FREYBERGER left the bank and betook himself to the Yard, there to report proceedings.

Again he felt himself a step nearer this mysterious personage, whose subtle and sinister processes he was slowly exposing to the light of day, or rather to the light of reason. Not one, of all the things he had discovered, would give in itself a clue. Collectively, they were perplexing. But they had given to Freyberger this great advantage, he was beginning to follow his adversary’s process of reasoning.

Their two minds, like two armies on a dark night, were already in touch. Neither could see the other, except in occasional faint glimpses. But any moment the moon might break through the clouds, giving light to fight by, and the general action commence.

At the Yard no more information had come in of any worth. Several men answering to the description of Sir Anthony Gyde had been arrested on suspicion and had been released. Freyberger, off his own bat, had done more to cast light on the case than the whole force of the Yard, and though the light he had cast only showed a mass of confusion, the light was not the less valuable for that. I have said that the chief, for some time past, had recognized Freyberger as a coming man; this case had already confirmed his judgement, and he was quite prepared to give him a free hand and back him with all the colossal force at his disposal.

The power at the back of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department is prodigious. He has the Treasury of England at his disposal and the law officers of the Crown; an army of ten thousand picked men, such men as are not to be found in the ranks of any other constabulary in the world, and a general staff of the keenest detectives in Europe. He can arrest and cast in prison, he can practically place an embargo on ports. He holds the rod of the Wapentake, and there is only one living man he may not touch with it—the King.

Freyberger, having detailed his actions, and given a hint of his private opinions about the Gyde case, the chief fell into a reverie for a few moments. Then he said:

“This man Klein, alias Kolbecker; this man, whom you suppose also to have figured under the name of Müller. Well, let us consider him a moment. Since the hour when Sir Anthony Gyde called at the cottage, since the hour Klein was supposed to be murdered in, we have had no hint that Klein has been seen in the flesh, whereas we have numerous witnesses who have incontestedly seen Gyde. If we suppose Klein to be living and Gyde dead, this fact seems strange.”

“Excuse me, sir, but one man has seen Klein, alias Kolbecker, alias Müller—the valet Leloir. Witness the retinal photograph.”

“Yes, that is true, if we can consider the retinal photograph a true picture of Klein. I have examined it in conjunction with the photo which is incontestibly (from the landlady’s evidence) a photo............