doubt he preferred to run the risk of that curiosity rather than constitute the trust in his own lifetime. So you can tell your editor, with my compliments and the compliments of the firm and my partners individually and collectively, that we will see him and his paper and all of the rest of the Press a good deal further on its way to an undesirable place before we give one word of explanation of that clause.”

It was an unwise remark to have made. Mr. Baxter, a steady-going solicitor, in the security of his knowledge of the law, scoffed at the possibility of interference. He had no experience of the inquisitive prying of a sensational evening paper. The latter, irritated by the contempt of the solicitor, laid itself out to teach him a due and proper respect for the power of the Press. Day after day it returned to the attack, demanding, in the interests of justice, a full disclosure. So reiterated became the demand, so irritating to the public curiosity was the blank non possumus of the solicitors, that at last the inevitable happened and the public came to believe (a perfectly unwarranted hypothesis) that in the details of the trust which had been created lay the explanation of the murder, and the partners and executors were publicly hounded into the position of accomplices in the crime, on the assumption that by keeping the trust secret they were assisting the culprit to evade the claims of justice. It is not difficult for an energetic newspaper to create such an impression, and the obstinate silence of the surviving partners of Sir John fanned the flame of public curiosity. So rooted did this conviction become that at last it took hold of Scotland Yard. Once a settled conviction obtains a footing in that quarter, it usually sticks, and the Home Office took a hand in the game and asked for an assurance from the firm that the secret trust had no connection with the murder.

The firm replied that they were unable to give that or any other assurance.

A lengthy correspondence followed, which culminated in a personal letter from the Home Secretary, egged on by Scotland Yard, asking the partners of the firm to disclose in confidence the terms and purposes of the secret trust, and conveying concurrently an intimation that the disclosure could be made personally to the Home Secretary without witnesses, and his personal assurance that, no matter what the trust might be, no action against any member of the firm should be based upon any such disclosure.

The letter was misunderstood. The promise of the indemnity was made bona fide. The Home Secretary was perfectly cognisant that many secret trusts are illegal or made for illegal objects, and his only desire was to let the firm know that he personally would respect that trust and their confidence, if they would show him that this particular trust had nothing to do with the murder.

Knowing the high reputation the firm deservedly enjoyed, the partners were perfectly furious at the bare suggestion that they might be parties to either illegal or dishonest actions, and the reply to the Home Secretary was brief and to the point.

“Sir,—On behalf of myself and the other surviving partners of this firm, I beg to state that we resent the tone and contents and the insinuations of your letter. We point-blank decline to supply you with any information whatsoever.—I am, sir, your obedient servant, (Arthur Baxter) for Rellingham, Baxter, Marston & Moorhouse.”

The Home Secretary replied in another personal letter, regretting that his letter had been misunderstood, and stating that he felt assured the letter of Mr. Baxter had been written in momentary irritation, and that the firm, upon reconsideration, would see that the most satisfactory course to pursue would be a compliance with his suggestion. The answer to the second letter was still briefer than had been the former.

“Sir,—You can go to the devil or wherever else you feel inclined.—Yours faithfully, Arthur Baxter.”

And the Home Secretary was on the horns of a dilemma. Afraid to litigate and thus end the trust—for the terms of the will were before him—worried by Scotland Yard to compel a revelation, which the determined opposition he was meeting seemed only to intensify the apparent necessity of—he nevertheless clearly saw there was another possibility. Were the partners in the firm with diabolical cunning simply doing all they knew to compel him to litigate, and by so doing convey to them the actual property in the capital moneys of the trust, free from any legal or moral liability? And with the ingrained suspicion of the Government official he decided this must be the true explanation.

Finally, on an ex parte motion, he obtained an injunction pending proceedings, restraining the trustees from taking any steps in regard to the dissolution and realisation of the trust. Having done this he served notice upon them of his intention to apply for a rule requiring them to show cause why the trust should not be disclosed and the capital moneys paid into court.

And then Mr. Baxter went and consulted Ashley Tempest.

“It isn’t often you come here on business, Baxter,” said the barrister, as he rose to greet his caller.

