CHAP. I. AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME II. THE BLONDE LADY III. MR. TORRY'S THEORY IV. THE DEAD MAN'S NAME V. "DE MORTIUS NIL NISI BONUM" VI. THE SECRETARY VII. EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST VIII. THE ROBBERY IX. CAPTAIN MANUEL X. DONNA MARIA XI. UNEXPECTED EVIDENCE XII. A CHANCE MEETING XIII. A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE XIV. THE SECRET SOCIETY XV. A WOMAN SCORNED XVI. THE TURQUOISE RING XVII. MORE MYSTERIES XVIII. A STRANGE OCCURRENCE XIX. ANOTHER PUZZLE XX. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS XXI. DONNA MARIA EXPLAINS XXII. THE LOCKET XXIII. A CONFESSION XXIV. A QUEER MESSAGE XXV. THE MEETING IN HYDE PARK XXVI. CONCLUSION THE RED-HEADED MAN CHAPTER I AN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME Frank Darrel was a young man of twenty-five, with a sufficiency of good looks, and a comfortable income of five hundred a year. Also by way of employing his spare time, he was a realistic novelist of a particularly new school, founded on the axiom that fact invariably poaches on the domain of fiction. He neither conceived nor adopted, but set down actual details of the life around him, with so rigid an adherence to the truth that his published works read like police reports re-written in decent English. In a word, he held the mirror up to nature, and presented the reflection, beautiful or ugly, to the criticism of the British public. To preach thoroughly his gospel of art, as he conceived it, Darrel lived in London, that microcosm of life in all its phases, good, bad, and indifferent. Usually he worked in the morning, slept in the afternoon, amused himself in the evening, and devoted the night from twelve to five to exploring the deeps of the metropolitan ocean. In a disguise of decent poverty more threadbare than ragged, this enthusiast would exploit the dark corners of the Strand, penetrate into Whitechapel slums, and explore the least-known recesses of the City. On occasion he would view the West End and its civilised vices by gaslight, make expeditions into suburbs of known respectability, and, when weary of observing middle class virtue, would haunt less reputable districts in search of character and adventure. All his gleanings were then transmuted into vigorous prose, and figured, under picturesque titles, as novels of fact improved into fiction. This method of shifting the commonplace into romance was adopted by one Honoré de Balzac, with a result known to all the intellectual world. Darrel, with less genius than persevering observation, was a disciple of that great man.