In the meantime the bodies of the man and the woman had been removed to the mortuary secretly in the early hours of the morning in order not to arouse the suspicion of the neighbours, and a post-mortem had been held by two local doctors, with the result that it was found possible to hold the inquest on the afternoon of the third day. The Coroner held his inquiry in a small back room in the Kensington Town Hall, not far from the scene of the tragedy, and, in opening, made a short address to the jury, pointing out the necessity for preserving the utmost secrecy in the matter, and expressing a hope that no one present would defeat the ends of justice by giving any facts to the newspapers. "Pardon me, sir," exclaimed the tradesman who had been elected foreman, "but I see two gentlemen of the Press present." "Both have assisted us in our inquiries," Patterson briefly explained to the Coroner. "Of course," the Coroner answered, "this is a public court, and therefore we cannot exclude any one. Yet I am confident the reporters will respect my wishes." This we both promised to do, Cleugh, well-known to the Coroner, speaking first. The Coroner, when the jury had returned from viewing the bodies, made a few further observations, pointing out to the jury that although the affair was one of the most mysterious and inexplicable that had ever come beneath his notice in the course of his twenty years' experience as a London coroner, yet they were there to try and decide the cause of death alone. They had no concern with any other facts except the cause of death, and he trusted they would give the matter their undivided attention. Patterson was the first witness. In terse language he gave an account of his discovery and of his second visit to the house in my company. Then, when he had concluded, I was called and bore out his statement, relating how we had entered the laboratory and found the marvellous scientific apparatus, and how in the pocket of the dead man I had found a penny wrapped in paper. The cards with the strange devices which had been beneath the plates on the dining-table were handed round to the jury for their inspection, and then a statement which I made startled even the Coroner. It was how the body of the woman at present in the mortuary was not the same as the one we had at first discovered. "Impossible!" exclaimed the Coroner, while the twelve jurymen stood aghast at my statement. "That is quite true, sir," exclaimed Patterson, rising from his seat. "The lady we first discovered was younger, with fair hair." "Then there must have been a triple tragedy," observed the Coroner, astounded. "This is most extraordinary." I was about to explain how I had recognised in the girl I met in St. James's Park the identical woman whom we had discovered lifeless, but a sharp look from the inspector silenced me.