“No; our work isn’t often in your line. I think it’s nearly fifty years since we litigated a criminal case, and we don’t often litigate on the King’s Bench side either. To be perfectly frank with you, Tempest, I’ve come here as much for your advice as a man of the world as a barrister.”

“There are a good many men better qualified to give that kind of counsel than I am.”

“Possibly, but they haven’t your knowledge of criminal law. Do you know anything about trusts, Tempest?”

“A bit—I daresay as much as most of the men on our side of the hedge. But if it’s a trust, why don’t you go to Overhill?”

“I’m going on to him presently—when I’ve heard what you’ve got to say. But these chancery men always seem to me to be machines without humanity. To be candid, my partners and I want to know exactly where we stand over this infernal secret trust which old Sir John strapped on our shoulders. I suppose you’ve heard about it?”

“I’ve seen what the newspapers have had to say, and I’ve heard the usual gossip that’s gone on. What’s the trouble? But are you wise in coming to me? Suppose it is—of course I don’t know—suppose it is mixed up with Sir John’s murder, and the defence brief were to come along to me, it might prove very inconvenient to you?”

“I don’t think so. My partners and I talked it over, on the supposition that in such a case you would get the brief, and I have come to you, at the express wish of the three of us. You see, we don’t know yet what the real objects of this secret trust are.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Just what I say, Tempest. The trust, as it appears from the clause of the will, is a holy terror of a mystery; but when you come to read our instructions you’ll find that it’s twenty times as much a mystery. Here, read this!” and the solicitor passed across a letter.

“To Arthur Baxter, Charles Marston, Edward Moorhouse, my partners and friends.

“Forgive me if I remind you that your partnerships in the firm were not purchased in cash, but were given to you by myself in testimony of my high appreciation of your several abilities, of your worth, your integrity, and discretion. I have always had and still retain my high opinion of you all. As you will be aware, from my will, my remaining half share in the proprietorship of the firm I have bequeathed equally amongst you, and I have in my will also bequeathed to you jointly the sum of £20,000 upon trust. May I rest assured you will repay the obligations I remind you of, by accepting the trouble this trust may entail? The object of the trust is to pay the annual income arising from the capital moneys of the trust to the partners in the firm for the time being, as an annual payment for their services in preserving that capital intact. Whatever changes may take place in the firm after my death at any time during the continuance of the trust, I desire that the necessary steps shall be taken for its proper preservation. A certain eventuality may at some time arise, for which I wish to provide, should it ever happen. But I cannot provide for it, save by a disclosure which would amount to a breach of honour, a breach of confidence, and a breach of trust. That eventuality may never arise. Writing calmly and deliberately I say, for your guidance, that it is probable that it never will arise; but if it ever does, then certain information is necessary to enable you to act justly and as I desire. That information is contained in the sealed packet which you will find herewith; but, if you have any gratitude to my memory, then I solemnly charge you to respect my wishes that that packet shall remain sealed and its contents unexamined until events compel this by the occurrence of the eventuality for which I am providing. I cannot indicate what that eventuality will be, or in what manner it will arise, and I leave the point entirely to your discretion to determine whether it has arrived or not. I say only, that if it does you will at once recognise it. It will be plainly apparent beyond doubt that it has arisen, and I warn you that any eventuality as to which you have doubt cannot be the one I am providing for. If at the end of a hundred years, from the 18th August 1881, no such eventuality has arisen, it will by then be impossible for it ever to occur, and I then desire that this packet shall be destroyed unopened. The commencement of any litigation which may involve the disclosure of the information in the packet is to be held to be the termination of the trust, and I desire this my wish to be regarded as a vital part of the trust, and I leave it as a sacred charge upon you all that the packet shall be immediately destroyed. Offering you my gratitude, not only for your past devotion to the firm, but also for the personal friendship of yourselves, which it has been my privilege to enjoy.—I remain, your affectionate partner, John Rellingham.”

“You are right about the mystery, Baxter.”

“Yes. I wonder if any such trust has ever been created before!”

“I doubt it. Still, it’s all pretty plain sailing. You three are just to draw the income till some overpowering circumstance occurs which advertises itself as the occasion Sir John refers to.”

“I haven’t told you quite all, Tempest. The Home Secretary has commenced litigation, and he has also obtained an ex parte injunction, restraining our firm from destroying any documents or dealing with the trust, pending an order of the court.”

