“Müller and Klein being the same person the case is reduced to a case of three men from whom to pick our criminal. “He cannot be Lefarge simply because Lefarge cannot be Gyde. He cannot be Gyde simply because Gyde cannot be Lefarge. It must then be Klein, _alias_ Müller. “If my premise is correct, that Klein and Müller are one and the same person, and that the active agent in both cases is the same man, then it is mathematically proved that the criminal is Klein. “It might be suggested that Lefarge, after murdering Müller, escaped, changed his name became Sir Anthony Gyde, and murdered Klein in precisely the same manner as he murdered Müller, that suggestion is at once beaten to death by a hundred bludgeons in the form of records. “Leaving aside the fact that it would be impossible for Lefarge to masquerade as Gyde, we have the almost certain fact that Müller was never murdered at all. “The case is quite clear in my own mind. Nothing will shake my opinion. I have the name of the man I am seeking for, I have his past history in part. “He is undoubtedly the greatest criminal the world has ever seen, and I have not in the least fathomed his infernal method. The method by which he has, I fully believe, murdered two men, making the world believe that they have murdered him. “What a strange thing is memory. I read the report of the Lefarge case six months ago and more. The facts were in my brain, I never dreamt of connecting them with the facts of the Gyde case until the words, ‘two blue letters tattooed over the second right costal cartilage,’ rang the bell and brought recollection to her duty. “Those two letters seemed at first to shatter my theory. Behold! on examination of what they recalled to my mind, they have been the means of making my theory absolutely perfect, extending it, and sweeping the real criminal towards my net. “My theory before those letters were made known to me, consisted of the idea that Gyde was innocent and that some one, presumably Klein, was guilty of the murder in the cottage. “Now my theory is that Gyde is innocent and that Klein is _certainly_ guilty not of the murder of some unknown man, but of Gyde. Yet the mystery still remains of the tattooing. How is it that the initials of Müller were tattooed on the breast of a corpse that could not have been the corpse of Müller, and the initials of Klein on a corpse that I am sure is not that of Klein? I cannot tell yet, but we shall see.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXI HE returned the big volume of press cuttings to their shelf, put on his hat and overcoat, lit a cigar, and left the house, taking his way to the Yard. The chief was away and Inspector Dennison was on duty. “Well, Freyberger,” said the inspector, “and how’s the case going on?”