funeral, the public interest in the case quickly died down. This was[102] 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[103] 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.

[102]

[103]

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[104] 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 

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