“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 it 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.