“Then by the terms of the will the trust is already at an end, and you rake in and divide the capital. But it’s rather awkward about the documents. By the terms of the trust they must at once be destroyed, and yet you say the Crown have got an injunction to prevent you. What have you done?”

“What should you have done, Tempest?”

The barrister laughed. “Are you here for a professional opinion?”

“Well, suppose you give me that to begin with?”

“Then I’m bound to tell you you must obey the order of the court, which overrides the terms of the trust, and I’m bound to advise you that disobedience would be flagrant contempt of court, for which the penalty is imprisonment until the contempt is purged. Still, all that’s ancient history to you and your firm. You didn’t come here, I’ll warrant, just for me to tell you that much.”

“No, Tempest, I didn’t.”

The two men looked at each other, and gradually a smile formed itself on each face.

“And I’m pretty certain,” said the barrister, “you did not come here for me to tell you what to do. What have you done?”

“Tempest—frankly, now—tell me what you think we ought to have done. I’ve told you our legal difficulty; but there’s the other one, and that’s why I came to you. Are these documents likely to be a clue to the murder? If so, ought we to disclose them? You are an adept at murders—or rather at elucidating them. What do you think?”

“What a situation!”

The barrister rose to his feet and lit a cigarette as he began to pace his room, backwards and forwards along the well-marked path across his carpet. The solicitor sat and watched him—watched his impassive face—watched the quick, nervous fingers as they clicked the rings upon them backwards and forwards—watched the cigarette smoked to the end and thrown away as another was lighted from it. At last the barrister came to a pause in front of his fireplace.

“Baxter, the murder has proved an insoluble mystery, depending upon an unknown motive. You know everything about Sir John’s affairs, except what those papers may disclose. You cannot find a basis for a motive in what you know. The odds are the clue is hidden in those papers.”

“I agree with you. I should say that is probable.”

“But no man contemplates his own murder without taking steps to avert it, if that be possible. Sir John took no steps at all. No man would sit down to be murdered, and content himself with providing evidence to catch his murderer afterwards. Sir John never created the trust for that purpose. You can rest assured this is not the eventuality to provide for which that trust was created. It exists for some widely different purpose. And there’s another thing, Baxter. Sir John says a disclosure would be a breach of faith. That would involve a third person. It is that third person on whose behalf Sir John has gone to all that trouble. It wasn’t himself he was bothering about. So long as he was alive he could have dealt with the thing himself, or he might have been waiting for the knowledge that it never would arise. That was why he did not constitute the trust during his own lifetime, but preferred rather to run the risk of public curiosity about the clause in his will.”

“What should you have done, Tempest?”

“I should have destroyed the papers, I think; but there is one awful risk. Suppose they do contain the clue to the murder, and through the lack of that clue an innocent person gets hanged?”

“Well, as a matter of fact we burnt them yesterday.”

“Then you elected to run that risk?”

“Tempest, it isn’t fair to a lawyer to tell him only half the tale. Wrapped round the papers was another slip. As nearly as I remember, the words written on it were as follows:—

“‘This paper is to be burnt the moment it has been read. I desire that no memorandum of it shall ever be put into writing. If litigation is threatened, this packet is to be burned immediately. A duplicate set of the papers is deposited in the name of the firm at the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit. The existence of this duplicate set is not to be disclosed. I leave it to the honour and integrity of my partners that if under litigation the trust ceases to exist, it shall at the earliest safe opportunity be again reconstituted.’”

“That does away with the risk I spoke of. You were certainly right to destroy the papers.”

“In spite of the court?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m sure of it. The old boy intended you to stand the racket. I should fancy he anticipated it, though it’s more likely he expected litigation from the heir-at-law than the Crown.”

“That is the conclusion my partners and I came to. But, Tempest, ought we to disclose the other simply to catch the murderer?”

“No, I think not. Sir John is dead. You can’t bring him to life again. All you can do is to regard his wishes. I bet he’d prefer that to the stringing up of some poor devil.”

When the motion came on in court the trust was upheld. As constituted under the will it had been perfectly valid; but now under the terms of the will the litigation had put an end to it, and the court ruled that the capital moneys had now vested in the surviving partners for their own benefit.

