The chief smiled.
“Look at his past,” he replied. “Old men, women and children were his victims.”
“That is true, but old men sometimes go armed, and women are sometimes heroic, and there is always the chance of a third person coming on the scene.”
“If,” said the other, “in three days from now the man is not arrested I will do what I have said.”
Freyberger bowed, and the interview terminated.
He left the Yard with great depression at his heart. Three days more. It was against all probability that anything would happen during the next three days, unless Providence, watching from above, chose to bring matters to a conclusion.
Freyberger felt, for the first time in his life, discouraged; this discouragement remained with him all night and the next day, which he had to spend at the Central Criminal Court, in connexion with a bank forgery case.
On leaving the Courts very late he repaired to his own rooms, only to find a telegram from the chief desiring his immediate attendance at the Yard.