"We could fill pages with letters of this description, but the three we have given are a sufficient indication of the interest excited by the incident. Among all these letters there was only one which offered any suggestion likely to be of practical value, and that was the letter we have printed, signed 'A LONELY WIDOW.' Her interesting hypothesis that M. Felix was her long lost husband was, of course, ridiculous, but she made mention of two subjects worthy of consideration. The first was did M. Felix make a will; the second, was there any portrait of him extant. If a will were in existence, it would probably be in the care of a firm of lawyers who could have no good reason for keeping it in the background. We set to work at once upon this trail, but it led to nothing. No lawyers were found in possession of such a document, and it was not forthcoming from other quarters. Nor were we more successful with respect to a portrait of M. Felix. Mrs. Middlemore had never seen one, and a private search through his rooms was futile. Indeed, it is a further proof of the strange secrecy in which M. Felix's life was conducted that not a document or written paper of any description was discovered in his apartments, not even a letter. Some important statements upon this head will be presented further on.
"In pursuance of the advice our reporter gave Mrs. Middlemore, she communicated to the police the fact of the disappearance of the body of M. Felix. There the matter rested, and would have been likely to rest but for the initiatory steps we had already taken to throw a light upon the mystery. It is all very well to say that nobody's business is everybody's business; it is not the case. People talked and wrote letters, but we acted. It must be admitted that the police were not in a position to move actively in the affair. No definite charge had been offered for their investigation; no person was accused of a crime; it had not even been proved that a crime had been committed. Conjecture was theirs, and that was all. The law cannot move, cannot act upon conjecture; facts of a crime, or even of a supposed crime, are necessary before the administration of justice can be called upon to adjudicate. Suggestions were thrown out as to the advisability of offering a reward for the discovery of the body, but who was to offer it? Even in the case of a deliberate and ascertained murder where the criminal is at large, the Government is notoriously slow in issuing such a proclamation, and the full weight of public opinion has frequently failed in inducing the authorities to offer a reward. It was not, therefore, to be expected that they would do so in this instance. Meanwhile there was one feature in the case which we desire to emphasize, and of which we never lost sight. Between the hours of twelve and one o'clock on the night of the 16th-17th January a man with a red scarf round his neck was seen to issue from the house in Gerard Street, in which M. Felix resided. The man still remained undiscovered. It matters not who saw him, whether Mrs. Middlemore, or Constables Wigg or Nightingale, or all three together. The fact seemed to be established that he had been in the house for some purpose, and had been seen to issue from it.