“We will speak, then, of this man, Müller. He impressed you.”
She looked around as if seeking for a metaphor.
“He impressed me with horror, he filled me with the terror of a nightmare.”
“You saw him several times?”
“Yes, my dear father brought him to our house. My father was so good, so pleasant, so genial, he saw no harm in anyone. If a man were only clever, that was enough for him. Many an artist who is now well-to-do in the world owes everything to the help received from him.”
Freyberger had been studying Mademoiselle Lefarge from the first moment of his entering the room. This was no woman of the ordinary type.
This was an individual of spirit and sense and intellect, who had been studying the Lefarge case for eight years. He determined to put the whole matter of the Gyde case before her and its connexion with the case of Lefarge.
This he did in the space of ten minutes, clearly and concisely and with that precision that never misses a necessary or includes an unnecessary word.
“If what you have told me is correct,” said Mademoiselle Lefarge, when he had finished, “it only confirms my belief that Müller by some horrible alchemy, known only to himself, destroyed my father both in body and reputation, just as he has destroyed Sir Anthony Gyde.”
“That, too, is my belief,” said Hellier, who had been listening, amazed at the tale of Freyberger, and full of admiration at his process of reasoning.