This mystery in which the murdered woman was enveloped added to the excitement prevalent. Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Criminal Investigation Department, the coroner was informed, when he resumed his inquiry on the following week, that no further light could be thrown upon her identity. It seemed that the mysterious Mrs Inglewood was an utter stranger and entirely friendless, although the police were bound to admit there was something suspicious in the continued absence and strict silence of the servants. Had she any friends, one or other must have come forward, for the Press had carried the details of the tragedy to the most remote corners of the Kingdom. No further statements being forthcoming, the jury, after a long deliberation, returned the same verdict as had been recorded upon the other mysterious deaths, that of "Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown." Thus ended the seventh murder, with all its journalistic embellishments; and the public, who looked for "startling revelations," were disappointed. "Who will be the next victim?" was the question all the capitals of the world were asking. The detectives were by no means idle, and from occupants of neighbouring houses they found that Mrs Inglewood, during her residence, had received but few visitors, the most conspicuous being an elderly lady, accompanied apparently by her daughter. They came several times a week in a victoria, and remained an hour. This was all the information they were able to glean, for it seemed that the unfortunate woman was an enigma herself, making the mystery even more abstruse. On the evening the jury delivered their verdict, I went down to the Club. In the spacious smoking-room, with its fine portraits of Garrick and his contemporaries (which, alas, have now fallen under the hammer), a few Bohemians were taking their ease in the well-padded lounge chairs, discussing the details of the inquiry as reported in the evening journals. "It's all very well to talk," exclaimed Hugh Latimer, a young artist of renown, as he cast aside his newspaper, "there must be something radically wrong with our detective force if the man Burgoyne has seen cannot be traced." "But how's it to be done? Perhaps he could not be recognised," suggested one. "Or he may be in America by this time," said another. "No. I disagree with you. It is proved that the guilty one is a well-dressed man, and the success of his sanguinary work has been such as to encourage him to commit further crimes; therefore, the logical deduction is that he will remain in England and continue them," Latimer replied. "What do you think?" he added, turning to me. "I don't think anything about it, except that I heartily wish I'd never been mixed up with it at all," I said. "I should have liked it myself," exclaimed Bob Nugent, with an eye to the manufacture of sensational "copy." The remark created a laugh.