He produced a black notebook from his pocket. The chief examined the book; it was a volume of some hundred pages or so, every page covered with close writing. “This book,” said Freyberger, taking back the volume, “contains the life history of the greatest criminal who ever lived. It is the diary of Ludwig Spahn, _alias_ Müller, _alias_ Kolbecker, _alias_ Klein. I mastered it in the train to-night, and from it I will sketch you the story of which the murder of Sir Anthony Gyde is but a chapter. “Spahn was born in Munich, sixty-five years ago.” “Sixty-five?” “Yes, sir. He was an old man.” “But the man in the photograph was a man of middle age.” “Yes, sir. He seemed of middle age, but I will explain the matter as I go on. Spahn, at seventeen, left the business to which he was apprenticed and went to Rome to study art, or, to speak more correctly, to teach it, for this strange genius had ideals of his own, and very soon he had a little following, a cult. Vicious to the core, he never could keep money. He was always in debt. One day he murdered a banker, was caught red-handed, sentenced to death and allowed to escape the extreme penalty by that infernal law which allows murderers to escape unexterminated. He was condemned to imprisonment for life and released after twenty-five years. “He was fifty when he left prison, full of hatred towards society and a determination to be revenged. “He went to Paris. “The art which was born with him remained with him, and the love of pleasure. “He refused to be old, and, with the aid of the art of the chemist and the maker-up, he appeared to the world as a man at least twenty years younger than he was. “He lived for years in Paris in the Latin Quarter, a notoriously vicious character, yet forgiven for the sake of his genius. His sculptures were marvellous, but his vice and laziness were to match, so he made little profit of his art and did little work. “His hatred of the rich and well-to-do amounted to a monomania, and he was always searching around for some means by which he might avenge himself upon them. “To the man who hates a class, an individual of that class will serve as a butt for his revenge. “One day, walking along a street in Paris, he saw coming towards him what seemed a little old man wearing a pinafore. It was a child wearing a mask. “The occurrence gave him food for thought. ‘If,’ said he to himself, ‘a man who makes these paper masks for five sous a dozen, can produce an even momentary illusion, what could not a genius do in the same direction were he to give all his mind to the matter?’ “He played with the subject in his mind. “‘If I wanted to make the mask of a man,’ thought he, ‘a mask that would deceive everybody by its resemblance to the flesh, how would I proceed? “‘I would first have to procure a cast of his face, or execute a bust of him exactly identical with the reality. Only very slightly larger.