"After a couple of wearisome and anxious hours the passengers were allowed to proceed on their journey. Among these passengers, it appears, were John and Henry Carter, who were on their way to the Smithson wedding. Until they arrived in Folkestone they had no more idea than the police who the victim of the mysterious train murder was: but in the station they caught side of Mr. Sutherland Ford, whom they knew slightly. Mr. Ford was making agitated enquiries as to any possible accident on the line. The Carters put him _au fait_ of what had occurred, and as there was no sign of the Russian Prince amongst the passengers who had just arrived, all three men came to the horrifying conclusion that it was indeed the bridegroom elect who had been murdered. "They communicated at once with the police, and there were more investigations and telephonic messages up and down the line before the Carters and Mr. Ford were at last allowed to proceed to the church and break the awful news to those most directly concerned. "And in this tragic fashion did Louisa Smithson's wedding-day draw to its end; nor, as far as the public was concerned, was the mystery of that terrible murder ever satisfactorily cleared up. The local police worked very hard and very systematically, but, though presently they also had the help of one of the ablest detectives from Scotland Yard, nothing was seen or found that gave the slightest clue either as to the means which the murderer or murderers adopted for removing the body of their victim, or in what manner they made good their escape. The body of the Russian Prince was never found, and, as far as the public knows, the murderer is still at large; and although, as time went on, many strange facts came to light, they only helped to plunge that extraordinary crime into darker mystery." §2 "The facts in themselves were curious enough, you will admit," the Old Man in the Corner went on after a while. "Many of these were never known to the public, whilst others found their way into the columns of the halfpenny Press, who battened on the 'Mystery of the Russian Prince' for weeks on end, and, as far as the unfortunate Smithsons were concerned, there was not a reader of the _Express Post_ and kindred newspapers who did not know the whole of their family history. "It seems that Louisa Smithson is the daughter of a grocer in Folkestone, who had retired from business just before the War, and with his wife and his only child led a meagre and obscure existence in a tiny house in Warren Avenue somewhere near the tram road. They were always supposed to be very poor, but suddenly old Smithson died and it turned out that he had been a miser, for he left the handsome little fortune of fifteen thousand pounds to be equally divided between his daughter and his widow.