get every single detail of that other case duplicated[88] 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.”

[88]

“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[89] 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?”

[89]

“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,[90] 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, 

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