“Come and dine with all of us to-night, Tempest,” said one of the partners, as they left the law courts after hearing judgment given. “We’re in a deuce of a quandary!”

The invitation was accepted, and after dinner the four men sat over the walnuts and the wine in the sumptuously furnished bachelor chambers of Arthur Baxter.

“You see, Tempest,” said the host, “the secret trust is already reconstituted. We did it this afternoon. We can’t afford to run the risk of one of us dying and his executors claiming any proprietorship in the money. So the position now is exactly as it was when the will was first proved. But now that the court has declared the money to belong to us personally, the state of affairs isn’t particularly pleasant, because that infernal evening rag is bound to adopt the standpoint that by preventing the elucidation of the murder we have advantaged our own pockets, and that we took the line we did for that reason.”

“Is that as far as you’ve got, Baxter?”

“Yes, but what do you mean?”

“My dear man, don’t you see what the logical consequence is? Don’t any of you see it?”

The three solicitors looked at each other in surprise, and then glanced back at Tempest, as his grave face filled with concern, and they looked the question to him which they waited for the barrister to answer.

“Moorhouse, I saw you at Epsom, so I suppose you bet? Well, I’ll lay you a pound to a penny that unless the real murderer of Sir John is discovered pretty quickly, one or other of you three, if not all of you, will be accused of the murder—very likely arrested for it, if they can find the semblance of any circumstantial evidence. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll look pretty carefully to your alibis on the evening and night Sir John was murdered.”

“You cannot mean that seriously, Tempest?”

“I do mean it, and I’m perfectly serious. You three men are not in an enviable position.”

As Tempest spoke he looked across the table to where Marston was sitting. His face had gone as white as a sheet, and his fingers were trembling as mechanically he eased the collar at his throat.

“What’s the matter, Marston?” said one of his partners.

“It’s three months ago. I’ve no more idea than the man in the moon what I was doing that evening.”

“Keep an engagement book?” asked Tempest.

“No—not private things. Just stick the cards up on the mantelpiece till the shows are over and then pitch ’em away.”

“Nor a diary?”

“No. Never did such a thing.”

“Would your wife know?”

“Haven’t got a wife.”

“Do you think your servants would be likely to?”

“No. What can I do, Tempest?”

“Well, praying seems to be about all that’s left.”

“Why do you think we are any of us likely to be accused?”

“Simply because you must have motive for a murder. No one knows or can suggest the shadow of a motive in regard to Sir John. You three who knew him intimately and all his private affairs know of nothing that even hints at a motive. You have gone through all his papers since his death, and you can find nothing there to give you a clue. Nobody, as far as you know, stood to profit by Sir John’s death except——”

“Except whom?”

“Except yourselves. Now, remember the police know less than you do, so they can guess at no motive, save the obvious one I have pointed out to you—that halfpenny rag has hounded Scotland Yard on till they got the Home Office to interfere about the trust. They will go on now—mark my words—on the basis that the line you three took was dictated by your desire to bring the trust to an end. They will point out how you all stood to benefit by Sir John’s death. They will assume—no matter how much you may deny it—that being his partners you three were aware beforehand both of the terms of the will and of the trust. Don’t forget what the terms of the will were—‘to be applied by them to and for the purposes which I have taken steps to sufficiently indicate to them’—and don’t forget he divides his share of the partnership with you. Just think what the obvious meaning of that is—what nine men out of ten would assume to be the meaning——”

“What do you say that is, Tempest?”

“Simply that he had already told you. Nobody would, by the wildest guess, be likely to imagine the existence of such a letter as he left. And even the letter you can’t in honour disclose till it becomes a matter of life and death.”

“It doesn’t seem to be very far off being that even now.”

“There’s another thing you fellows have overlooked. That shot was obviously fired inside the room. There was nobody in the offices when Smith left, except Sir John. How many keys are there?”

“We’ve each got one. Smith has one and the cleaner has one. The clerks come whilst she is there. She does their rooms first and then does ours afterwards. They arrive before she has finished.”

“Had Sir John a key?”

“Yes. We found it on his bunch in his pocket after he was dead.”

