“I have no earthly idea yet of the full devilish ingenuity of the thing, but I feel assured that, whoever was murdered in the cottage on the fells of Cumberland, Klein is the murderer. Gyde may be alive, Gyde may be dead, but I feel assured of this, that Klein murdered a man, and has arranged matters so that the public believe that he is the victim and Gyde the assassin. Now I must go, for there is much work to be done. May I take this portrait with me; it is most important?” “Certainly, if you will return it to me when you have done with it. I want it for my museum.” “I will return it,” said Freyberger. He did it up in the brown paper, placed it in the pocket of his overcoat, and, bidding Doctor Murrell good night, departed. In Piccadilly he hailed a cab and drove to Howland Street, to the house he had visited that afternoon. On the way he reviewed many things in his mind. He already had a theory. The theory that Gyde was innocent and Klein was the assassin; he had also a suspicion that Gyde was dead. That this theory and suspicion cast the whole affair into deeper darkness was nothing if they were right. Just now he felt that he was really coming to grips with that intelligence which, earlier in the day, he had dimly felt to be in antagonism with his own—the intelligence of the being whose terrible portrait was in his pocket. The landlady’s husband opened the door in response to his knock. He was a colourless and apathetic individual, who, when Freyberger introduced himself, showed him, without comment, into the fusty little sitting-room. “I am sorry to trouble you,” said Freyberger, when the woman appeared, “but I have a portrait I wish to show you; it is, I believe, the portrait of Mr Kolbecker.” He undid the covering of the parcel and exposed the picture. The woman looked at it. “Do you recognize it?” “No.” Freyberger felt a chill of disappointment. “And yet,” she said. “Yes?” “I dunno—I wouldn’t swear it wasn’t—but it’s different.” “Yes, yes; of course, that picture would not represent him in his ordinary state of mind; but if he were terribly angry about something, might his face be like that?” “I’ve never seen Mr Kolbecker put out; always most civil he was and paid his way regular; he wasn’t a beauty, but I never found him anything but a gentleman. Only just before he went away Mrs Stairs, who does the rooms of the gentleman lodgers, said to me, ‘Mrs Summers, that man do give me the creeps.’ “‘Which man?’ I says. “‘The top-floor front,’ she replies. “‘Mr Kolbecker?’ I said. “‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the German.’ “‘Well,’ I replied to her, ‘as long as he don’t creep away without settling his bill, it’s all I cares about him.’” “You think this might possibly be a portrait of Mr Kolbecker?”