CHAPTER XXVI. THE APPOINTMENT

Sir Frank Random, and examined him in the same strict way as he had examined the artist. Jane was also questioned. Widow Anne was put in the witness box, so as to report about the clothes, and in every way Date gathered material for another inquest. At the former one he had only been able to place scanty evidence before the jury, and the verdict had been unsatisfactory to the public. But on this occasion, seeing that the witnesses he could bring forward would solve the mystery of the first death as well as the second, Inspector Date exulted greatly. He saw himself promoted and his salary raised, and his name praised in the papers as a zealous and clever officer. By the time the inquest came to be held, the inspector had talked himself into believing that the whole mystery had been solved by himself. But before that time came another event happened which astonished everyone, and which made the final phase of the green mummy crime even more sensational than it had been. And Heaven knows that from beginning to end there had been no lack of melodrama of the most lurid description.