“Then his key wasn’t used. Now, Smith locked the door when he left. It’s a spring latch—that came out at the inquest. So did Smith’s alibi that evening. So did the old woman’s. That only leaves the three keys you chaps have. There’s no difficulty about getting out afterwards—it’s the getting in that matters.”

“God! Tempest, you are building up a case against us.”

“Well, there’s only one loophole; and that’s the possibility that Sir John himself opened the door to his murderer. I really think that’s the true explanation, because he had previously told Smith he wished him to go. I’m pretty certain myself that Sir John was expecting somebody whom he wished to see without the visit being known. But the police will try the other tack first, and they will try and fix the responsibility on one or all of you three. Don’t let me frighten you too soon. They couldn’t get a conviction on what we or they know at present; but once, by accident or by research, they can get any fact that seems to corroborate the theory, then the position is changed. You can rest assured they are looking for such a fact already. That’s what I meant in warning you about your alibis.”

“Well, mine’s good enough,” said Baxter. “I was at the club.”

“What time did you go there?”

“About eight, and I stayed playing cards till nearly midnight.”

“Baxter, don’t forget Smith left Sir John soon after six. His dead body wasn’t found till next morning. You’ve got to account for the time from six to eight and after midnight. Then Marston has absolutely forgotten. How about you, Moorhouse?”

“Oh, I was at the theatre.”

“That’s only another partial one, then. Why on earth don’t you people try to find out who did murder the man and not wait till you are in sight of the rope yourselves before you start?”

“But what can we do?”

“You can offer a reward for one thing. You can engage Dennis Yardley, the detective, for another.”

“Tempest, can we make it worth your while for you to take a hand in it?”

“No. I’m not keen at playing detective professionally. It’s not my profession. But I don’t mind helping Yardley, as I’ve done in other cases, if that’s what you want.”

“Will you take a retainer from us?”

“What do you mean?”

“In case any of us are accused.”

“Oh, certainly. Fix it up with my clerk in the morning. Book it as in re Rellingham. Now, don’t do anything to draw suspicion upon yourselves, but do your utmost to account for how you all spent that particular night. Of course, I may be quite wrong in what I’ve said. I hope I am, but I can’t help seeing the risk.”

The four men separated, each going his lonely way home. But justification of all Tempest had said was to follow quickly. Step by step, on the very lines the barrister had indicated, the case was argued the following day in a leader in the same paper that had previously taken up the matter, and the article wound up with a definite demand for the arrest and trial of the three surviving partners in the firm.

That a conviction could be obtained was a proposition which few cared to admit; but, on the other hand, the bulk of the public were quite willing to commit themselves to the ready admission that “there might be something in it after all.” And, day by day, as the suspicion grew, the position of the three solicitors became almost unbearable. They felt themselves slowly but only too certainly drifting into the position of social lepers. And there was nothing more that they could do. They thought of libel, and the thing went to Lake Rodgers, K. C., for an opinion. His opinion was that the article had been so carefully written that it contained no libel, and the opinion ended with the friendly hint that a failure to obtain a verdict would probably be more damaging under the circumstances than inaction.

CHAPTER IV

The summer of 1902 slowly slipped away. Twenty years had now passed since Ashley Tempest had hung up the miniature of the dead Dolores in his chambers—to him twenty busy and eventful years. He was by now one of the leading members of his profession—the busiest junior at the bar. The courts had risen for the vacation which Tempest was to spend with the Shifnals. Securing his seat in the train at Euston, he had bought the evening papers and pitched them in a heap in the corner he had appropriated, and after doing so was standing in the fresh air until the last moment, smoking one of his perpetual cigarettes.

As the doors were being noisily slammed along the train, he jumped in and soon was smoothly gliding towards his destination. He heaved a sigh of relief, for with the start from London he felt his holiday had begun, and he could put the worries of his work behind him. Opening a copy of the Globe his attention was caught by the leaded capitals announcing a “Sensational Tragedy.” The report that followed was not very lengthy:

“A gruesome discovery has been made this afternoon at the Charing Cross Hotel. A chambermaid, on entering one of the bedrooms in the annexe which had not been let and which was supposed to be unoccupied, was horror-struck to find lying upon the bed the dead and nude body of a young woman. On the table by the bedside was an opened half-bottle of champagne and a glass, evidently that from which the wine had been drunk. We are informed that the victim of this tragedy, the facts of which plainly point to suicide, was of surpassing beauty, but is unknown in the hotel. No one can identify the body, and all the staff of the hotel emphatically declare the lady was not registered there as a visitor. Life had only been extinct for a short time, as the body, when found, was still warm.”

