The mystery was never solved. Who was guilty of the crime? That question was never answered. Some accused Mrs. Larcher despite her acquittal and death. Others insisted that Jeringham was the criminal; but no one could be certain of the truth. Hilliston, seeing that Mr. and Mrs. Larcher were dead, that Mona, Denis, and Jeringham had disappeared, wisely kept the matter secret from Claude, deeming that it would be folly to disturb the mind of the lad with an insoluble riddle of so terrible a nature. So for five-and-twenty years the matter had remained in abeyance. Now it seemed as though it were about to be reopened by Mrs. Bezel. "And who--" asked Claude of himself, as he finished this history in the gray dawn of the morning, "who is Mrs. Bezel?" To say the least, he had a right to ask himself this question, for it was curious that the name of Mrs. Bezel was not even mentioned in connection with that undiscovered crime of five-and-twenty years before. CHAPTER V. A STRANGE COINCIDENCE. IN spite of Tait's methodical habits, circumstances beyond his control often occurred to upset them. On the previous day the unexpected arrival of Claude had altered his plans for the day, and after his return from the theater on the same evening, he had--contrary to his rule--passed the night in reading. The invaluable Dormer had procured "A Whim of Fate" from Mudie's, and Tait found it lying on the table in company with biscuits and wine. Excited by the performance, he did not feel inclined to retire at his usual hour of midnight, and while sipping his wine, picked up the first volume to while away the time till he should feel sleepy. Alas! this novel, about which everyone in London was talking, proved anything but soporific, and for the whole of that night Tait sat in his comfortable chair devouring the three volumes. The tale was one of mystery, and until he learned the solution Tait, conventional and incurious as he was, could not tear himself from the fascination of the printed page. When the riddle was read, when the criminal was hunted down, when the bad were punished, and the good rewarded, the dawn was already breaking in the east. In his Jermyn Street hotel, Claude Larcher was rising, stiff and tired, from the perusal of a tragedy in real life; in his Earls Street chambers, Spenser Tait was closing the third volume of John Parver's work. Each had passed a wakeful night, each had been fascinated by the account of a crime, the one real, the other fictional. So does Fate, whose designs no one can presume to explain, duplicate our lives for the gaining of her own ends.