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?”
[Illustration: “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?”
“I think I do, sir.”
“So far so good. Now, I’ve not given it up yet. There are two little
details that might pay for investigation. It’s no good trying to trace
the prussic acid, but you’ve got the champagne bottle. You might try
and trace that, and find out where that was bought and by whom. It’s
labelled Veuve Cliquot ’93, but I remember the cork. You’ve got it
still, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Last night I ordered a bottle of Cliquot ’93 at the club, and I saw
the cork of that. It’s got a totally different brand on it. Here it
is.” And the barrister passed the cork to the two detectives.
“But what do you make of that, sir?”
“Simply this--that one bottle or other is spurious. It’s not very
likely the club one is wrong, but still find out which is spurious; and
if it’s the one found in the hotel--you know the hotel people say they
didn’t sell that bottle--then you must hunt round and find out where
the spurious stuff is being made and sold. Then there’s another thing.
The bedrooms at the hotel all have self-closing doors, locking with
spring latches. They need the right key to open the doors.”
“Quite so.”
“Well, from the inquiries you made at the time it was perfectly evident
that no one had had the key of that bedroom, for the key had not left
the office for more than a week. The body had not been dead more than a
few hours even when I saw it. The scent of prussic acid will disappear
under twenty-four hours. Now, somebody entered that bedroom with a
key. There are two master keys to find. One will open all doors on
that corridor. That is in the possession of the head chambermaid, who
has charge of that corridor. The other, which will open all doors in
the annexe, the manager has. It is locked in his safe, and it is quite
impossible that that one can have been used.”
“Then that proves the chambermaid’s key was used?”
“It looks like it; but in that case the chambermaid herself used it,
for if you remember in her evidence at the inquest she said the key
which she wore on the chain attached to her belt had never been out
of her possession all day. She volunteered that evidence which is so
damning that she would never have said it except on the assumption
of its entire truth and her absolute innocence when she easily might
have overlooked the conclusion it pointed to. So I don’t think the
chambermaid’s key was used.”
“Then there must be another key?”
“Wait a bit, Yardley. Suppose that murder was premeditated? The
murderer would not have done it without making arrangements, and
thinking out his plans and seeing that they were possible. You can’t
walk blindly into an hotel and make certain that things will fall out
so absolutely as you require them to, that you can let your safety and
escape after committing a murder depend upon such a coincidence. The
thing isn’t reasonable. The chambermaid thinks that murder must have
been committed between two and three in the afternoon, because that is
the only time during the day when there is no one actually on duty
in the corridor. In the morning they are attending to the rooms, and
they have to stay about till two o’clock to answer the bells of those
people who come to their rooms to wash or change for lunch. About three
o’clock people come to their rooms to dress to go out calling, then
others change for tea, and again others change for dinner, and from two
to three is the only slack time during the day.”
“How do you know all this, Mr. Tempest?” put in the inspector.
The barrister laughed. “I had a long and interesting interview with
that chambermaid two days ago.”
“Then where was she during that time--from two to three on the day of
the murder?”
“Yardley, I’ll make a real detective of you some day; you’re getting
quite promising in the way you reason out things. Well, I’ll tell you.
She was having her _dinner_, and had got the key with her. Now she says
it is a regular thing that all the maids are at their dinner between
two and three. The murderer probably knew that, and if so there you get
premeditation again. The most likely way for that to be known would be
for the murderer to have himself stayed in the hotel and found it out.”
“But how could he get the key?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering, Yardley, and I can suggest one way.
Suppose the man goes and stays in the hotel in that very room, and
whilst the room is in his occupation, and the key legitimately in his
possession, suppose he had a duplicate made of it? Then he can keep and
use that duplicate when he likes.”
“But suppose all you say be true, Tempest. The girl was not staying in
the hotel. How in the name of fortune could he lure a respectable girl
up to his bedroom?”
“My dear Yardley, how was the girl to know it was his bedroom? There
are always suites of rooms in a hotel. Take it, for example, that the
man was an impresario, or said he was, and, deluding her into the idea
that he wished to talk business, invited her to go to his sitting-room.
The girl would go fast enough.”
“Would she stay when she got there and found it was a bedroom?”
“H’m--never thought of that. You’ve caught me out there, Yardley.
But--but--wait--wait a moment;” and the barrister picked up another
cigarette and lighted it, and the two men watched him as he began
unconsciously to pace up and down the room. Yardley knew the trick and
waited in silence.
“Yardley, you’ve brought it one step nearer. It must have been a woman
who murdered the girl. Any story would be sufficient excuse for her
going to a woman’s bedroom, and for her staying there after she got
into the room. Now there is another point, Yardley. All the keys have
stamped on them the name of the hotel and the number. No shop would
deliberately duplicate such a key. They would know it could not be
wanted for any legitimate purpose. A model must have been taken in wax
and the key made from that. I wish I had thought of that before. Still,
it may not be too late. The room had been empty for a week before the
body was found there. The chambermaid told me nobody had been put in it
since. Yardley, go to the Charing Cross Hotel at once, ask to see that
key, and examine it carefully, and see if there is any sign of wax on
it. If there is you will know I am right, and it will prove something
else besides.”
“What else will it prove?”
“Just this, that the previous occupant of the room is the guilty
person, for if anyone has used the key in between there will be no wax
on it. At least the odds are a hundred to one.”
The two detectives took their leave and went straight to the hotel.
It was exactly as Tempest had anticipated. There were still traces of
wax in the wards of the keys. It was a simple matter to ascertain that
the last occupant of the room had been a lady who had given her name
as Mrs. Garnett. A little investigation elicited the fact that she had
complained of her room being very dark, and had, by her own request,
been moved into one on the opposite side of the passage. She had
remained in the hotel until after the dead body had been discovered,
and had left, declaring vehemently that she would never be able to
sleep after her experience. The clerk and the other hotel servants had
no very definite recollection of the lady, save that she was always
dressed in black, and was dark and middle-aged.
As her own room was only just across the passage she could, of course,
easily make certain the other room was not occupied. A stranger to the
hotel wouldn’t know that.
“Yes, it all seems very simple now, doesn’t it, Parkyns?”
“Yardley, it makes us look rather amateurs. There’s nothing in it all
that we couldn’t have found out. Here you and I have been working on it
for weeks, and we draw everything quite blank, and that man just lights
one of his everlasting cigarettes and walks up and down his room in
front of us and gets the thing first try--talks it out--even thinks it
out before us.”
“Are you sure of that, Parkyns? It’s quite as likely he’d thought it
all out beforehand and made inquiries himself, and just sends us to
look for what he knew we should find.”
“He may have begun it, but he’d never have let you trip him up as to
its not being a man if he had done. He made a mistake there, and Mr.
Tempest doesn’t particularly care about doing that.”
“No, I agree with you on that point--he doesn’t. Still, the next move
is to find Mrs. Garnett, and I’ll tell you one certain fact, Yardley,
about her. The thing was premeditated, so you may be quite certain
Garnett is an assumed name, and probably a name assumed for the purpose
of the murder and consequently one that carried no clue in itself.”
A few days later, Tempest and Parkyns dropped across each other at
the Old Bailey, and the inspector told the barrister what he had
ascertained.
“Yes, I thought it would turn out that way. Now, you’ve got to try
to put your hands on Mrs. Garnett, and the only way I see of your
doing that is to find out some woman who will answer and whose life
somehow touched that of Miss Stableford. It’s a pretty little problem,
inspector. Here I must be off,” said the barrister, as his clerk
brought him word that the judge was summing up in a case that preceded
one in which he was himself briefed.