Tempest read the account with amazement, for in every detail it reproduced the story which was so deeply engraved on his memory. Here was what he had been waiting for for twenty years—a case of suicide, with a nude body. Save in cases of drowning, that one detail had differentiated the case of Dolores Alvarez from all others he had ever heard of, and it had always puzzled him. He had waited and waited for a similar case, hoping that by some chance the motive or some other circumstance might give him the clue to an answer to the perpetual Why? which was ever in his mind as often as his eyes turned to the miniature over his mantelpiece. He had waited in vain, until here at last was what he had looked for, and that a more exact reproduction of the former story than his wildest dreams had ever led him to imagine could possibly occur. He put the paper down, and as the train ran into Willesden his mind was made up. Calling a porter to look after his luggage he wired to Lady Shifnal, postponing his visit, and returned to town by the underground. Leaving the train at Westminster Station he walked into Scotland Yard and asked for Inspector Parkyns.

“Parkyns,” he said, “I want you to do me a favour.”

“Delighted to, if I can, Mr. Tempest.”

“You’ve seen the account of this suicide at the Charing Cross Hotel?”

“Yes. As it happens, the case is in my hands.”

“That’s lucky. I want you to take me and let me see the room and the body without making any fuss about it. Can you do it?”

“Well, perhaps it can be managed. Why are you so keen about it, sir? You are not briefed by anybody yet, are you, sir?”

“No, Parkyns. Honest injun—I’m not. It’s purely curiosity. Look here, inspector! Do you remember the suicide of the actress Dolores Alvarez—the sister of Lady Madeley, you know—about twenty years ago?”

“Of course I do. I was in that as well; but I’d really forgotten all about it.”

“I was in that case too, Parkyns. I had a watching brief at the inquest from Lord Madeley’s solicitor, and ever since then that case has stuck in my mind, because I never could see why she committed suicide, and I want to know why. I don’t know whether you have noticed, now; but in this case to-day, saving locale, you get every single detail of that other case duplicated in this one. Of course, coincidences do occur in the world. I don’t suppose or suggest there is any connection between the two; but the details are so alike, that if this one can be explained it may give me a hint I can build on, and so find an explanation of the other.”

“I see what you mean, sir. Can you come along now, at once?”

“Yes, if that will suit you: any time you like.”

“We’d better go at once, as they will be removing the body to the mortuary in an hour or two.”

Together the two men walked to the Charing Cross Hotel, and Parkyns led the way to the bedroom, outside of which a constable was stationed.

“Has anyone been in since I left?”

“No, sir. The door hasn’t been opened,” answered the policeman.

“Well, then, Mr. Tempest, you’ll find everything exactly as I left it, and I left it exactly as I found it, except that we got a sheet to cover the body with. The hotel people say nothing was touched after the body was found before I got here, and they sent for me at once. Just as I arrived, the doctor came, and he just made certain that life was extinct, and told me to send the glass and the bottle to the analyst, and get the body removed to the mortuary, and I went away to make arrangements. The people here are positive she was not staying as a guest in the hotel, and none of them recognise the lady. Now, Mr. Tempest, you know as much as I do. Would you like to look at the body, sir?”

“Yes, I want to.”

The inspector turned down the sheet, and Tempest stared in astonishment. Line for line, feature for feature, the face was that of Dolores Alvarez, as he remembered seeing her. The little smile upon the lips, the long dark eyelashes resting upon the cheek, the profusion of long black hair lying loose upon the pillow, the same delicately aristocratic features were here again, exactly reproduced. Were it not that for twenty years the one woman had been dead, and lying buried in her grave, Tempest would have sworn it was the same body he had seen once before, under circumstances so similar. The likeness and identity were uncanny, and the barrister knew it was no freak of his imagination, for was not the face of Dolores hanging over his mantelshelf, where he had looked at it that morning?

