She pointed at the big, still puppet immediately opposite her.
Gilbert turned quickly. For a moment he did not understand the cause of her alarm.
"I talked to it," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I thought it was you! I thought you'd got inside the railing and were standing there to frighten me."
Gilbert looked closely at the effigy. He was about to say something and then the words died away upon his lips.
It was as though he saw himself in a distorting glass—one of those nasty and reprehensible toys that fools give to children sometimes.
There was an undeniable look of him in the staring face of coloured wax. The clear-cut lips were there. The shape of the head was particularly reminiscent, the growing corpulence of body was indicated, the hair of the stiff wig waved as Lothian's living hair waved.
"Good God!" he said. "It is like me! Poor little girl—but you know I wouldn't frighten you for anything. But it is like! What an extraordinary thing. We looked for the infamous Toftrees! the egregious Herbert who has split so many infinitives in his time, and we find—Me!"
Rita was recovering. She laughed, but she held tightly to Gilbert's arm at the same time.
"Let's see who the person is—or was—" Gilbert went on, drawing the catalogue from his pocket.
"Key of the principal gate of the Bastille—no, that's not it. Number 365, oh, here we are! Hancock, the Hackney Murderer. A chemist in comfortable circumstances, he——"