“Your case against him is on the charge of murder, I presume?” said Stephen.

“Undoubtedly.  And you will notice that the statements made by the supposed Jeffrey to the porter, hinting at suicide, are now important evidence.  By the light of what we know, the announcement of intended suicide becomes the announcement of intended murder.  It conclusively disproves what it was intended to prove; that Jeffrey died by his own hand.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Stephen, and then after a pause he asked:  “Did you identify Mrs. Schallibaum?  You have told us nothing about her.”

“I have considered her as being outside the case as far as I am concerned,” replied Thorndyke.  “She was an accessory; my business was with the principal.  But, of course, she will be swept up in the net.  The evidence that convicts John Blackmore will convict her.  I have not troubled about her identity.  If John Blackmore is married, she is probably his wife.  Do you happen to know if he is married?”

“Yes; but Mrs. John Blackmore is not much like Mrs. Schallibaum, excepting that she has a cast in the left eye.  She is a dark woman with very heavy eyebrows.”

“That is to say that she differs from Mrs. Schallibaum in those peculiarities that can be artificially changed and resembles her in the one feature that is unchangeable.  Do you know if her Christian name happens to be Pauline?”

“Yes, it is.  She was a Miss Pauline Hagenbeck, a member of an American theatrical company.  What made you ask?”

“The name which Jervis heard poor Jeffrey struggling to pronounce seemed to me to resemble Pauline more than any other name.”

“There is one little point that strikes me,” said Marchmont.  “Is it not rather remarkable that the porter should have noticed no difference between the body of Jeffrey and the living man whom he knew by sight, and who must, after all, have been distinctly different in appearance?”

“I am glad you raised that question,” Thorndyke replied, “for that very difficulty presented itself to me at the beginning of the case.  But on thinking it over, I decided that it was an imaginary difficulty, assuming, as we do, that there was a good deal of resemblance between the two men.  Put yourself in the porter’s place and follow his mental processes.  He is informed that a dead man is lying on the bed in Mr. Blackmore’s rooms.  Naturally, he assumes that the dead man is Mr. Blackmore—­who, by the way, had hinted at suicide only the night before.  With this idea he enters the chambers and sees a man a good deal like Mr. Blackmore and wearing Mr. Blackmore’s clothes, lying on Mr. Blackmore’s bed.  The idea that the body could be that of some other person has never entered his mind.  If he notes any difference of appearance he will put that down to the effects of death; for every one knows that a man dead looks somewhat different from the same man alive.  I take it as evidence of great acuteness