“What’s the matter, sir?”

“Parkyns, you say you were in the Alvarez case?”

“I was, sir; but, as I told you, I’d forgotten it.”

“And you haven’t noticed the likeness?”

“Line for line, feature for feature, the face was that of Dolores Alvarez”

“I never saw the body of Miss Alvarez.”

“Well, I did see her, and I remember her face. I’ve got a miniature of her hanging in my chambers, so I know it well. Now, you can take it from me, inspector, that the two faces are so similar that they might be the same woman. If we didn’t know the one was dead, and had been buried twenty years ago, I would have taken my oath they were the same. The likeness is as strong as that. I never saw such a likeness in my life. Talk about doubles, it’s an absolute reincarnation.”

The inspector was silent as Tempest, leaning on the foot of the bed, gazed fascinated at the face of the dead woman.

“How are you going to identify her? You’ll have to try.”

“I’m going to have the body photographed here, before it is moved, and then we shall take a cast of the face, and thoroughly examine the body. That’s all that we can do, as far as I can see. We shall examine the teeth, and I think we shall try and get finger-prints; but she hardly looks as if her finger-prints are likely to be in our collection.”

“No. There’s nothing of the criminal in that face. Was she married?”

“The doctor says not, and there is no mark of any wedding-ring.”

“What colour are her eyes?”

“Very dark blue.”

“Ah, that’s funny again! So were the eyes of Miss Alvarez, and she was a Spaniard. When’s the inquest?”

“To-morrow, at eleven.”

“I shall be there. What’s the poison?”

“Prussic acid, so the doctor says. He said he could plainly smell it in her mouth when he came.”

Tempest moved to the side of the bed and leant over the face. The faint odour of almonds was still perceptible.

“Yes, I can smell it myself. There won’t be much mystery about the manner of death.”

Tempest stayed until the body was removed, and wondered at the reverence with which it was handled by men who must have long been accustomed to death and callous at its manifestations, and then, saying good night to Parkyns, he left. As he did so he turned back. “I say, Parkyns, tell Yardley about it, and send word I’d particularly like him to come to the inquest, if he can manage it, as I think it will be an interesting case. There’s more here than there looks at first sight.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

“Ah, I’d like to think things over a bit.”

“Shall you give evidence or anything to-morrow, Mr. Tempest?”

“Oh, Lord, no! You needn’t be afraid of me getting a rise out of any of your people. I’m not going to do that. To be perfectly frank, Parkyns, I don’t approve altogether of coroner’s inquests. They serve a useful purpose in deciding whether a death is a natural one or not. But I think they ought to stop there. They must hamper your people fearfully, if it is a case that has to come to you. I myself don’t believe in making things public till you can go straight and arrest your man. The coroner’s inquests only too often warn him to keep away.”

“I quite agree with you, sir. But still it’s the law, and we have to put up with it.”

“Yes, I know. But as it is the law, get ’em over, and a verdict given as quickly as possible, to leave your crowd with free hands. That’s what I think.”

The inquest took place in due course the following day. The proceedings were brief and formal. The body had been identified in the meantime as that of Miss Evangeline Stableford, a well-known provincial actress; and after evidence of identity and of the finding of the body, the medical evidence which followed left no room for any doubt as to the cause of death. The verdict of the jury was unanimous and immediate: “Suicide by poisoning with prussic acid during temporary insanity,” in spite of the remarks in the summing up of the coroner, that they had no evidence before them of the state of mind of the deceased. But then a coroner’s jury so often takes the bit in their teeth. The girl was too beautiful to be buried with a stake driven through her body, which many people still believe is even yet the legal consequence of a bare verdict of suicide.

The public and the jury drifted out of the room; and the coroner, as he left, noticing the barrister, said:

“Were you briefed here to-day, Mr. Tempest?”

“No—just curiosity; like the ’busman who takes his holiday by riding on another man’s ’bus.”

“Well, from what one hears, I should have thought you were too busy to bother about us.”

The barrister laughed. “The courts aren’t sitting.”

“Of course not. I’d forgotten. Inquests, you know, aren’t postponed over vacations. Good morning.”

