The very fact that he was brought forward as a witness showed that his story had been proved, at any rate, to the satisfaction of the police.

“The Collinses seem to have been very simple, good-natured people. It never struck any of them to interfere with William, who appeared, in their own words, to have ‘bettered himself’. They concluded that he had obtained some sort of position in a rich family and was now ashamed of his poor relations at Clapham.

“Then one morning they read in the papers the story of the mysterious murder in the hansom cab, together with a description of the victim, who had not yet been identified. ’William,’ they said with one accord. Michael Collins, one of the younger sons, went up to London to view the murdered man at the mortuary. There was no doubt whatever that it was William, and yet all the papers persisted in saying that the deceased was the heir to some grand peerage.

“‘So I wrote to the police,’ concluded Charles Collins, ‘and my wife and children were all allowed to view the body, and we are all prepared to swear that it is that of my son, William Collins, who was no more heir to a peerage than your worship.’

“And mopping his forehead with a large coloured handkerchief, the old man stepped down from the box.

“Well, you may imagine what this bombshell was in the midst of that coroner’s court. Everyone looked at his neighbour, wondering if this was real life, or some romantic play being acted upon a stage. Amidst indescribable excitement, various other members of the Collins family corroborated the old man’s testimony, as did also one or two friends from Clapham. All those who had been allowed to view the body of the murdered man pronounced it without hesitation to be that of William Collins, who had disappeared from home three years ago.

“You see, it was like a repetition of the Tichborne case, only with this strange difference: this claimant was dead, but all his papers were in perfect order, the certificate of marriage between Lucie Legrand and Arthur Le Cheminant at Martinique, as well as the birth and baptismal certificate of Philip Le Cheminant, their son. Yet there were all those simple, honest folk swearing that the deceased had been born in Clapham, and the mother, surely, could not have been mistaken.

“That is where the difference with the other noteworthy case came in, for in this instance, as far as the general public is concerned, the actual identity of the murdered man will always remain a matter of doubt – Philip Le Cheminant or William Collins took that part of his secret, at any rate, with him to his grave.”

5

“But the murder?” I asked eagerly, for the man in the corner had paused, intent upon the manufacture of innumerable knots in a long piece of string.

“Ah, yes, the murder, of course,” he replied, with a chuckle, “the second mystery in this extraordinary case. Well, of course, whatever the identity of the deceased really was, there was no doubt in the minds of the police that Harold Le Cheminant had murdered him. To him, at any rate, the Collins family were unknown; he only knew the man who had supplanted him in his uncle’s affections, and snatched a rich inheritance away from him. The charge brought against him at the Westminster Court was also one of the greatest sensations of this truly remarkable case.

“It looked, indeed, as if the unfortunate young man had committed a crime which was as appalling as it was useless. Instead of murdering the impostor – if impostor he was – how much more simple it would have been to have tried to unmask him. But, strange to say, this he never seems to have done, at any rate, as far as the public knew.

“But here again mystery stepped in. When brought before the magistrate, Harold Le Cheminant was able to refute the terrible charge brought against him by the simple means of a complete alibi. After the stormy episode at the Junior Grosvenor Club, he had gone to his own club in Pall Mall, and fortunately for him, did not leave until twenty minutes past eleven, some few minutes after the two men in evening dress got into the hansom in Shaftesbury Avenue.

“But for this lucky fact, for which he had one or two witnesses, it might have fared ill with him, for feeling unduly excited, he walked all the way home afterwards; and had he left his club earlier, he might have found it difficult to account for his time. As it was, he was of course discharged.

“But one more strange fact came out during the course of the magisterial investigation, and that was that Harold Le Cheminant, on the very day preceding the murder, had booked a passage for St Vincent. He admitted in court that he meant to conduct certain investigations there, with regard to the identity of the supposed heir to the Tremarn peerage.

“And thus the curtain came down on the last act of that extraordinary drama, leaving two great mysteries unsolved: the real identity of the murdered man, and that of the man who killed him. Some people still persist in thinking it was Harold Le Cheminant. Well, we may easily dismiss that supposition. Harold had decided to investigate the matter for himself; he was on his way to St Vincent.

“Surely common sense would assert that, having gone so far, he would assure himself first whether the man was an impostor or not, before he resorted to crime, in order to rid himself of him. Moreover, the witnesses who saw him leave his own club at twenty minutes past eleven were quite independent and very emphatic.

“Another theory is that the Collins gang tried to blackmail Philip Le Cheminant – or William Collins, whichever we like to call him – and that it was one of them who murdered him out of spite, when he refused to submit to the blackmailing process.

“Against that theory, however, there are two unanswerable arguments – firstly, the weapon used, which certainly was not one that would commend itself to the average British middle-class man on murder intent – a razor or knife would be more in his line; secondly, there is no doubt whatever that the murderer wore evening dress and an opera hat, a costume not likely to have been worn by any member of the Collins family, or their friends. We may, therefore, dismiss that theory also with equal certainty.”

And he surveyed placidly the row of fine knots in his bit of string.

“But then, according to you, who was the man in evening dress, and who but Harold Le Cheminant had any interest in getting rid of the claimant?” I asked at last.

“Who, indeed?” he replied with a chuckle, “who but the man who was as wax in the hands of that impostor?”

“Whom do you mean?” I gasped.

“Let us take things from the beginning,” he said with ever-growing excitement, “and take the one thing which is absolutely beyond dispute, and that is the authenticity of the papers – the marriage certificate of Lucie Legrand, etc. – as against the authenticity of the man. Let us admit that the real Philip Le Cheminant was a refugee at St Vincent, that he found out about his parentage, and determined to go to England. He writes to his uncle, then sails for Europe, lands at Havre, and arrives in Paris.”

“Why Paris?” I asked.

“Because you, like the police and like the public, have persistently shut your eyes to an event which, to my mind, has bearing upon the whole of this mysterious case, and that is the original murder committed in Paris a year ago, also in a cab, also with a stiletto – which that time was not found – in fact, in the self-same manner as this murder a week ago.

“Well, that crime was never brought home to its perpetrator any more than this one will be. But my contention is, that the man who committed that murder a year ago, repeated this crime last week – that the man who was murdered in Paris was the real Philip Le Cheminant, whilst the man who was murdered in London was some friend to whom he had confided his story, and probably his papers, and who then hit upon the bold plan of assuming the personality of the Martinique creole, heir to an English peerage.”

“But what in the world makes you imagine such a preposterous thing?” I gasped.

“One tiny unanswerable fact,” he replied quietly.