An old gentleman had entered the hall of “The White Hart.” He walked, leaning on a stick.
He was dressed in well-worn grey tweed, and wore a felt hat, fawn-coloured and rather broad of brim.
He came to the bar and called for an absinthe, and his voice caused Freyberger to examine him more attentively.
There were many things about this voice, and they all conspired to mark it out as a distinctive voice. A voice in a million.
It was the voice of an educated man, and it would be very hard to say what there was in it repellent and chilling, but repellent and chilling it was.
But it was the face of the newcomer that fascinated Freyberger.
“Where have I seen that face before?” he thought.
And then all at once came the reply born of the question.
“It is the face of Klein grown old.”
For a moment Freyberger was seized by a feeling of physical sickness. The horrors and perplexities of the Gyde case had culminated in this last horror and perplexity.