The girl took a seat and motioned Freyberger to do the same.
He took the chair which she had pointed out, then he sat for a moment in thought. At last he said.
“You have told me everything that you know?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I want you to tell me something more. I want you to tell me, more precisely, what you think.”
She looked puzzled.
“Your knowledge of the facts of this case,” said he, “does not, perhaps, exceed my own. Your memory may not be able to cast new light on the matter, but your imagination may. You have pondered over it, you have dreamt of it, for eight years and more it has been with you. What does your imagination say? what have you fancied about it?”
“I have fancied this,” said she, “or, rather, I have been assured of this. That whoever was murdered in the Rue de Turbigo, it was not Müller. I know all the evidence, and of the tattooed marks upon the body. The two letters ‘W.M.,’ which were his initials. But might they not have been the initials of some other man? No one gave evidence to say that such marks had ever been seen upon Müller. No matter. I believe that Müller was not murdered; I believe that Müller was the assassin of whoever was murdered, and I have felt that he was such a terrible man that he was sure to repeat his crime, murder some one else, and probably get caught. God help me! I have hoped so. For years it has been my hope that this demon might act again as he acted in the Rue de Turbigo, and fall into the hands of justice, just as a tiger who eats men returns to his feeding place and falls into the hands of the hunters.
“Was my belief correct? Look at the case of Sir Anthony Gyde, of which you told us to-night.”
“Your belief was, I am convinced, correct,” answered Freyberger.