Tempest joined Yardley and Parkyns on the pavement outside.

“Well, Mr. Tempest, what do you think of it all?” said the inspector.

“Parkyns, you’ve known me a good many years now. It must be nearly twenty years since I first cross-examined you at the Old Bailey.”

“Yes, it must be quite that long.”

“And we’ve been interested together or against each other in the same cases a good many times since then, haven’t we?”

“We have, sir.”

“Well, have you ever known me to make a positive statement without being fairly certain of it?”

“I don’t call one to mind.”

“And when I do make a positive statement, I’m not often wrong. Now am I, inspector?”

“I’ve never known you wrong yet, sir.”

“Oh, I don’t say as much as that, Parkyns; but I’m going to make a definite assertion now, and I think you can depend upon it.”

The two detectives listened with rapt attention as the barrister continued.

“That woman no more committed suicide than I’ve done. It isn’t suicide at all. She was murdered.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Just think, Parkyns. The body is found nude.”

“Quite so, sir; but so was Miss Alvarez, and you’ve never said that case wasn’t suicide——”

“I agree, Parkyns, I never have said so; but when the body of Miss Alvarez was found in the bedroom of her flat, her clothes were there in the room. Now, it’s never dawned on you, or on the coroner or on the jury, that Miss Stableford’s clothes were not in the bedroom or in the hotel. There was nothing whatever in the room in the way of personal belongings; there was not even a hairpin, and yet her hair was undone and loose on the pillow. Now, a decent respectable woman, as we know Miss Stableford was, doesn’t walk about the corridors of a decent respectable hotel as this is, in broad daylight, with even her hair undone. And she certainly doesn’t walk about the corridors without her clothes on. I think that’s sound argument.”

“Then,” said Yardley, “do you think she was murdered somewhere else and taken there afterwards?”

“No, not in the least. You can’t carry a dead body into a hotel without it being noticed, nor dare anyone risk carrying a nude dead body along the corridor from one room to another. No, the girl was murdered in the room where her body was found, and only an hour or two before she was found, and her clothes, belongings and hairpins were taken away afterwards.”

“Why?” asked Yardley.

“Ah! now we get to speculation; but I think it was an attempt to hide her identity. There you have your clue, Parkyns. At any rate, it’s the only clue I see at the moment, and it’s one well worth your while to follow up.”

“But in what way is it a clue?”

“It’s a clue, because whoever committed that murder—and mind you it was murder, I’ve not a shadow of a doubt about that—whoever committed that murder took pains that the body should not be identified. Therefore, they feared that identification might throw suspicion in their direction. You must first make certain that the body is that of Miss Stableford. You say there were two teeth stopped with gold in the upper jaw. Advertise for her dentist, and see if you can identify that stopping. If you do that, then trace back the history of Miss Stableford till you find someone likely to have desired her death; someone upon whom the mere proof of identity can throw suspicion.”

The barrister nodded to the two detectives and went his way.

They watched him disappear in the crowd, and as they parted Parkyns said:

“Jove! I wish we’d got him in the force.”

“Yes. He’d be a jewel for you, wouldn’t he? I often wonder how it is he always puts his finger on the spot, and generally a spot nobody else ever thought of.”

“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?”

“Yes, Parkyns, many things, and I’ve done a little bit of inquiry myself; but I must say all to no purpose, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t like to give it up, if you think there is anything more to be done. Are you going to give it up, sir? Because if you do, there isn’t much use of our going on.”

“Oh, it isn’t quite fair to me to say that, inspector. I’m only an amateur. My interest in it isn’t professional.”

“What is your interest then, Mr. Tempest?”

The barrister turned and took from its nail above the mantelpiece, in front of which he was standing, a miniature, which he passed to the detective.

“That’s the explanation of my interest, inspector.”

“Where did you get this from, sir? Did Lady Stableford give it to you?”

“No. Who do you think it is?”

“Well, it’s a portrait of Miss Stableford, isn’t it.”

“No, not at all. It’s a portrait of Miss Alvarez. It’s been hanging on that nail for twenty years. It’s the miniature I told you of. Your mistake proves how great the likeness is. Now, do you understand how my curiosity has been provoked?”