He had forty-eight hours before him. He felt about the case just as an engineer feels about some delicate piece of mechanism, which has not yet been put in position, and which any jar or shock may destroy. He shuddered to think of the brutal method of a dragnet search being applied to the Gyde case. It would be like chasing a moth with a pair of tongs. A million to one the thing will not be caught and a certainty that if caught it will be ruined. He fancied the derision with which the dark spirit with which he was at war would greet the efforts of the police. It was half-past one now, the hour when he usually had luncheon, but to-day he was not hungry. He went to a private room, got all the _pièces de conviction_ together and then proceeded to go through the whole case, incident by incident, item by item. A few more details had come to light in the last few hours. The full report of the post-mortem examination of the body found in the cottage on the fells had come to hand. There was mention of no mark upon it that might serve for identification, the height before decapitation the surgeon judged would have been about five feet eight inches. The underclothes were marked “E.K.,” evidently Klein’s initials. At five o’clock Freyberger had finished his review of the case, every minutest detail was in his memory and ready to spring into position when required. He was just folding up his papers when a knock came to the door and an officer entered with an envelope in his hand. “From the chief,” said the messenger. Then he withdrew. Freyberger opened the envelope. It contained a copy of a message just received from Carlisle. “Very sorry, one detail overlooked by some strange mischance in report of Gyde case. Over second right costal cartilage of body found, are the initials ‘E.K.,’ faintly tattooed.” Freyberger gave a cry. The whole case for him had tumbled to pieces like a house of cards. If “E.K.,” Klein’s initials, were tattooed on the corpse, then the corpse was Klein’s, Gyde was a murderer, and Freyberger a fool, so he told himself. He paced the room rapidly in anger and irritation. The chance of his life had not come then, he had been fighting air and all the time he had fancied himself matched against a demon with the intellect of a Moltke! Freyberger, so logical, so calm, so common-place-looking at ordinary times, was terrible when in anger. His face quite changed and a new man appeared; a ferocious and formidable individual, utterly destitute of fear. It was the second Freyberger who had arrested Macklin, the Fashion Street murderer. Macklin, armed with a crow-bar, Freyberger, armed with a walking-cane.