"Inspector Jain, who discovered the body, said that it was lying on a sofa placed behind the drawing-room door. The clothing over the chest and region of the heart had been disturbed, and the collar and necktie removed. The shirt-studs, sleeve-links, and watch of the deceased were missing, and the pockets were empty. The marks on the linen had been cut out. There were no rings on the fingers of the left hand. The deceased was tall and dark-complexioned, with smooth dark hair and a small black moustache. "From the condition of the body--the nails, for instance, were extremely well-cared for--deceased had evidently been a man accustomed to the refinements of life. His underlinen was of the finest quality, and the suit of grey tweed was evidently the work of a high-class tailor. The boots were of Russia leather, and were particularly well-shaped. Witness thought deceased must have been a gentleman in easy circumstances. On searching the house neither trunk, clothes, linen, nor papers of any kind were to be found; in fact, nothing which would be likely to reveal deceased's name or position. The only strange thing he had noticed was the fact that the clothes smelled strongly of sandal-wood. The furniture and appointments of the house were the property of the landlord, but neither Mr. Hain nor the housekeeper had left anything behind them by which they could be traced. Up to the present, in spite of all efforts, no clue to the whereabouts of either the tenant or his housekeeper had been found. "After a brief deliberation the jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' against some person or persons unknown." PART V. Extract from _The Morning Planet_, July 1, 1891--:-- "Despite the triteness of the proverb, We are constrained to remark with regard to the Athelstane Place murder that once again truth is stranger than fiction. Had one of our writers of detective stories imagined so extraordinary a crime as having taken place in the heart of a busy neighbourhood, within hearing, almost within sight of hundreds of people, he would have been scoffed at for exceeding the bounds of probability. It would, we assert, have been termed exaggeration of the wildest order. But it has been proved possible in fact, and No. 64A, Athelstane Place, Bloomsbury, now enjoys the distinction, albeit no enviable one, of having provided London with a mystery so unfathomable that it is extremely doubtful whether it will ever be plumbed by the keenest of detectives. For the unravelling of so complex a riddle we need the Sergeant Cuff of Wilkie Collins, or the Monsieur Dupin of Edgar Allen Poe--in a word, a fabulous detective such as we have not at the present time amongst us.