“Klein.”
“Is Klein alive?”
“No, sir, he is dead. He died to-day, and his body lies in the mortuary at Reading. Let me say at once, and with the humility of a man who has just escaped a terrible death, that all my assumptions were absolutely correct. Klein, alias Kolbecker, alias Müller, was the author of the Lefarge tragedy, the Gyde tragedy and all the subsidiary murders, concluding with the murder of Bronson yesterday. Look at this.”
He produced a black notebook from his pocket. The chief examined the book; it was a volume of some hundred pages or so, every page covered with close writing.
“This book,” said Freyberger, taking back the volume, “contains the life history of the greatest criminal who ever lived. It is the diary of Ludwig Spahn, alias Müller, alias Kolbecker, alias Klein. I mastered it in the train to-night, and from it I will sketch you the story of which the murder of Sir Anthony Gyde is but a chapter.
“Spahn was born in Munich, sixty-five years ago.”
“Sixty-five?”
“Yes, sir. He was an old man.”
“But the man in the photograph was a man of middle age.”
“Yes, sir. He seemed of middle age, but I will explain the matter as I go on. Spahn, at seventeen, left the business to which he was apprenticed and went to Rome to study art, or, to speak more correctly, to teach it, for this strange genius had ideals of his own, and very soon he had a little following, a cult. Vicious to the core, he never could keep money. He was always in debt. One day he murdered a banker, was caught red-handed, sentenced to death and allowed to escape the extreme penalty by that infernal law which allows murderers to escape unexterminated. He was condemned to imprisonment for life and released after twenty-five years.